U.S. Secretary Of State Blinken Discusses Cuba While In Italy- Theme Continues To Be "empower"
/United States Department of State
Washington DC
29 June 2021
Secretary Antony J. Blinken With Lucia Duraccio of RAI TG1
QUESTION: The last question is about Cuba. A few days ago, United States voted against the UN resolution to end the Cuba embargo. It has been the – if I remember well – 29th time —
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Mm-hmm.
QUESTION: — while 184 countries voted yes. Why Cuba is still the enemy? I mean, the dialogue begun by Former President Obama is over forever?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: We’re in the midst of reviewing our Cuba policy. We’ve – President Biden’s been in office for about six months. There have been a lot of things on our plate. He focused immediately on revitalizing our relationships with our partners and allies, like Italy, re-engaging in multilateral institutions – rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement, re-engaging with the World Health Organization, convening a summit of leaders on climate. And then, of course, we’ve had the G7, which has made very important progress with all of our countries working together. On COVID, a billion vaccines for the world, working to – on climate, to prevent the financing of coal-fired plants, the biggest contributor to global emissions. A very strong and important agenda, both bilaterally with our closest partners and multilaterally in these international organizations.
And so there’s only so much you can do in six months’ time, so one of the things that we’re looking very hard at right now is the policy toward Cuba. It’s under review. I can tell you that as a matter of basic principle, the – any policy we pursue would have democracy and human rights at its heart, and we would want to make sure that we’re doing whatever we can to empower the Cuban people to decide their own future.
QUESTION: I know human rights are important also about Cuba, but you talk to Saudi Arabia, to Turkey. Maybe dialogue is necessary to improve the condition of people, Cuban people?
SECRETARY BLINKEN: We’ve never resisted dialogue anywhere. The question is: What is the overall policy? And that’s what we’re reviewing. We’ve done that in a number of areas. We spent some months reviewing our policy toward North Korea, for example, and announced that policy just a few weeks ago. We’re doing the same on Cuba.
