Donald Trump has finally found something to give to Vladimir Putin. It's called Cuba

[riversedge]

Donald Trump has finally found something to give to Vladimir Putin. It's called Cuba

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/trump-putin-cuba-travel-president-finally-found-something-to-give-a7794451.html

Russia is moving quickly to reassert influence in its old satellite 90 miles from the US



Donald Trump is rolling back the opening to Cuba that his predecessor, Barack Obama, began, and we should ask a couple of questions. If the purpose is to hasten change on the island, is this going to be helpful? Second, what are the motivations behind this semi-reversal? To please his base, or to deliver a sly gift to Vladimir Putin and snub his own Republicans on Capitol Hill?..................................


Trump ignored all this and travelled to Miami on Friday to outline the changes he was making. Some things will remain the same – the US embassy that Obama re-opened in Havana stays as do the dispensations for American cruise ships and planes to serve the island. It will still be possible for Cuban-Americans to send as much money as they want to their families.

But the old restrictions on tourist visits by Americans are returning. Under the Obama rules, all you needed to do was tick a box saying you had some additional purpose to visit the island – family connections, educational exchange or what-have-you – and you were free to go as a solo visitor, just as with any other holiday destination. The box-ticking was meaningless; no one policed it. Now all that will be forbidden again. Unless they are part of some organised tour, Americans will again risk being accused of breaking the law. The embargo, for tourists, is back.

The biggest chill cast on America’s barely-born Cuba tourist trade, however, will be a new prohibition on any American entity or individual doing business with GAESA, a conglomerate controlled by the Cuban military that accounts for roughly 80 per cent of the island’s tourist economy. It owns most of its major hotels not to mention tour buses and restaurants. If this is fully enforced, it will wreak havoc on the nascent US-Cuba travel scene. There is Airbnb in Cuba. But, as you can imagine, choice is limited.

So why? Yes, Trump is following through on what he said he would do on the campaign trail and his base will applaud it. Indeed, he might have gone further than he has. He is acting after being lobbied personally by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and House member Mario Diaz-Balart, long a loud voice for the Cuban exile community in Washington. At a meeting with Trump in May, they pressed him on the GAESA interdiction as the most effective way of following through. And they told him to ignore contrary advice from the professional diplomatic class.

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But then there is the Kremlin. By retreating from Cuba, Trump risks creating fresh space for Russia to reassert itself there. Just last month Russia resumed oil shipments to Cuba after a hiatus of over a decade – its saviour in the interim has been Venezuela. As Venezuela falls apart at the seams, Cuba needs someone else to stop it collapsing too. If not America, then Russia. Putin recently forgave 90 per cent of Cuba’s debts to his country. There are reports that Russia is in talks about opening a military base on the island again. You get the picture.


It is a danger that was highlighted by Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who was closely associated with Obama’s 2014 opening to Cuba. Writing in The Hill, he said the roll-back that he saw coming from Trump, “would not only harm US businesses and the Cuban people, it would leave a gaping vacuum just 90 miles offshore, for our adversaries to fill”. He went on: “The Cold War is long over and Cuba is no longer a threat to the United States. But Cuba, a former Soviet satellite, remains within arm’s reach of President Putin.”.........................

[Zambero]

1. Create a vacuum, stand back, and witness the results

"Surprise!". Think of this as merely part of repaying a debt. More to follow.

[riversedge]

2. yes, very true.

[kairos12]

3. Monroe Doctrine. What's that? A contestant for the apprentice.

[UTUSN]

4. Kick, before this slides to p. 2

[Initech]

5. And Putin got the puppet he wanted in SCOTUS.

So any challenges to Trump's policy on Cuba will be reinforced. God damn them.

[Generic Other]

6. He's like a shark on crack

Smells bloody profits and goes crazy. I can safely predict that his motive is to destroy Castro's legacy and bring the Trump Hotels
International to Havana. Monopolies. Golf Courses. And more gold than El Dorado!