Cuba-US Relations 70
Donald Trump’s shameful legacy against Cuba
Donald Trump’s shameful legacy against Cuba
More than 200 measures reinforced the financial, commercial and economic blockade that accumulates six decades of a despicable and inhumane policy
Juana Carrasco Martín |Juana@juventudrebelde.cu
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Donald Trump’s shameful legacy against Cuba. Autor: Juventud Rebelde Published: 17/01/2021 | 12:51 am
Moving trucks leave the White House loaded with large boxes containing the occupying family’s belongings until January 19, evicted by the decision of U.S. voters and the Electoral College, no matter what the outgoing tenant Donald Trump did and did not do to stay in place.
No tricks, unsuccessful lawsuits about alleged fraud and even the seizure of Congress by its white supremacist fanatics, some armed, and willing to do anything, as the gallows erected in front of the Capitol pointed out. A Pew Research Center poll says that about 70 percent of Americans now disapprove of how he has done his job.
Trump takes his stuff, but leaves behind a legacy of worse stuff than anyone would want. I will not speak of the mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic; nor of the internal chaos in a nation more divided than ever before; nor of the discredit of his unilateral and unconsultative policies on the international stage.
I will limit myself to the adverse legacy of injustices, aggressions, revanchist measures, outrageous decisions on the human rights of a people, contained in their policy against Cuba.
The President who is now taking office, Joe Biden, is also carrying this burden, destined during the four-year term of office to please an anti-Cuban clique, which as of January 20 will be his neighbors in Miami, in exchange for their votes and whose aim is to destroy a nation, a people, a social, political and economic system that they viscerally hate.
Over the past few weeks, Mike Pompeo and other retreating officials have exaggerated anti-Cuban actions to multiply the damage and put obstacles in the way of any reversal. In a low and final blow he registered Cuba on the exclusive, sinister and politically motivated list of “countries sponsoring terrorism,” a deliberate lie that has earned the revulsion of various personalities and organizations worldwide.
The final straw came last Friday when the Treasury Department included the Cuban Ministry of the Interior and its head, Brigadier General Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, on a list of those sanctioned for “persecuting or punishing dissidents”, meaning the salaried and discredited acolytes of San Isidro.
“The United States will continue to use all the tools at its disposal to address the terrible human rights situation in Cuba and elsewhere,” said Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin.
Both measures against the clock add up to more than 230 approved against Cuba in four years of (dis)government, trying to dent and sink 62 years of resistance that serves as an example to the world and, what hurts them most, to a united nation moving against the tide.
A review, without going deeply into all the nooks and crannies of the operations from Washington to affect the economy of Cuba, allows us to define that the intensification of the blockade and the advertising of lies were centered on ruining the tourist industry, stopping Cuban medical collaboration and cooperation, closing family remittances, paralyzing investments by third parties, financing and trade of the world with and from the island.
The enforcement of all the evil instruments of the Helms-Burton Act was the tool used during these terrible 1461 days by Trump and his people, in which they reversed, or more appropriately, curtailed the policy of rapprochement inaugurated by Barack Obama when, on December 17, 2014, together with Army General Raul Castro, they announced the reestablishment of diplomatic relations, and in two years there were certain achievements of mutual benefit, in favor of a better neighborhood.
The undesirable legacy
Trump’s unseemly anti-Cuban dossier includes organizing, orienting and financing small groups to defame the Revolution and try to turn them into “the leaders” of a subversion that produces a change in the political model on the island. We have already seen how they have defended them…
But the story began early, not with this sin of an idiotic slander, but with aggressive prohibitions and sanctions, including collusion with other governments in the region to attack the Cuban economy and make it as worn out as possible, which in the last year joined the damage caused by the Covid-19.
He did everything possible to bring the situation up to his promise as a presidential candidate made in Miami to hard-line Cuban Americans, and to directors of the terrorist Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF), in September 2016: to break relations with Cuba.
On June 16, 2017, in Miami, he signed the so-called Presidential National Security Memorandum on Strengthening U.S. Policy Toward Cuba. It restricted the travel of US citizens to the Caribbean country and also prohibited economic, commercial and financial transactions between US companies and Cuban companies linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the intelligence and security services.
The ban on cruise ships that successfully traveled to Cuban ports was among the first restrictive measures. They reaffirmed the exorbitant fines on companies that violated the blockade – a practice reinforced by Obama – and strictly enforced the ban on the use of the dollar in Cuba’s international transactions.
By November 2017, Trump had completely changed the policy on U.S. travel to the Caribbean nation, which, with the easing of the previous administration’s blockade rules, allowed 12 categories of specific activities, although tourism remained prohibited.
As a result, the airlines began to shut down travel to Cuban airports, which had been resumed on August 31, 2016, after 55 years of isolation. Other bans followed. On December 10, 2019, the Trump administration ended the bridge established three years ago between the US and several provinces in Cuba by suspending regular flights to those destinations except for Havana.
In addition to being a coup de grace against family ties and the state tourism industry, the impact on small private businesses (transportation, the well-known palates, rental houses, artisans, and many other businesses) directly or indirectly linked to tourism was notable.
Since assuming the presidency of his country, Trump extended, year after year, the Law of Trade with the Enemy, a regulation that serves as the basis for the blockade laws, and maintained his authority to sanction through executive decrees.
By establishing sanctions against the Venezuelan oil sector, Trump was also establishing a measure to deprive Cuba of fuel with the intention of delivering a coup de grace in the midst of the terrible 2020, which together with the decision to re-impose the limit of up to ten percent on U.S. components for products that the island can import, points against any development sector.
