How Obama can change U.S.-Cuba relations without Congress – Part 2

Read the Full Transcript

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Now back to the United States' plans to restore diplomatic relations with Cuba.

  For more on what it means in practical terms and efforts to lift the economic embargo, which is still in place, I'm joined by our foreign — chief foreign affairs correspondent, Margaret Warner, and NewsHour political director Domenico Montanaro.

  So, Margaret, let me start with you.

  What can the president do on his own, without needing Congress?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, first of all, as you said, he can normalize relations with Cuba, just as, for example, Nixon normalized relations with China, with whom we were still at odds. So that's the first thing he can do.

  Secondly, I learned just this afternoon that the — establishing a U.S. Embassy, which members of Congress have vowed to not fund, it turns out the U.S. Interests Section in the old U.S. Embassy. It has 360 people working there, including 67 Americans.

  And so one senior official said to me, right now, we're not even sure we need additional personnel. The building is a little shabby, but they can go right ahead. Two, he can take Cuba off the state-sponsor of terrorism list after a six-month review by the secretary of state, and notifying Congress, but they do not have to approve it.

  And, three, he can use his licensing authority to ease all these travel and investment restrictions, so people will be able to use American credit cards there, more people will be able to travel, transfer more money there.

  What an official said to me today, though, is, it is not open for business, that it is not open, that the economic embargo still holds, if you're talking about big American hotel chains going down there. That is not the case. And so there will be a limit on that.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  OK.

  Domenico, we heard from people on the streets of Havana and the streets of Miami, but where is public opinion in the United States about lifting this embargo?

• DOMENICO MONTANARO:

  Well, it's really shifted over the last quarter-century. It's been one of the more fascinating things to watch.

  Florida International University does this big poll where they look at Cuban Americans who live in Miami-Dade County, where the huge majority of Cuban Americans are. And in 1991, if you looked back at the polling, 87 percent of Cuban Americans supported the embargo continuing.

  But if you move that forward to 2014, this year, now that is completely reversed, and you see 52 percent of Cuban Americans oppose the embargo, 48 percent supporting it. That's a huge shift. And where the — if you look inside the numbers, the shift really comes generationally.

  And when you look at young voters, 18-29, Cuban Americans, the kids of those people who came over here, you know, a generation ago, 62 percent of them, 62 percent of their kids are completely fine with getting rid of this embargo; 55 percent, a strong majority, of those 30-64 are also in favor of getting rid of it. The only group, the only holdouts are those who are 65 and older, who remember the Castro regime, who may have escaped the Castro regime, may have been imprisoned, dealt with a lot of their freedoms being taken away from them.

  And they're the ones who are still the vociferous holdouts. And it's why you have seen a lot of people like Marco Rubio and other people within that community really speaking out about it.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  So, Margaret, in practical terms, what does that mean, to open up diplomatic relations?

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Well, first of all, the administration is counting on some of these very same numbers, and they're counting on the fact that, for instance, if Congress were to cut off money, for example, all the visa processing that goes on now, that some of their own constituents would be very upset about that.

  So reopening diplomatic relations really means that the U.S. thinks it will be able to cooperate now with Cuba on things like counterterrorism, identifying bad actors in the neighborhood who may be trying to transit through Cuba, just as they already do on human trafficking and smuggling, once they got this migration agreement.

  They hope to establish reciprocity so that, for instance, American diplomats will be able to leave Havana, which they can't, and Cuban diplomats can't leave New York or Washington. What they aren't sure of that, within the Cuban bureaucracy, you have a lot of old-timers, too, Cuban old-timers, for whom the U.S. has been the boogeyman all along.

  Normalization wasn't even on the list of what Cuba wanted when these negotiations started, because what do — who do they blame? So, it will be very interesting to see how those negotiations with Cuba go. Congress isn't the only actor here.

• DOMENICO MONTANARO:

  Well, I will tell you whose list it was. It was on President Obama's list.

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Undoubtedly.

• DOMENICO MONTANARO:

  A big part of his checklist of things that he's wanted to get done and, he's free from any kind of electoral politics.

  And he feels like Democrats, 2016 or otherwise, can really lean into this policy, because they look at those numbers. And it's not the third rail that it used to be when it came to Florida politics. And it is going to set up a huge fight in 2016 potentially, because Jeb Bush, who's the first person who said that he might be in for 2016, is against this policy, and Hillary Clinton, though, says she supports it.

  So, if it comes down to it, we have two opposing sides there.

• HARI SREENIVASAN:

  Domenico Montanaro, Margaret Warner, thanks so much.

• MARGARET WARNER:

  Our pleasure.