President Obama himself has spoken to President-elect Donald Trump about the importance of holding the course on Cuba. And once out of office, Obama intends to remain involved in Cuba matters as a private citizen, several meeting attendees told the Miami Herald and el Nuevo Herald.
“He absolutely will,” said Ric Herrero, one of more than 20 Cuban Americans who met with Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes.
Obama did not attend the private meetings, held across the street from the White House at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on a bitterly cold Washington day, though he sent each person a letter encouraging them “to carry forward the work of strengthening our partnership in the years ahead.” Over an informal lunch, attendees noshed on medianoche sandwiches, lechón and empanadas.
The White House did not specifically respond to a request for comment on the president’s Cuba plans or conversation with Trump. It’s unclear when the two men discussed Cuba, though they recently spoke by phone the day after Cuba announced Fidel Castro’s death.
In an MSNBC interview Thursday, Rhodes said Cuba has been “one of the subjects of discussion” between Obama and Trump.
“President Obama made clear there are real opportunities for American business down there,” Rhodes said.
Thursday’s meetings took place as proponents of closer U.S.-Cuba ties face continued uncertainty over what approach Trump will take toward the island’s communist regime. While Obama’s backers gathered in Washington, Miami’s hard-line Cuban-American members of Congress told reporters Obama’s Cuba policy has been “disastrous.”
“The United States has received no benefit from these concessions, nor have the Cuban people, because the Castro regime has given up nothing — nada,” said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. “Hopefully with President-elect Trump and a new administration, we may be in a position to reverse some of the damage inflicted on the cause of freedom and democracy in Cuba.”
A crucial difference is over how much support to give Cuban dissidents. Ros-Lehtinen and her colleagues consider them the only legitimate political opposition; the people who met at the White House argue small business owners known as cuentapropistas pose a bigger, more powerful threat to the Cuban regime.
The White House has pushed for U.S. companies to complete agreements with the Cuban government ahead of Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, hoping that having contracts in place will make Obama’s policy more difficult to undo. Cuba recently signed deals with cruise operators and Google, though the U.S. is pressuring Cuba to do more.
Thursday morning, dozens of people assembled to hear from Rhodes, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the acting American ambassador in Havana; José Ramón Cabañas, the Cuban ambassador in Washington, and three high-level officials from the commerce, state and treasury departments. Cabañas’ speech is believed to be the first by a Cuban ambassador at a White House event since the two countries renewed diplomatic ties. He reiterated the Cuban government opposition’s to the U.S. trade embargo — the “blockade,” he called it — and to the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, several people in the audience said.