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The New Republic

Trump and Rubio’s Friends Secretly Prepping to Cash in on Cuba

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Trump are trying to bring down Cuba's government, and their friends and allies are looking to...

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AN 7 26

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is again taking aim at Cuba. This time, however, the Trump administration is framing Havana as a decades-long sponsor of terrorism and espionage that has helped cultivate the “radical left” in the United States.

As part of this, the administration is making pains to link Cuba with the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which is growing politically in the US, thanks to Zohran Mamdani’s win as New York City mayor and other victories.

And it comes against the backdrop of fear-mongering by US President Donald Trump about the prospect of communism threatening the US again. He has specifically linked Democrats to communism, as well.

So, why is the Trump administration making this spurious argument, and why now?

What the administration is alleging

Last week, the US State Department published a nearly 100-page report titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism”.

The report’s core claim is that Cuba has spent over half a century influencing and aiding the domestic left in the US. Among its more extraordinary allegations:

That framing collapses under scrutiny. The report anchors its argument in a handful of genuine espionage and terrorism cases. But it then tries to connect these with more innocuous activities: attending a Cuban-organised trip, expressing solidarity with Havana, or opposing the US embargo on the island.

This echoes a long US tradition of using national security as a premise to target leftist movements. This includes everything from the targeting of civil rights and labour organisers during the McCarthy era to the Cold War surveillance of anti-war activists.

Equally telling is what the report leaves out: six decades of documented US covert action against Cuba, including assassination plots and support for armed exile groups.

The report also came just days after Rubio convened delegations from dozens of countries in Washington for a conference on “resurgent far-left political terrorism”. At the event, he said the threat of far-left violence “can no longer be denied” and that it was “time to crush this evil forever”.

And in May, the White House released a new counterterrorism strategy that called “violent left-wing extremists” one of three terror threats facing the US (alongside narcoterrorists and Islamist terror groups). There was no mention of neo-Nazi or other far-right groups.

Why now?

Viewed against this wider context, the State Department report dramatically amplifies the Trump administration’s pressure campaign on Cuba.

In the past few months, Washington has imposed an oil blockade on Cuba, expanded economic sanctions against the island, directly sanctioned President Miguel Díaz-Canel and members of former leader Raúl Castro’s family, and secured a criminal indictment against Castro himself.

This economic warfare has pushed the island towards humanitarian collapse. UN experts have condemned it as a serious violation of international law.

Trump has repeatedly floated a “friendly takeover” of Cuba, and his officials have not ruled out direct military action if Havana does not yield. Rubio’s report and recent statements now provide the ideological framework to justify such an action.

What is driving the timing of this coordinated campaign is harder to explain. However, two factors appear to be converging.

First, the administration is seeking a foreign policy “victory” after the costly and inconclusive war with Iran.

The other is the midterm elections in November. A hardline stance on Cuba could help the Republican Party shore up support with its base. It also allows the party to frame the US left as being aligned with foreign forces and supporters of “communism”.

The more consequential question is what could come next. The administration has created a premise for action on several fronts:

The brunt of the Trump administration’s actions, however, will be felt by the Cuban people themselves, who have long been scapegoats and collateral damage of their powerful neighbour to the north.The Conversation

Juan Zahir Naranjo Cáceres, PhD Candidate, Political Science, International Relations and Constitutional Law, University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ken k 7 26

new State Department report on Cuba’s “campaign of subversion against the United States” is a virtual government blacklist against left-wing Americans and groups. Linked to last week’s Rubio-led summit on “political terrorism,” the report is unusually candid about the government’s targets.

“Many of the most significant upheavals in recent American political history — from the George Floyd riots to the rise of Antifa to the explosion of pro-terrorist activism on American college campuses — can be linked, in some way, shape, or form, to Cuban influence,” the report says.

As for who these supposed agents of Cuban influence are, the report is remarkably explicit. It names people like Ben Cohen (of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream fame), Mayors Zohran Mamdani and Karen Bass, media figures like Amy Goodman and Hasan Piker, and organizations like the Democratic Socialists of America and the Amazon Labor Union.