The Trumpist push to impose limitations of all kinds was made despite the fact that U.S. legislators and various economic sectors rejected the restrictions, which hardened the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by Washington against Cuba, which also hurt sectors of the U.S. economy and the rejection of the blockade by a part of the Cuban migration wishing to have no obstacles of any kind to their family relations.
Perhaps one of the most monstrous actions linked Trump to equally aberrant rulers in our hemisphere. The accusations against Cuban medical cooperation justified countries like Brazil, Bolivia under the coup d’état and Ecuador, closing the doors to solidarity and also to the right to health of the most humble of their peoples by putting an end to the agreements that made possible the presence of hundreds or thousands of Cuban doctors, and put pressure on others to follow that inhumane path in the midst of the pandemic.
Trump definitely closed down spaces for dialogue and cooperation, and any possibility of advancing, as intended, toward a “civilized coexistence”.
This is, in short, the abusive legacy that Donald Trump leaves to Joe Biden.
And Yet, It Moves
And Yet It Moves (eppur si muove)
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
February 23, 2020
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
I will take the liberty of dedicating my column in POR ESTO today to transcribe some paragraphs of an article by the Cuban journalist living in the United States, Domingo Amuchástegui. He describes the current state of relations between Washington and Havana, which I consider to be extremely objective in assessing the current situation in Cuba, as well as the Cuban-Yankee dispute.
Its title, “Eppur si muove”, which is very significant, is a phrase attributed to the famous Renaissance astronomer Galileo Galilei when he was facing the Holy Inquisition, clinging to the defense of its truth. Today, Trump is for Cuba something worse than an Inquisition that Cuba challenges by demonstrating its ability to survive.
“Three years of economic warfare on the part of the Trump administration have caused considerable damage to the Cuban economy, not only to the public sector, but also to the private sector and generally to the common people.
“The Trump administration still has an abundant arsenal of possible aggressions and sanctions that, if effective in the coming months, would result in devastating damage”. Among them, Amuchástegui cites the following: the reinstatement of Cuba to its unilateral and arbitrary list of countries that are punishable as terrorists; the total breaking-off of diplomatic relations that are almost non-existent; the suspension of the few remaining commercial flights to Havana; the complete suspension of the sending of remittances by Cubans in the United States; the total suspension of their trips to Cuba; the increase in the number of actions legal and financial sanctions against potential private investors and government cooperation projects from third countries; sanctions against third countries receiving Cuban medical missions and, of course, a naval blockade against merchants, cruise ships and others boats from any country bound for Cuba.”
Amuchástegui points out that the merit of having survived does not diminish in any way the critical situation in which the Cuban economy finds itself, determined to survive in the face of so many excesses, but it must be recognized that the island is experiencing modest advances.
“Cuba closed 2019 with 4.3 million visitors, despite the disappearance of American travelers and cruise ships. There was a 9.3% decrease in total visitors compared to 2018. Canadians, with more than one million tourists, continue to be in first place, and Cuban emigration, which brought 624,000 visitors (88.6% of them living in the US), is in second place.
The latter is distinguished by longer stays than regular tourism. That averages 11.2 days per stay and is the carrier of abundant merchandise and appreciable amounts of cash. These are then channeled into the domestic market through their families and friends. They cover both for stay expenses and investments in small businesses, accommodations in private homes and loan operations to Cuban entrepreneurs for tens of thousands of dollars. This last type of relationship with visitors does not represent any expense for the State’s tourism industry (which entails a net profit) and is the carrier of many remittances that are impossible to calculate due to their informal nature.
Cruise activity has begun to revive with the arrival of European cruise companies along with an increase in airlines, mainly Canadian and European (including Turkey and Russia), organized by a variety of tour operators.
Progress is being made in the creation of a second Special Development Zone in Ariguanabo (the first is Mariel), which will articulate the export capacity of important scientific institutions such as the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the Center for Molecular Engineering, several drug factories, the University of Computer Science and others. The construction of numerous hotels and infrastructures throughout the country is continuing apace.
The presence of foreign capital and its contribution in terms of business management is not only limited to the tourist area. Sherrit (Canada), Imperial Tobacco (UK), Pernod-Ricard (France), Diageo (UK), Unilever (UK-Netherlands), Nestlé (Switzerland), banking operations run by Sociéteé Genérele (Fr), BBVA (ESP) and others have been, and continue to be, important economic partners of Cuba, some of them for decades. This presence has begun to increase since the inauguration of the Special Development Zone in Mariel, with 50 projects underway, 27 of which are now fully operational.
An important British project for the promotion of renewable energies has been completed, represented by the bioelectric plant attached to the Ciro Redondo sugar plant in the province of Ciego de Avila at a cost of 180 million (with financing from China, which continues to be the main source of financing for solar energy projects in Cuba).
February 21, 2020.
Digging Themselves Out
Digging Themselves Out of the Sonic Attacks Tale
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
It seems that the State Department propagandists, the CIA and other U.S. agencies are not finding it easy to get out of the ridiculous situation they have gotten themselves into with the issue of acoustic attacks against their embassy staff in Havana.
For experts and observers of this type of propaganda at the highest level of government, the denunciation of an imaginary attack against the United States by another country is not something new in Washington. We must remember the explosion of the battleship Maine in Havana Bay; the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii; the incidents in the Gulf of Tonkin in Vietnam and the supposed presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which respectively served as lying justifications for launching wars against Spain in 1898, Japan in 1941, Vietnam in 1964 and Iraq in 2003.
