Foreign Policy Update – USA Gov Policy

CUBA

Communist Cuba continues to repress the Cuban people while simultaneously undermining democracy in the region, according to the State Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Michael Kozak. He said the United States is increasing pressure on the Castro regime to “stop the repression of its citizens and its intervention in other countries, particularly Venezuela.”

The country’s leadership is unable to produce the resources it needs to feed its population. Kozak noted that “Its economy is parasitic, depending for years on massive subsidies from the Soviet Union, and later on depending on a revenue stream from its essentially colonial relationship with Venezuela.” The extreme poverty of Venezuela is now impacting Cuba as its communist economic advisors find themselves facing extreme shortages under the government-controlled economy.

US policy toward Cuba is designed to restrict their other key sources of revenue to force the regime to face up to the deficiencies of its own model and allow some major freedom to its own people. The US is exposing the truth about the Cuban medical missions program, a moneymaking scheme disguised as humanitarian assistance, according to Kozak. The State Department also is discouraging travel that involves staying in hotels run by the Cuban military to break the monopoly of the Cuban military as established on processing remittances.

VENEZUELA

Elliott Abrams, the US Special Representative for Venezuela, said that there were roughly 7,000 extrajudicial killing over the last year in the country. He quoted the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Michele Bachelet, as saying that the UN “remains concerned about the lack of independence of the justice system in Venezuela,” and “is concerned about the continuing use of the military justice system to try civilians.”

The UN report stated that “Relatives of victims also reported various forms of intimidation, threats, and reprisals by members of the security forces to stop them from seeking justice. In the most serious cases, this led to forced and prolonged displacement of family members or even, in some cases, their killing” and “Documented cases included severe beatings with boards, suffocation with plastic bags and chemicals, submerging the head of a victim underwater, electric shocks to the eyelids, and sexual violence in the form of electric shocks to genitalia.”

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The US is attempting to counter the downward spiral in Venezuela by naming and sanctioning the individuals most responsible for it, according to Abrams. The US sanctioned two additional individuals this week along with previously announced sanctions against the head of the Venezuelan Supreme Court, Maikel Moreno, due to his involvement in significant corruption.

CHINA

No foreign policy human rights problem the US faces is greater than that posed by China, according to Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. In a recent interview he cited the enormous risk to believers of all faiths inside of China and offered the mass genocide suffered by the Uyghur people at the hands of the communist regime as an example of China’s egregious behavior. He added that Christians have been under pressure inside of China for a long time and that the situation is deteriorating. Pompeo pointed out that Beijing appears to be hacking Vatican websites to get a jump on negotiations with the Vatican about the appropriate role for the Catholic Church inside of China.

He believes this type of behavior is typical of the regime as it threatens total rule by the Chinese Communist Party. Pompeo said: “They can’t allow religious freedom because people of conscience understand that those freedoms that they value would be at risk.” The party “understands that the things the CCP leadership want to keep people from doing would be a risk if they permitted any dissent or exercise of individual conscience rights,” he said.

In his final comment to a reporter Thursday, Pompeo said: “Weakness breeds risk and strength is respected with respect to the Chinese Communist Party. So, you can see that in how China has responded to President Trump just being candid, just being honest. This isn’t about being angry. This is about rebalancing a relationship that has fallen out of balance over 40 years and demanding that the Chinese Communist Party participate on the global stage in the way that we demand every country does.”

DARIA NOVAK served in the United States State Department during the Reagan Administration, and currently is on the Board of the American Analysis of News and Media Inc., which publishes usagovpolicy.com and the New York Analysis of Policy and Government. Each Saturday, she presents key updates on U.S. foreign policy from the State Department.

