Trump & Cuba

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

Yes, I agree that the lives of the Cuban people might have improved if other tactics were taken, but those other tactics were not taken by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, or Bush 43. Obama’s tactic (while different) also did not help the Cuban people. It seems myopic to say that Trump should bear the responsibility for the failures.

Obama’s tactic had barely started. It’s not reasonable to condemn it that quickly as a failure. Trump bears responsibility for his decisions, and I can’t see in any way how this decision helps anyone but the oppressors, just like the last 50 years helped no one but the Castros and their supporters.

[suranyi]

@Bricker

Yes, I agree that the lives of the Cuban people might have improved if other tactics were taken, but those other tactics were not taken by Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, or Bush 43. Obama’s tactic (while different) also did not help the Cuban people. It seems myopic to say that Trump should bear the responsibility for the failures.

The reason I agree with Obama’s decision has nothing to do with the Cuban people per se. It’s simply wrong, in my opinion, for Americans to be prevented from traveling anywhere in the world they want to go by their own government.

In other words I think all those presidents were wrong.

[voltaire]

I thought Obama turned the Cuba policy in the right direction and now I think Trump is turning it in the wrong direction. I only say that upfront so that what I’m about to say isn’t misinterpreted.

It’s not only old, bitter Cuban refugees in South Florida that hold a grudge against Castro. There are quite a lot of people from other Latin American countries where Castro supported insurgencies that hold some pretty significant grudges, as well. Some of them are so bitter about it, they just plain resent Cubans in general.

[Siam_Sam]

@Lemur866

Wow, we really had the Castro dictatorship on the run until Obama fucked it up. Well, another 60 years of more of the same is bound to work!

Maybe the CIA can poison Raoul’s cigar.

[eschereal]

Raúl is retiring next year. I have read that his likely successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is a hard-liner, about the same age as the regime itself. Offing a leader is not the magic the US needs.

[Siam_Sam]

Guess they’ll have to send a whole box of poisoned cigars.

[Evan_Drake]

@QuickSilver

This had nothing to do with ingratiating himself to Rubio. Rubio would have rolled over for Trump even if Trump shot someone in broad daylight on 5th avenue.

Still more so if Rubio was that someone shot.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

A day after Mr. Trump’s announcement, we have a quite a lot of reactions. Midwestern GOPers seem upset; a lot of them were counting on new trade deals with Cuba to help boost their state’s economy. They are also concerned that our absence will be filled by someone else (Russia, etc.) and don’t like the thought of allowing another sovereign power to have any kind of foothold 90 miles from the US mainland.

[Cuban moderates, like, the ones actually in Cuba, aren’t thrilled either:

Members of Cuba’s small but vibrant independent civil society say they fear the new policy will do more harm than good.

“Trump’s become the independent business people’s new enemy because - even though he’s said he wants to help entrepreneurs - this new policy alienates entrepreneurs from the government,” said Angel Rodriguez, a 27-year-old sociologist who works with the Catholic Church in entrepreneurship-training programs. “That could bring them under fire now, and they could find themselves much weaker.”

](http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CB_CUBA_UNITED_STATES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-17-16-27-03)Hardline Cubans are apparently quite pleased however:

Trump’s hostile language toward the Castro government and his literal onstage embrace of Cuban-American exiles and Cuban dissidents has unmasked the United States’ true intentions toward Cuba and made it easier for the government to instill unity across Cuban society, pro-government figures said Saturday.

“Faced with your words, the Cuban people stand up and, their flag held high, sing their war anthem!” said a Facebook post by Jennifer Bello Martinez, the head of Cuba’s official Federation of University Students and, at 25, the youngest member of the powerful Council of State.

“If I were the Cuban government I’d put Trump’s speech up in schools. I’d transcribe it in the history books. I’d print a copy for every Cuban,” said Iroel Sanchez, a pro-government columnist and blogger who was fiercely critical of Obama. “In less than an hour he showed Cubans how U.S. policy works … The effect of this new policy will be strengthening the revolutionary leadership and seeing that it’s right. This will galvanize things.”

Note that these are not crotchety old men that were quoted; these folks are likely going to be around for a long time, influencing events and policies in Cuba.