The first of these invented situations served to inaugurate the imperialist status of U.S. foreign policy by leaving Washington in possession of the vast Spanish colonial empire.
The United States has surprised the world by the naivete with which US public opinion has accepted official versions of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the abominable terrorist act against the Twin Towers. These two fables look more like tales of Hollywood horror and mystery than anything else. The second of these two tales served as pretext for its so-called “war on terrorism” and, as part of it, the curtailment of the civil liberties of the people of the U.S.
As a rule, the Cuban government -which has been one of the preferred victims of U.S. imperialism lately- has avoided responding to each of the media tricks plotted by Washington in order to avoid its further circulation. It has been the facts themselves, and the friends and sympathizers, who have answered them.
In order to attack Cuba, US propaganda has even added to the 20,000 martyrs left by the Batista tyranny imposed on the island by Washington. They’ve added the number of torturers and murderers of the deposed regime executed by judicial sentence of the popular revolutionary tribunals to the triumph of the revolution. They leave out the aggressors and assailants executed because of the invasion of the Bay of Pigs (Girón Beach) sponsored by Washington and the victims of the hundreds of terrorist acts and attacks promoted by the United States against Cuba in recent times.
With these they try to stain with gross manipulation the very clean record of respect for human rights that the Cuban revolution has always maintained.
In the great farce of sonic attacks, which already has the guise of silent comedy, no guilty parties are identified and the alleged victims are not known either because, evidently, they have not existed.
Observers of U.S. politics maintain that Senator Marco Rubio was the one who devised the show so that the great scandal with his hegemonic participation would make him presidential with his sights set on becoming the first Hispanic president of the United States.
Rubio was aware of certain acoustic problems presented by several officials of the intelligence services accredited to the U.S. Embassy in Cuba. There, a lawsuit was being filed against the American Technology Corporation (ATC), manufacturer of the LRAD-RX equipment used by the National Security Subcommittee (NSSC) to communicate with its agents in Cuba who could be responsible for such ailments. This highly-specialized espionage equipment had just been acquired by the State Department for the diplomatic mission in Havana.
Rubio skillfully devised or commissioned the script to be developed for the spectacle of the sonic attacks. His greatest audacity was to involve, as the main sponsor, President Donald Trump. Michael Wolff points out in his book FIRE AND FURY, much has been written about Trump’s “acting like a child, suffering from psychopathologies such as delusions of grandeur and paranoia, that he is an ignorant person who neither reads nor listens and is totally incapable of fulfilling the duties of his office”.
Therefore, it was to be assumed that in a few weeks nobody would remember the farce of Trump’s sonic attacks, which would only have added to the list of his many “eccentricities”.
But the lie took flight and now the US does not know how to get itself out of the mess with as few political casualties as possible.
September 7, 2018.
This article can be reproduced citing the newspaper POR ESTO! as its source.
Cuba and Computer Technology
Cuba and Computer Technology
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
After several years of U.S. military occupation, Cuba lived a period as a pseudo-independent republic under U.S. tutelage. The island served as a model semi-colony that would attract former Spanish possessions already independent and new acquisitions to be captured for that status.
During that period, until the triumph of the liberating revolution in 1959, Cuba experienced technological advances propitiated by North American companies. They used the introduction of infrastructural and technological advances for their own expansion and for experimental and advertising purposes. That was why Cuba became the leader in Latin America in terms of the introduction and diffusion of new technologies in the mass media and telecommunications.
One of the first objectives of the revolutionary process begun in 1959 in Cuba had to be the extension of public services throughout the country. Sectors such as electricity and the mass media received a high priority in order to extend their coverage to almost the entire population of the island.
This was not the case with telephone service, which was not identified as a priority sector in the same way as radio, television and the print media, considered to be of greater social significance. It is estimated that until the early 1990s, around 40% of telephone installations were manufactured in North America before 1960. Its infrastructure became obsolete and without authentic spare parts because of the blockade imposed by the United States and showed problems of compatibility with the technology of countries that could dodge it to trade with the Island.
From 1959 to 1994, telecommunications in Cuba fell below the level of the other Latin American countries. National security and defense issues had to be given high priority in the face of constant aggressiveness by Washington and its agencies of terrorist subversion and domination.
Paradoxically, the situation changed substantially when the U.S. Congress passed the Torricelli Act (“Cuban Democracy Act”) in 1992. It reinforced the policy of trade sanctions against the island in “Track One” but, in “Track Two”, supposedly favored the democratization of Cuba through an active policy of promoting communications and contacts with the island. It explicitly included the lifting of sanctions on telephone and postal communications.
Cuba had denounced this “Track Two” as a weapon of ideological subversion in Washington’s war against the island. But the Cuban government did not put obstacles in the way of the re-establishment of telephone communications between the two countries.
Finally, in October 1994, the US Federal Communications Commission gave the green light for the agreements that Cuba had negotiated with a number of U.S. telephone companies on the distribution of revenue from calls. On November 25, 1994, direct telephone communication between the two countries was officially reopened.
Due to the imperative of its reintegration into the capitalist world economy, Cuba had to carry out a restructuring of its productive apparatus including a greater opening to foreign investment. Cuba had to modernize its telecommunications, an enormous task given the existing infrastructure backlog and, above all, the tight economic and financial blockade that it still suffers to this day.
The Cuban government, placed great hopes in information technology since 1964, when Che Guevara, Minister of Industry, inaugurated an automation department. In 1969, the Center for Digital Research was founded. In 1970, the Center built the first Cuban computer, the so-called “CID-201”.
