What Could a New Trump Presidency Mean for Cubans?
HAVANA TIMES – The election between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump was decided in the early hours (local time) of November 6, 2024. Trump won the “swing states” of Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and North Carolina, giving him the necessary electoral votes to gain the presidency.
He managed to flip some states that had contributed to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. The new president-elect exceeded the predictions of almost all polls and achieved significant numbers among Latino voters. He is the first Republican president in 20 years to win the popular vote.
The election saw strong voter turnout, according to preliminary data. There were no major incidents at the polls, except for a couple of bomb threats labeled “not credible” by authorities. Reportedly, these alleged threats originated from Russian sources.
Trump cast his vote around noon on the 5th in Florida. The Republican candidate stated at the time that he felt confident about the election outcome. Harris, on her part, voted by mail before November 5.
In addition to electing the next president and vice president of the United States, this election determined American citizens’ representatives in the Senate and Congress. In some states, like Florida, people also voted on issues like permitting recreational marijuana use and limiting state interference in abortion rights.
The vote cast yesterday was only the first step for Trump to assume the presidency on January 20, 2025. In December 2024, the electors or delegates (members of the Electoral College) will cast their votes, which will definitively determine who will be president. Thus, while the popular vote is important, it is not the final step in the process; the final decision rests with the electors. In early January of the year following the election, Congress counts the electoral votes. January 20 is Inauguration Day.
What Could This Result Mean for Cubans?
Neither candidate provided much detail during their campaigns about their plans concerning Cuba. However, some of their representatives did offer information to the press.
Jaime Florez, one of Trump’s spokespersons for the Latino community in the United States, told Martí Noticias that the president’s policy would be consistent with the one he maintained during his previous administration, between 2017 and 2020. Florez recalled that Trump reversed some policies from Barack Obama’s “thaw” with Cuba and said the Republican would demand the release of political prisoners and the holding of free elections on the island.
Regarding immigration, Trump stated that, if he won, he would eliminate the humanitarian parole program and the CBP One app, which facilitates asylum appointments at the southwestern US border. These two policies, implemented and expanded for Cubans in January 2023, have benefited over 200,000 Cuban nationals, according to estimates. Trump also promised to deport millions of undocumented migrants.
It remains to be seen if Donald Trump will fulfill his campaign promises. Experts say that carrying out a mass deportation of that scale would not be easy. The latest figures indicate there are about 11 million undocumented migrants in the country.
According to Christopher Sabatini, a senior researcher for Latin America at Chatham House, the Cuban situation is not a priority for Washington. Sabatini argued that there are currently foreign policy issues far above the island: the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the crisis in the Middle East, and Venezuela, among the main ones.
Before the election, the Cuban government expressed that it had no preference for either candidate. So far, neither the Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel nor other high-ranking regime officials have publicly commented on the outcome.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.