Trump’s Hawkish Cabinet Pick Heightens Pressure on Weakened Cuba

[El Presidente]

Just a reminder to all, US politics as it pertains to Cuba has always been permitted on FOH. It is the only aspect of US political commentary that is. 

Trump’s Hawkish Cabinet Pick Heightens Pressure on Weakened Cuba

Story by Stephen Wicary and Jim Wyss

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/trump-s-hawkish-cabinet-pick-heightens-pressure-on-weakened-cuba/ar-AA1u59gc?apiversion=v2&noservercache=1&domshim=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1&batchservertelemetry=1&noservertelemetry=1

 

 

 

(Bloomberg) -- Cuba is hemorrhaging people as the economy falters. Now, the country is coming under fresh political pressure as one of the government’s archrivals is poised to start calling foreign-policy shots in Washington.

With Donald Trump headed back to the White House and hawkish Senator Marco Rubio picked as his secretary of state, the island’s leadership is bracing for what comes next. Hunger, blackouts, hurricanes and earthquakes already have the country reeling, and speculation is building that the incoming administration will further tighten the screws.

 

“There’s nothing very positive that can be expected from a Trump administration,” said Omar Everleny Perez, a Cuban economist based in Havana who has taught at Harvard and Columbia universities and worked as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. “In the minds of most Cubans is the thought of getting out.”

During the presidential campaign and on Capitol Hill, Trump and Rubio have talked about the need for regime change in Havana. For the Florida senator, the issue has particular significance: He’s the son of Cuban immigrants, and has made his heritage and opposition to communism central to his conservative political identity.

That makes it all the more likely that Trump will bring back the “maximum pressure” approach of his first term, when he tightened sanctions and scared off investors by returning Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

A spokesperson for the incoming administration declined to comment directly on policy toward Cuba, noting only that Trump was elected “to lead our country and restore peace through strength around the world.”

The island of 11 million people is staggering under inflation, food shortages, crop failure and the repeated collapse of its power grid. A full 10% of the population has fled the country since 2020. As tempers flare and public discontent grows, Cuba has stepped up arrests of dissidents and warned citizens not to protest. 

Trump’s incoming team likely will “look for creative ways to exacerbate the chasm that is existing right now in Cuba between the people and the regime,” said Jose Cardenas, who worked on Latin America issues under former President George W. Bush and now serves as an independent consultant in Washington.

Though President Joe Biden left much of Trump’s previous Cuba policy intact, Cardenas expects the new administration will quickly take action against both President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Havana and Nicolas Maduro in Caracas as a signal to its voting coalition. Trump became the first Republican presidential candidate since 1988 to win Miami-Dade County, the home to many Cuban exiles.

Rubio will “seek to regain some momentum and go on the offensive — but not in a provocative, ham-handed way,” Cardenas said.

 

It isn’t yet clear how the incoming administration’s stance toward Latin America will be affected by Trump’s pledge to round up migrants and deport them en masse.

Rubio will have to figure out how to navigate that promise along with the US’s long-standing practice of offering an escape to people fleeing far-left regimes in the region, according to Ana Sofia Pelaez, the co-founder of the Miami Freedom Project, which works with migrants in South Florida. In 2023, the Biden administration allowed Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Haitian migrants to apply for two-year emergency visas. More than 125,000 Cubans have entered the US under the program.

“You can’t raise the alarm about Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua and then say these people don’t have a reason to be here,” Pelaez said from Miami. “How can you say ‘This is terrible, and people should rightfully seek freedom,’ and then not receive them humanely?”

 

On top of its economic and humanitarian woes, Cuba is also facing questions of legitimacy, according to Andres Pertierra, a Cuban-American historian who was doing doctoral research on the island for eight months this year until the power crisis forced the archives to close. 

Since the revolution led by Fidel Castro, the government has ruled with a tacit bargain: Caribbean communism couldn’t provide the same level of material goods as US capitalism, but it would build a robust social safety net. It would also foster a sense of collective pride, despite the imposition of a security state that severely restricts political rights.

But that setup has unraveled, and “this is probably the biggest point of weakness and vulnerability in the government’s history since 1959, not least because Fidel is not there,” Pertierra said from Madison, Wisconsin. 

 

The Cuban embassy in Washington didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In almost every regard, the situation in Cuba is worse now than it was in the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union brought hunger and hardship in what’s euphemistically known as the Special Period. 

“Education is imploding, health care is catastrophic — there’s no medicine, there’s no equipment, the infrastructure is falling apart,” Pertierra said.

One difference is that those with enough money can still buy food. But while allowing the nascent private sector to import and sell groceries has prevented the weight loss Cubans suffered in the late 1990s, it also highlights “the inequality and the broken promises of the system,” said Pertierra, the son of a lawyer who defended Elian Gonzalez’s return to Cuba in a bitter custody case against the boy’s Miami relatives more than two decades ago.