As a result of bilateral agreements of 1973 and 1976, the USSR committed itself to supporting Cuba in the creation of a computer industry, and in 1978 the first computer assembly plant on the island came into service. In 1980, the Second Congress of the Communist Party stressed the need to encourage the development of information technologies, and in 1982 an automated national and international data exchange centre was created.
In 1983, the first international satellite connection was established, giving Cuba access to some 50 Soviet data banks. In August 1994, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba, S.A. (ETECSA) was created as a monopoly for fixed telephony, with the character of a public limited company and a mixed company.
Cuba’s official adhesion to the Internet took place in October 1996. In 1999, the National Information Policy was formulated. It took up Strategic Guidelines and the Program for the Informatization of Society, announcing their technological convergence in the same Ministry of Electronics, Informatics and Telecommunications.
September 17, 2018.
Cuba hands over US citizen
Cuba hands over US citizen sought by Interpol
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Photo: Cubadebate archives
On 9 August 2018, the Cuban government handed over to authorities of the United States government in Havana the US citizen Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who was wanted by the US justice system for crimes committed there, and who is also facing an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert. This citizen entered the national territory on 31 July 2018.
This action is based on Cuba’s strict compliance with its international legal obligations and existing bilateral agreements with the United States on compliance and enforcement, and the cooperation that both Governments are developing on that front.
Interpol Red Alerts refer to persons who are under search of national jurisdictions. It provides for the arrest or provisional detention of persons wanted for extradition. The legal basis for issuing a Red Alert Order is the arrest warrant or court decision issued by the judicial authorities of the country concerned.
Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, 50, who is accused by a court in Portland, Oregon, of conspiracy and arson for a series of incidents that took place in the 1990s and 2000s, according to the FBI file, was internationally circulated by Interpol.
(With Information from Cubaminrex and agencies.)
Cuba hands over US citizen sought by Interpol
Cuba hands over US citizen sought by Interpol
On Thursday, August 9, the Government of Cuba handed over to the authorities of the United States government the US citizen Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who is wanted by the US justice system and who is also subject to an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert.
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The Government of Cuba handed over to U.S. government authorities on Thursday, August 9, the U.S. citizen Joseph Mahmoud Dibee, who is wanted by the U.S. justice system and who is the subject of an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert, the daily Juventud Rebelde reports.
Author: Digital Editor | internet@granma.cu
August 11, 2018 10:08:20
Information published on the CubaMinrex website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba details the following:
On 9 August 2018, the Cuban government handed over to United States government authorities in Havana a US citizen wanted by the US justice system for crimes committed there, who is also facing an Interpol arrest warrant with a Red Alert. This citizen entered the national territory on July 31, 2018.
This action is based on Cuba’s strict compliance with its international legal obligations and existing bilateral agreements with the United States on compliance and enforcement, and the cooperation that both Governments are developing on that front.
Interpol’s Red Alerts refer to people who are being sought by national jurisdictions. What it stipulates is the arrest or provisional arrest of the persons sought for extradition. The legal basis for issuing a Red Alert order is the arrest warrant or judicial decision issued by the judicial authorities of the interested country.
Truly Human Rights
Truly Human Rights
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Among the many unique qualities of the Cuban political process, and the organization of politics that has emerged from the revolutionary changes on the island, is the achievement of social peace in Cuba. It’s a phenomenon unthinkable in most other nations of the continent including, of course, the United States.
Surprised by this tranquility and security, many of the visitors from the United States who have been able to travel to Cuba with the exceptional authorization of Washington wonder if there are any organizations in Cuba that oppose the government. The answer, which is surprising to many, is that the only effective organizer and leader of the opposition in Cuba is the United States government. This is because Cuba’s citizens enjoy the daily right to participate in the construction of the new socialist order, but they also have the right to dissent. This is exercised in multiple instances of the vast and intense Cuban participatory system.
But another very important reason, one less spoken about, is that U.S. foreign policy has always been obsessive in maintaining a very direct and rigorous control over this dissidence. Very few Cubans agree to align themselves, to make use of their right to disagree, under the directions of a foreign government that openly proclaims itself to be an enemy of the independence, identity and social justice objectives of Cubans, and even less so with let alone do it in exchange for material benefits.
Washington’s instinctive imperialist voracity has never resigned itself to accepting a neighbor which does not blindly submit to U.S. hegemony. If not, they will learn from their own historical-practical experience, as have Puerto Rico, Mexico, Canada, the Dominican Republic and Haiti!
All these countries have suffered, in addition to Cuba, the extreme violence with which Washington is able to impose its neighbors’ submission to US designs.
The methods used by U.S. foreign policy to keep or return its neighbors to the fold have not always been identical. For example, from the dangers of absorption and subtle threats that have advised Canada to stay within the British Commonwealth. Why? To prevent its absorption by its American neighbors to the south. Then, the extension of borders by force with which Washington took half of its territory from Mexico. And, of course, the longest economic blockade in world history that still persists against Cuba. And we’re not even detailing the multiple invasion operations, coups and interventions sponsored by the OAS (Washington’s ministry of colonies), our America has experienced in recent centuries.
In the specific case of Cuba, a fierce campaign for the demonization of the purposes and actions of the Fidelista revolution began to develop before the triumph and seizure of power by the people in January 1959. It has been a sustained and relentless campaign, initially by the powerful US secret services of subversion and later publicly and notoriously, with multi-million dollar programs and plans aimed without discretion or shame at subverting order on the island.
This policy has been complemented, most of the time, by a ban on US citizens visiting the island in search of their own individual assessments.