Illustration: Pixabay

Quick Analysis

Ukraine’s Frozen Conflict

As we approach winter in the northern hemisphere, the war in Ukraine is beginning to resemble a “frozen conflict” from many perspectives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky recently told the media he hopes the war will end faster once President-elect Trump takes over in January. Opinions in Moscow, however, differ from that of the Ukrainian leader. Russian President Vladimir Putin argues that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) needs to exclude Ukraine from joining in “exchange” for peace. If it does not, he says, then no end to the war is in sight. So far there is no Christmas solution. Several NATO countries, according to Vladimir Socor of the Jamestown Foundation, are tentatively considering “coalitions-of-the-willing” to provide security for Ukraine outside of the formal NATO framework. There is, however, no collective mechanism today under which such an arrangement is viable. According to the NATO Charter, while Ukraine is a NATO partner country, it may not join as a full member since it has not fulfilled the requirements for membership. That has not stopped NATO and allies from continuing “to provide Ukraine with unprecedented levels of support, helping to uphold its fundamental right to self-defence,” according to the organization. Socor says that keeping Ukraine out of NATO will not advance peace with Russia. Waiting for a peace settlement, he suggests, would only serve to encourage Moscow to continue the war indefinitely. Although the Biden Administration officially withdrew its support for Ukrainian membership in 2021, NATO maintains an “open door” policy toward membership-seeking countries. The current White House position led the way for European states to oppose Ukraine’s membership saying that a decision should be delayed until “conditions are met.” Biden pushed for changing “open door” to a “bridge” metaphor. It is not intended as an across-the-board NATO policy and has been implemented in the past on a case-by-case basis, says Socor. “The alliance’s open-door policy was not fully insulated from Russia’s non-statutory blocking power, and NATO-aspirant countries’ path toward membership was not always irreversible.” Russia has successfully blocked states like Georgia from joining, first in 2008 and again after the war in Ukraine began in 2014. Russia recognizes the value add of Ukraine to NATO is enormous and that Kyiv has a better case than some other nations. Putin’s invasion was, in part, intended to foreclose that option. By 2021, Moscow was pushing hard to maximize its war objectives, which included further annexations of Ukrainian territory. A main goal for Putin was, and is, to ensure there is no Ukraine left to join NATO. As President-elect Trump prepares to assume office in January, he is faced with the historical challenges presented by the war. Post-conflict security guarantees were the center of several proposals made during the 2023 military stalemate. The incoming Trump Administration has yet to outline how it intends to handle the Russia-Ukraine war. Analysts in Washington believe that the new Administration will expect its European allies to guarantee the majority of Ukraine’s security needs. As we approach 2025, several European nations have acknowledged that they do not view Ukraine as eligible for NATO membership as it would draw the organization into the middle of the conflict. Others want to wait until the war is over or pending a “peace” settlement before considering Ukrainian membership. Socor reports that some “influential voices” are suggesting that “Kyiv should join NATO after “freezing” the war along a stable armistice line, de facto accepting Ukraine’s partition, with NATO security guarantees applying de jure to the government-controlled territory only.” This would mean starting accession talks soon with the actual talks to commence only after a ceasefire is in place. Trump arrives in Washington at a time when Putin’s hybrid strategies of war in Ukraine have eviscerated commonly-held differences between war and peace. “Absent a political consensus in NATO over Ukrainian membership, certain European allies, including France’s President Emmanuel Macron, are holding informal consultations about post-conflict security guarantees to Kyiv by NATO members outside of NATO’s framework,” according to the Jamestown Foundation. The Biden Administration downplayed the discussions on possible forms of military assistance and defense industry cooperation by sending only an Assistant Secretary of State. For a European peace to hold the Trump Administration would need to formally extend the United States’ nuclear deterrence to Ukraine. Options under discussion in Europe include a “coalition of the resolute” to deploy forces to Ukraine as part of a possible armistice package, deterring further Russian attacks, says Secor. European officials are also debating, without any agreement, whether its military forces could perform non-combat logistical roles to free Ukrainian forces to fight. None of the possible courses of action has moved forward as all eyes are waiting on the incoming Trump Administration for clues about its intended level of support for a NATO framework and other non-NATO proposals. Daria Novak served in the U.S. State Dept.