Trump’s Oh So Political Cuban Policy
Trump announced his Cuban policy and signed his executive order in front of a highly anti-Castro Miami gathering. The political rally also featured Republicans Governor Rick Scott, Senator Marco Rubio, and an appeal by Trump to unseat Democratic Senator Bill Nelson. It was in this context of maximally Republican trump, and political gathering that Trump arranged to make our Cuban foreign policy. Noticeably absent was our Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
Here’s why Florida’s Cuban vote is so important. Out of 9.4 million votes cast, Trump beat Clinton just by 113,000 votes, or 49.02% to 47.82%. Even third party Gary Johnson got p said 207,000 votes, and Green Party candidate Jill Stein got 64,000. Among Cubans, 54% supported Trump, and 41% supported Clinton.
With 1.2 million Cuban voters nationwide, about 800,000 live in Florida. The 13% lead among Cuban voters amounts to a 100,000 lead, just the margin he won Florida by.
While Trump said that he cancelled all of what Obama had done, he later said that the sanctions would only be on the military half of the economy. ndTravel would again be limited to religious or educational tour groups, and have to be guided. These are restrictions on American citizens’ freedom to travel, seemingly now imposed by Trump and not by Cuba.
How much did sian Trump consult with the State department and the Senate on these changes? Did he or they consider the effect on Cuba, and how they might respond.
Trump required that before Americans can get a right to travel freely to Cuba, Cuba must give their people all of the rights Americans have, except he forgot freedom of the press. He also wanted them to have UN supervised free elections, but hasn’t yet acted to give us elections free of Russian hacking.
Since 50 years of embargo haven’t achieved these ends, why would they start now? Why did Trump meet with a dozen dictators without mentioning human rights, but now put them first?
It is said that younger Cuban Americans don’t have the resentments of their parents, so the Cuban vote may slowly change over the years.
It is far from clear that trading with Communist regimes or dictators will make them more humane, as Obama wanted. But he took a gamble that active politicians cannot afford to take, at a crucial time when Raul Castro is about to retire.