With William Clinton in the presidency, the “people-to-people” policy was briefly put into effect. It authorized visiting Cuba by a certain category of individuals from academia and universities in general. It was designed with the purpose that the visitors would influence the Cubans by making them see the advantages of capitalism more, as was logical, the opposite was what happened.
President George W. Bush felt compelled to cancel the program, realizing its boomerang effect. By clashing with the truth of Cuba, the visitors became the best spokespersons for the Cuban reality.
In March 2016, then-President Barack Obama used his presidential powers to enact several measures that allowed certain categories of Americans to travel to Cuba with fewer restrictions. Nevertheless, the unconstitutional ban on tourist travel remained in place.
Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has preferred to apply measures of terror and threats in his speeches to counter the interest of U.S. citizens in approaching Cuba.
Cuba’s socialist revolutionary project does not impose anti-capitalist conditions on other countries. All it demands is respect for its experiments, essays, and studies. Cuba’s project is to create an alternative social and economic order to failed capitalism, one that is more just and better for the Cuban people and its independence.
April 9, 2018.
Far Right Running US Cuba Policy
Ex-diplomat Vicki Huddleston points out that the extreme right has taken over US policy towards Cuba
By: Cubadebate Editorial Staff
April 5, 2018
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann for CubaNews.
Washington Suffers a Credibility Crisis
Washington Suffers a Credibility Crisis
By Manuel E. Yepe
http://manuelyepe.wordpress.com/
Exclusive for the daily POR ESTO! of Merida, Mexico.
Translated and edited by Walter Lippmann.
Objectively, the credibility of the US government, with either party at the forefront, has always been in question because its foreign policy pronouncements on peace, freedom, democracy and human rights systematically contradict or contrast with its actions.
These days, the Associated Press (AP), a U.S. news agency, lamented in a commentary by its journalists that the conflictive and misleading daily statements of its President, Donald Trump, and the most important members of its team of senior advisors fuel new doubts about the credibility of the White House.
“Some Republican congressmen even wonder if they have a partner in the president of the nation with whom to negotiate in good faith and how much the president’s word is worth.
An AP paper says the former assistant Republican leader in Congress has told the agency that negotiating with White House officials has become impossible for Republicans, given the president’s propensity to undermine the public and private guarantees of his own team. White House officials have been seen in the unusual position of urging legislators to downplay some of the President’s statements.
“Recently, in one of his usual morning tweets, Trump threatened to veto a massive budget bill after the White House itself had assured legislators that the president would sign it.
The White House officials privately insisted, according to the AP journalist, that the president was venting his feelings after hearing reports that the agreement presented a defeat of several of his priorities.
Although, after hours of uncertainty, Trump signed the legislation into law, this situation disturbed some Republicans. “The lack of control over Trump’s outbursts is a concern on both sides of the House,” said a Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania who has sometimes been critical of the leader. “The disorder, chaos, instability, uncertainty and excessive statements are not the virtues of conservatives,” he said.
Members of both parties have expressed concern that the President seems oblivious to the way in which, by assuming certain positions and then relinquishing them without modesty, he undermines his own influence and agenda.
Trump’s hesitancy with the budget bill was just one in a series of recent incidents that put the credibility of the White House’s words in the spotlight. Earlier this month, during a private fundraising event, Trump boasted of inventing trade data in a conversation with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In recent days, Trump and his team have strongly denied the possible dismissal of General Herbert R. McMaster as National Security Advisor, as well as likely changes in the legal team dealing with Trump’s role in the special prosecutor’s investigation into alleged Russian interference in the presidential election and constitute an obstruction of justice. Beyond public statements, John Kelly, the White House chief of staff, had privately assured his staff that there would be no restructuring.
But by the end of the week, McMaster had been separated and the legal team seemed to be looking for his replacement.
Trump’s problems with the truth are not new, the AP commentary says, often altering the facts, from the number of people who came to his inauguration to the scope of the tax reform he signed last year. And just as he did in boasting of his lie to Trudeau, the president rarely seems ashamed to repeat claims that have proven to be false. Polls show that Americans do not believe Trump is truthful, and in a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac, 57% of respondents said the president is dishonest. The leader’s supporters say he was elected despite similar polls during his campaign.
Such a bias often puts his advisors in the uncomfortable position of issuing strong public statements that the President immediately denies. Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly denied reports of McMaster’s departure in the days leading up to Trump’s announcement that he had a new National Security Advisor.
Peter Wehner, who worked in the governments of President Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush said, “Trump has no one to blame but himself. He doesn’t even know his own position.
April 2, 2018.
The Cuba Embargo Needs To Go
Hillary Clinton: The Cuba Embargo
Needs To Go, Once And For All
July 31, 2015
In Miami today, Hillary Clinton forcefully expressed her support for normalization of U.S. relations with Cuba and formally called on Congress to lift the Cuba embargo. Hillary emphasized that she believes we need to increase American influence in Cuba, not reduce it — a strong contrast with Republican candidates who are stuck in the past, trying to return to the same failed Cold War-era isolationism that has only strengthened the Castro regime.
To those Republicans, her message was clear: “They have it backwards: Engagement is not a gift to the Castros – it’s a threat to the Castros. An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession – it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back the advance of freedom – it advances freedom where it is most desperately needed.”