A young state journalist who described himself as loyal to the government but eager to see faster, broader reforms told The Associated Press that the government saw the speech as “the best course in anti-imperialism that could be given.”

“This is the dream of the hard-line here,” the journalist said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak with the foreign press. “It’s managed to unite the left and the center in Cuba.”

You don’t make new friends by being an asshole to strangers.

[iiandyiiii]

Way to help Castro and the hard liners, Trump.

[K364]

The downfall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union weren’t accomplished by ideology, sanctions or weaponry.

It was done by music, TV, movies, lack of food, lack of appliances, etc.

[Sherrerd]

@eschereal

Raúl is retiring next year. …

That 2013 decision to retire, by the way, is being cited by Trump as Trump’s very own achievement:

… Trump said, “Luis buried his grief in his great love of music. He began playing the violin so brilliantly and so beautifully. Soon the regime saw his incredible gift and wanted to use him for propaganda purposes. When he was 12, they organized a national television special and demanded he play a solo for Raul Castro — who by the way is leaving now. I wonder why.”

Raul Castro isn’t leaving for the reason why Trump thinks he is going.
Castro announced in February 2013 that he would be retiring at the end of his second term at age 86. …

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/06/16/trump-humiliates-credit-raul-castros-2013-decision-step.html

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@K364

The downfall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union weren’t accomplished by ideology, sanctions or weaponry.

It was done by music, TV, movies, lack of food, lack of appliances, etc.

Aye; that’s what I’m saying. You win the war after the shooting stops.

[Bricker]

@iiandyiiii

Obama’s tactic had barely started. It’s not reasonable to condemn it that quickly as a failure. Trump bears responsibility for his decisions, and I can’t see in any way how this decision helps anyone but the oppressors, just like the last 50 years helped no one but the Castros and their supporters.

Obama didn’t make his change in his first term. Why?

[PastTense]

Note that:

For all his time-for-a-change bluster—“I am cancelling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba,” he declared—Trump is actually leaving most of Obama’s Cuba policies in place. He is not cutting off diplomatic relations or shutting down the American embassy that Obama opened on the Havana waterfront in 2015. He is not putting Cuba back on the list of state sponsors of terrorism or reinstating the wet-foot-dry-foot policy that gave near-automatic citizenship to Cuban refugees who made it to the United States. His aides suggested he won’t rescind permission for U.S. airlines and cruise ships to visit to Cuba, or even cancel existing contracts that would run afoul of his new policies, like Starwood’s venture to run a Havana hotel owned by the Cuban military. And most of those policies sound either purely rhetorical, like affirming the importance of America’s 56-year-old trade embargo with Cuba, or potentially unworkable, like requiring U.S. visitors to keep detailed records of financial transactions to prove they didn’t buy goods or services from Raul Castro’s government.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/06/17/trumps-strange-retreat-from-cuba-215276

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

Obama didn’t make his change in his first term. Why?

I wish he did. I presume it was for political reasons that he waited.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@Bricker

Obama didn’t make his change in his first term. Why?

@iiandyiiii

I wish he did. I presume it was for political reasons that he waited.

I think it was because Pope Francis wasn’t Pope Francis yet.

[John_Mace]

@Bricker

Obama didn’t make his change in his first term. Why?

His views on Cuba evolved. Really, though, what does that have to do with whether or not Trump’s policy is good or not?

[Bricker]

@John_Mace

His views on Cuba evolved. Really, though, what does that have to do with whether or not Trump’s policy is good or not?

I’m not sure, but it occurs to me that if Obama’s approach was self-evidently the right one, why was he the first President to implement it and why did it take him so long?

[Chimera]

Lots and lots of anti-Castro refugee/citizens in Florida.

[iiandyiiii]

@Bricker

I’m not sure, but it occurs to me that if Obama’s approach was self-evidently the right one, why was he the first President to implement it and why did it take him so long?

Inertia and fear of political consequences.

How does rolling back this policy help anyone but the Castros and other hard-liners? Do you agree with me that it’s easier to oppress and control a very poor populace with less contact with outsiders than an increasingly prosperous populace with more and more contact with outsiders, especially if they’re from a mostly-free society?

You still haven’t explained, unless I missed it, why America or Cuba or the Cuban people are better off with Obama’s policy rolled back.