 

State-run media recently provided a grim snapshot of the hunger crisis: Some 1,615 people have been convicted of illegally killing cows this year, risking prison terms of up to 10 years.

That Cuban society is now divided into those with access to hard currency — often thanks to relatives abroad — and those without is fueling increasing discontent.

Everleny Perez, the economist, argued the Cuban regime’s best chance of surviving the next Trump administration is for the government to make good on its promise to support the private sector. 

“The state has to go beyond this view that the private sector will erode its power,” he said. “Its power is eroding all on its own.”

[El Presidente]

I was only having this discussion with a major player on Tuesday. 

My personal opinion is that Cuba can't survive another 4 years of 100% pariah status with the US. They will need to cut a deal and there are deals to be cut should Rubio not be 100% focused on going for the throat. 

Fascinating and frightening times for Cubans. 

[VeguerosMAN]

Did Cuba get financial aid from the Biden admin? If not, I don't know how it could be any worse for Cubans under Trump. 

[El Presidente]

11 hours ago, VeguerosMAN said:

Did Cuba get financial aid from the Biden admin? If not, I don't know how it could be any worse for Cubans under Trump. 

I suspect Marco Rubio as Secretary of State will find a way. It's personal.

[VeguerosMAN]

11 hours ago, El Presidente said:

I suspect Marco Rubio as Secretary of State will find a way. It's personal.

I know many Miami Cubans want the Cuban government to collapse. Isn't that what many Cubans actually want anyway? A regime change? 

[El Presidente]

10 hours ago, VeguerosMAN said:

I know many Miami Cubans want the Cuban government to collapse. Isn't that what many Cubans actually want anyway? A regime change? 

Many do. Many are just as terrified of it occurring for it is all they have known. Many are a mix of the two. Understandable.

 

[BrightonCorgi]

I don't think there will be any significant changes either way with a new president. Rubio had his ear just as much back then as now.

Overtures to Cuba could happen if China steps up their influence in the region. US wants to avoid a China build up in region even if that means concessions to Cuba to prevent that. We'd rather them rely on us than China when it comes harsh reality.

[MrBirdman]

It’s clear Trump means to follow through on the deportation plans, which in Cuba’s case means getting back hundreds of thousands of people, returning to a country in even worse shape than when they fled. The regime is going to be welcoming a lot of very unhappy customers over the next few years, and it won’t help that the country already can’t provide for its people. 

[VeguerosMAN]

9 hours ago, MrBirdman said:

It’s clear Trump means to follow through on the deportation plans, which in Cuba’s case means getting back hundreds of thousands of people, returning to a country in even worse shape than when they fled. The regime is going to be welcoming a lot of very unhappy customers over the next few years, and it won’t help that the country already can’t provide for its people. 

I don't know whether the deportation plan includes Cubans. I always thought Cubans have political refugee status in the US. 

[raggie]

11 hours ago, VeguerosMAN said:

Did Cuba get financial aid from the Biden admin? If not, I don't know how it could be any worse for Cubans under Trump. 

I don’t believe Cuba ever received direct funding or aid from Biden Admin, however many changes did positively affect them.

1. Being removed from the SSOT list (State Sponsors of Terrorism)

2. Allowing certain Cuban businesses to conduct financial transactions through the US banking system (coincides with #1)

3. Remittance limit removal allows transfer of more money between family and non-family (‘donations’) members

4. General attitude towards improving relations with the Cuban government.

Whether any of these change, positively or negatively, are yet to be known. I hope our governments’ relationship does continue to improve.

[SignalJoe]

8 hours ago, VeguerosMAN said:

I don't know whether the deportation plan includes Cubans. I always thought Cubans have political refugee status in the US. 

Cubans were granted sanctuary and citizenship through the wet foot - dry foot policy (granted if they touched US soil, returned to Cuba if intercepted at sea). That policy was rescinded by Obama when he worked to foster diplomatic relations with Cuba.  

[VeguerosMAN]

In the end, I don't think any US policy whether it's positive or negative could save Cuba at this point. Covid and inflation have totally ruined the country for good.

[El Presidente]

3 hours ago, VeguerosMAN said:

In the end, I don't think any US policy whether it's positive or negative could save Cuba at this point.  Covid and inflation have totally ruined the country for good.

Covid (Tourism), Inflation (incompetence + covid + embargo), Incompetence (domestic) + Tourism (poor utility in comparison to other regional competitors) + brain drain (incompetence) + fair weather partners (China'/Russia/Venezuela) who like to get paid eventually...have all designated them to the basket case category. 

On their knees is where they are. 

Release political prisoners come March. Look for a release from the listing as a sponsor of terrorism. Look what is needed for an opening up of US tourism. Time to come to an arrangement before the military lose their grip. I still think it is doable as a deal is there to be made. Not an Obama deal, but one where the Cuban Government is held to account.