A full transcript of the remarks is included below:
“Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. I want to thank Dr. Frank Mora, director of the Kimberly Latin American and Caribbean Center and a professor here at FIU, and before that served with distinction at the Department of Defense. I want to recognize former Congressman Joe Garcia. Thank you Joe for being here – a long time friend and an exemplary educator. The President of Miami-Dade College, Eduardo Padrón and the President of FIU, Mark Rosenberg – I thank you all for being here. And for me it’s a delight to be here at Florida International University. You can feel the energy here. It’s a place where people of all backgrounds and walks of life work hard, do their part, and get ahead. That’s the promise of America that has drawn generations of immigrants to our shores, and it’s a reality right here at FIU.
“Today, as Frank said, I want to talk with you about a subject that has stirred passionate debate in this city and beyond for decades, but is now entering a crucial new phase. America’s approach to Cuba is at a crossroads, and the upcoming presidential election will determine whether we chart a new path forward or turn back to the old ways of the past. We must decide between engagement and embargo, between embracing fresh thinking and returning to Cold War deadlock. And the choices we make will have lasting consequences not just for more than 11 million Cubans, but also for American leadership across our hemisphere and around the world.
“I know that for many in this room and throughout the Cuban-American community, this debate is not an intellectual exercise – it is deeply personal.
“I teared up as Frank was talking about his mother—not able to mourn with her family, say goodbye to her brother. I’m so privileged to have a sister-in-law who is Cuban-American, who came to this country, like so many others as a child and has chartered her way with a spirit of determination and success.
“I think about all those who were sent as children to live with strangers during the Peter Pan airlift, for families who arrived here during the Mariel boatlift with only the clothes on their backs, for sons and daughters who could not bury their parents back home, for all who have suffered and waited and longed for change to come to the land, “where palm trees grow.” And, yes, for a rising generation eager to build a new and better future.
“Many of you have your own stories and memories that shape your feelings about the way forward. Like Miriam Leiva, one of the founders of the Ladies in White, who is with us today – brave Cuban women who have defied the Castro regime and demanded dignity and reform. We are honored to have her here today and I’d like to ask her, please raise your hand. Thank you.
“I wish every Cuban back in Cuba could spend a day walking around Miami and see what you have built here, how you have turned this city into a dynamic global city. How you have succeeded as entrepreneurs and civic leaders. It would not take them long to start demanding similar opportunities and achieving similar success back in Cuba.
“I understand the skepticism in this community about any policy of engagement toward Cuba. As many of you know, I’ve been skeptical too. But you’ve been promised progress for fifty years. And we can’t wait any longer for a failed policy to bear fruit. We have to seize this moment. We have to now support change on an island where it is desperately needed.
“I did not come to this position lightly. I well remember what happened to previous attempts at engagement. In the 1990s, Castro responded to quiet diplomacy by shooting down the unarmed Brothers to the Rescue plane out of the sky. And with their deaths in mind, I supported the Helms-Burton Act to tighten the embargo.
“Twenty years later, the regime’s human rights abuses continue: imprisoning dissidents, cracking down on free expression and the Internet, beating and harassing the courageous Ladies in White, refusing a credible investigation into the death of Oswaldo Paya. Anyone who thinks we can trust this regime hasn’t learned the lessons of history.
“But as Secretary of State, it became clear to me that our policy of isolating Cuba was strengthening the Castros’ grip on power rather than weakening it – and harming our broader efforts to restore American leadership across the hemisphere. The Castros were able to blame all of the island’s woes on the U.S. embargo, distracting from the regime’s failures and delaying their day of reckoning with the Cuban people. We were unintentionally helping the regime keep Cuba a closed and controlled society rather than working to open it up to positive outside influences the way we did so effectively with the old Soviet bloc and elsewhere.
“So in 2009, we tried something new. The Obama administration made it easier for Cuban Americans to visit and send money to family on the island. No one expected miracles, but it was a first step toward exposing the Cuban people to new ideas, values, and perspectives.
“I remember seeing a CNN report that summer about a Cuban father living and working in the United States who hadn’t seen his baby boy back home for a year-and-a-half because of travel restrictions. Our reforms made it possible for that father and son finally to reunite. It was just one story, just one family, but it felt like the start of something important.
“In 2011, we further loosened restrictions on cash remittances sent back to Cuba and we opened the way for more Americans – clergy, students and teachers, community leaders – to visit and engage directly with the Cuban people. They brought with them new hope and support for struggling families, aspiring entrepreneurs, and brave civil society activists. Small businesses started opening. Cell phones proliferated. Slowly, Cubans were getting a taste of a different future.
“I then became convinced that building stronger ties between Cubans and Americans could be the best way to promote political and economic change on the island. So by the end of my term as Secretary, I recommended to the President that we end the failed embargo and double down on a strategy of engagement that would strip the Castro regime of its excuses and force it to grapple with the demands and aspirations of the Cuban people. Instead of keeping change out, as it has for decades, the regime would have to figure out how to adapt to a rapidly transforming society.
“What’s more, it would open exciting new business opportunities for American companies, farmers, and entrepreneurs – especially for the Cuban-American community. That’s my definition of a win-win.
“Now I know some critics of this approach point to other countries that remain authoritarian despite decades of diplomatic and economic engagement. And yes it’s true that political change will not come quickly or easily to Cuba. But look around the world at many of the countries that have made the transition from autocracy to democracy – from Eastern Europe to East Asia to Latin America. Engagement is not a silver bullet, but again and again we see that it is more likely to hasten change, not hold it back.
“The future for Cuba is not foreordained. But there is good reason to believe that once it gets going, this dynamic will be especially powerful on an island just 90 miles from the largest economy in the world. Just 90 miles away from one and a half million Cuban-Americans whose success provides a compelling advertisement for the benefits of democracy and an open society.
