Cuba and energy loom as potentially contentious issues at Thursday’s North American Leaders Summit in Washington D.C., where President López Obrador will meet face to face with United States President Joe Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for the first time since he took office in late 2018.
United States officials have indicated that the situation in Cuba, where a nationwide protest planned for Monday was suppressed before it happened, and energy integration will be on the agenda at the White House summit, the first between the leaders of the three North American nations since 2016.
According to an unnamed high-ranking United States official cited by the newspaper El País, Biden will ask López Obrador and Trudeau to join forces with the U.S. to demand that the Cuban government respect those who are seeking greater freedoms in the Caribbean island nation.
Monday’s planned “Civic March for Change” – at which Cubans opposed to the government intended to protest the lack of freedom under Communist Party rule and build on the momentum generated by mass demonstrations in July – fizzled because Cuban security forces prevented dissidents from leaving their houses to take to the streets.
Biden’s national security advisor said in a statement Monday that the Cuban regime had “predictably deployed a set piece of harsh prison sentences, sporadic arrests, intimidation tactics, and acts of repudiation all in an attempt to silence the voice of Cuban people.”