“So I have supported President Obama and Secretary Kerry as they’ve advanced this strategy. They’ve taken historic steps forward – re-establishing diplomatic relations, reopening our embassy in Havana, expanding opportunities further for travel and commerce, calling on Congress to finally drop the embargo.
“That last step about the embargo is crucial, because without dropping it, this progress could falter.
“We have arrived at a decisive moment. The Cuban people have waited long enough for progress to come. Even many Republicans on Capitol Hill are starting to recognize the urgency of moving forward. It’s time for their leaders to either get on board or get out of the way. The Cuba embargo needs to go, once and for all. We should replace it with a smarter approach that empowers Cuban businesses, Cuban civil society, and the Cuban-American community to spur progress and keep pressure on the regime.
“Today I am calling on Speaker Boehner and Senator McConnell to step up and answer the pleas of the Cuban people. By large majorities, they want a closer relationship with America.
“They want to buy our goods, read our books, surf our web, and learn from our people. They want to bring their country into the 21st century. That is the road toward democracy and dignity and we should walk it together.
“We can’t go back to a failed policy that limits Cuban-Americans’ ability to travel and support family and friends. We can’t block American businesses that could help free enterprise take root in Cuban soil – or stop American religious groups and academics and activists from establishing contacts and partnerships on the ground.
“If we go backward, no one will benefit more than the hardliners in Havana. In fact, there may be no stronger argument for engagement than the fact that Cuba’s hardliners are so opposed to it. They don’t want strong connections with the United States. They don’t want Cuban-Americans traveling to the island. They don’t want American students and clergy and NGO activists interacting with the Cuban people. That is the last thing they want. So that’s precisely why we need to do it.
“Unfortunately, most of the Republican candidates for President would play right into the hard-liners’ hands. They would reverse the progress we have made and cut the Cuban people off from direct contact with the Cuban-American community and the free-market capitalism and democracy that you embody. That would be a strategic error for the United States and a tragedy for the millions of Cubans who yearn for closer ties.
“They have it backwards: Engagement is not a gift to the Castros – it’s a threat to the Castros. An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession – it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back the advance of freedom – it advances freedom where it is most desperately needed.
“Fundamentally, most Republican candidates still view Cuba – and Latin America more broadly – through an outdated Cold War lens. Instead of opportunities to be seized, they see only threats to be feared. They refuse to learn the lessons of the past or pay attention to what’s worked and what hasn’t. For them, ideology trumps evidence. And so they remain incapable of moving us forward.
“As President, I would increase American influence in Cuba, rather than reduce it. I would work with Congress to lift the embargo and I would also pursue additional steps.
“First, we should help more Americans go to Cuba. If Congress won’t act to do this, I would use executive authority to make it easier for more Americans to visit the island to support private business and engage with the Cuban people.
“Second, I would use our new presence and connections to more effectively support human rights and civil society in Cuba. I believe that as our influence expands among the Cuban people, our diplomacy can help carve out political space on the island in a way we never could before.
“We will follow the lead of Pope Francis, who will carry a powerful message of empowerment when he visits Cuba in September. I would direct U.S. diplomats to make it a priority to build relationships with more Cubans, especially those starting businesses and pushing boundaries. Advocates for women’s rights and workers’ rights. Environmental activists. Artists. Bloggers. The more relationships we build, the better.
“We should be under no illusions that the regime will end its repressive ways any time soon, as its continued use of short-term detentions demonstrates. So we have to redouble our efforts to stand up for the rights of reformers and political prisoners, including maintaining sanctions on specific human-rights violators. We should maintain restrictions on the flow of arms to the regime – and work to restrict access to the tools of repression while expanding access to tools of dissent and free expression.
“We should make it clear, as I did as Secretary of State, that the “freedom to connect” is a basic human right, and therefore do more to extend that freedom to more and more Cubans – particularly young people.
“Third, and this is directly related, we should focus on expanding communications and commercial links to and among the Cuban people. Just five percent of Cubans have access to the open Internet today. We want more American companies pursuing joint ventures to build networks that will open the free flow of information – and empower everyday Cubans to make their voices heard. We want Cubans to have access to more phones, more computers, more satellite televisions. We want more American airplanes and ferries and cargo ships arriving every day. I’m told that Airbnb is already getting started. Companies like Google and Twitter are exploring opportunities as well.
“It will be essential that American and international companies entering the Cuban market act responsibly, hold themselves to high standards, use their influence to push for reforms. I would convene and connect U.S. business leaders from many fields to advance this strategy, and I will look to the Cuban-American community to continue leading the way. No one is better positioned to bring expertise, resources, and vision to this effort – and no one understands better how transformative this can be.
“We will also keep pressing for a just settlement on expropriated property. And we will let Raul explain to his people why he wants to prevent American investment in bicycle repair shops, in restaurants, in barbershops, and Internet cafes. Let him try to put up barriers to American technology and innovation that his people crave.
“Finally, we need to use our leadership across the Americas to mobilize more support for Cubans and their aspirations. Just as the United States needed a new approach to Cuba, the region does as well.
“Latin American countries and leaders have run out of excuses for not standing up for the fundamental freedoms of the Cuban people. No more brushing things under the rug. No more apologizing. It is time for them to step up. Not insignificantly, new regional cooperation on Cuba will also open other opportunities for the United States across Latin America.
“For years, our unpopular policy towards Cuba held back our influence and leadership. Frankly, it was an albatross around our necks. We were isolated in our opposition to opening up the island. Summit meetings were consumed by the same old debates. Regional spoilers like Venezuela took advantage of the disagreements to advance their own agendas and undermine the United States. Now we have the chance for a fresh start in the Americas.
“Strategically, this is a big deal. Too often, we look east, we look west, but we don’t look south. And no region in the world is more important to our long-term prosperity and security than Latin America. And no region in the world is better positioned to emerge as a new force for global peace and progress.
“Many Republicans seem to think of Latin America still as a land of crime and coups rather than a place where free markets and free people are thriving. They’ve got it wrong. Latin America is now home to vibrant democracies, expanding middle classes, abundant energy supplies, and a combined GDP of more than $4 trillion.
“Our economies, communities, and even our families are deeply entwined. And I see our increasing interdependence as a comparative advantage to be embraced. The United States needs to build on what I call the “power of proximity.” It’s not just geography – it’s common values, common culture, common heritage. It’s shared interests that could power a new era of partnership and prosperity. Closer ties across Latin America will help our economy at home and strengthen our hand around the world, especially in the Asia-Pacific. There is enormous potential for cooperation on clean energy and combatting climate change.
“And much work to be done together to take on the persistent challenges in our hemisphere, from crime to drugs to poverty, and to stand in defense of our shared values against regimes like that in Venezuela. So the United States needs to lead in the Latin America. And if we don’t, make no mistake, others will. China is eager to extend its influence. Strong, principled American leadership is the only answer. That was my approach as Secretary of State and will be my priority as President.
“Now it is often said that every election is about the future. But this time, I feel it even more powerfully. Americans have worked so hard to climb out of the hole we found ourselves in with the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression in 2008. Families took second jobs and second shifts. They found a way to make it work. And now, thankfully, our economy is growing again.
“Slowly but surely we also repaired America’s tarnished reputation. We strengthened old alliances and started new partnerships. We got back to the time-tested values that made our country a beacon of hope and opportunity and freedom for the entire world. We learned to lead in new ways for a complex and changing age. And America is safer and stronger as a result.
“We cannot afford to let out-of-touch, out-of-date partisan ideas and candidates rip away all the progress we’ve made. We can’t go back to cowboy diplomacy and reckless war-mongering. We can’t go back to a go-it-alone foreign policy that views American boots on the ground as a first choice rather than as a last resort. We have paid too high a price in lives, power, and prestige to make those same mistakes again. Instead we need a foreign policy for the future with creative, confident leadership that harnesses all of America’s strength, smarts, and values. I believe the future holds far more opportunities than threats if we shape global events rather than reacting to them and being shaped by them. That is what I will do as President, starting right here in our own hemisphere.
“I’m running to build an America for tomorrow, not yesterday. For the struggling, the striving, and the successful. For the young entrepreneur in Little Havana who dreams of expanding to Old Havana. For the grandmother who never lost hope of seeing freedom come to the homeland she left so long ago. For the families who are separated. For all those who have built new lives in a new land. I’m running for everyone who’s ever been knocked down, but refused to be knocked out. I am running for you and I want to work with you to be your partner to build the kind of future that will once again not only make Cuban-Americas successful here in our country, but give Cubans in Cuba the same chance to live up to their own potential.
Thank you all very, very much.”
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For Immediate Release, July 31, 2015
Contact: press@hillaryclinton.com
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Cuban media coverage, an example:
Hillary Clinton Calls in Miami for Lifting of U.S. blockade on Cuba
HAVANA, Cuba, Aug 1 (acn) Democrat pre-candidate to the 2016 presidential elections in the United States, Hillary Clinton, asked Congress on Friday, from Miami, Florida, to lift the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba since 1962, the Prensa Latina news agency reported.
In a speech at the International University of Florida, the former Secretary of State asked lawmakers to take advantage of this decisive moment, after the resumption of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the reopening of embassies in the respective capitals on July 20.
The U.S. policy towards Cuba is at a crossroads and next year’s elections by the White House will determine whether we will carry on with a new course in this regard or return to the old ways of the past, she added.
We must decide between commitment and sanctions, between adopting new thinking and returning to the deadlock we were during the Cold War, she pointed out.
She added that even many Republicans on Capitol Hill are beginning to recognize the urgency of continuing onward to dismantle the sanctions and this is the moment when their leaders must join this task or get out of the way of those who carry on.
Clinton added that the blockade must end once and for all; we must replace it with “more intelligent measures that manage to consolidate the interests of the United States,” and called the red party leadership on Capitol Hill to join this policy.
The former Secretary of State reiterated her support for the policy of rapprochement with the island that began after December 17, when Cuban President Raul Castro and his U.S. counterpart, Barack Obama, announced the decision of reestablishing diplomatic relations.
For years, the state of Florida was the base of a strong opposition to bonds with Havana, which made the blockade an untouchable issue among those who aspired to be elected for posts in that territory, especially for Republicans.
On several occasions, the former first lady has defended the lifting of the blockade against the Caribbean nation, particularly in her book Hard Choices, in which she assures that while she was Secretary of State (2009-2013) she recommended Obama to review the policy towards Cuba.
A survey conducted last week by the Pew Research Center showed that 72 percent of U.S. citizens are in favor of lifting the blockade against Cuba and 73 percent approve Obama’s decision of reestablishing diplomatic relations with the Caribbean island.
A survey by the McClatchy newspaper chain and the Marist Institute for Public Opinion released on Friday showed that 44 percent of likely voters prefer Clinton; 29 percent Republican Jeb Bush; and 20 percent controversial aspirant Donald Trump, for the November 2016 elections.
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