The implication is clear: Secretary of State Marco Rubio thinks there should be a modern-day blacklist of the political left in America. In fact, the report explicitly mentions the “blacklists, McCarthy-era investigations and prosecutions” of the 1950s and their effectiveness at dismembering the Communist Party USA.

The 100-page report, titled “Cuba: The Capital of 21st Century Communism,” was released this morning.

Cuba Report

44.6MB ∙ PDF file

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An entire section of the report — numbering over three pages long — is dedicated to the Democratic Socialists of America.

“The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) serves as a particularly potent illustration of the ideological victory of Cuba’s effort to position itself as the spiritual capital of Third Worldist Radicalism,” the report says. “This represents a significant advance for the Cuban influence operation: Havana no longer needs to rely solely on intelligence penetration or asset cultivation to exert influence over the United States.”

Though the report concedes that “DSA was not shaped by the direct and tangible influence of the Cuban government” and that it has “organic ideological commitments,” it insists that “None of that is to say that the group has no ties to the Cuban regime and its influence network.”

Instead, the report points to the group’s delegations to Cuba as evidence of Cuban influence.

“For more than six decades, the Cuban regime has been the leading sponsor of radical leftism and Third Worldism in the United States,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a post on X/Twitter linking to the report.

Whatever you think of DSA, it is hardly fringe. It claims as members prominent politicians like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani and has helped to nominate dozens of politicians like him to office in recent years. Senator Bernie Sanders identifies as a Democratic Socialist — having himself popularized the term — as do Reps. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, who are card carrying members (as well as Mamdani).

The Cuba report follows last week’s Rubio-led international summit on “political terrorism.” That summit, as I reported, introduced the new term “Far-Left Terrorism” (abbreviated “FLT”), a term it never really defined.

A White House press release summarizing the event said that “far-left extremism will be treated with the same seriousness and ferocity the world has long reserved for jihadist terrorism.”

Speaking at the summit, Rubio vowed that further new terrorist designations for left-wing groups would be coming “soon.”

Jeremy Lewin, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Assistance, linked last week’s political terrorism summit to today’s Cuba report, saying on X: “For seven decades, the Cuban regime has been behind both the ideological underpinnings of third worldism and subversive organizing structures of the new radical left political terrorists that @SecRubio called out with clarity last week.”

But virtually all the summit could do to substantiate the supposed scourge of political terrorism was to focus on groups that are almost comically dated — like the 70’s era Symbionese Liberation Army or the Weather Underground. The summit was vague about what are the equivalent groups today.

Today’s Cuba report, however, “names names,” in an obvious attempt to stigmatize American citizens who are very much politically active today.

In some cases these are even sitting politicians, from congresswoman Maxine Waters to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.

I read the 100-page report and counted references to at least 43 contemporary American groups and individuals, which the report identifies as follows:

I love this work but it’s time consuming and costly. Please become a paid subscriber so I can do more of it (or chip in to my GoFundMe here)

Guilt by association at its finest. But what exactly are they guilty of?

What the report shows isn’t that any of these people are knowingly taking directions from a foreign power — only that they disagree with the U.S. government on Cuba policy (or at most, agree with Cuba).

Their views can be wrong — aggressively, offensively wrong even — but it’s their goddamn right as Americans to express them.

AN 726

Military leaders are putting together military options for President Donald Trump possible actions against Cuba.

While Trump has rebooted his war in Iran, he's also looking at what's next and they're trying to keep it quiet, CBS News reported on Wednesday.

"Military planners have in recent weeks examined a range of options for possible action against the island, including an Army-led air assault involving thousands of U.S. soldiers to be carried out by the 101st Airborne Division, the only unit trained for such a task, according to multiple U.S. officials with knowledge of the discussions," the report said.

Officials who spoke to CBS News did so anonymously and stressed that there's no final decision by Trump on whether he'll carry out the operation.

The report noted that such an operation would "confront the Pentagon with a significant problem because much of the U.S. military's attention and some of its most valuable offensive capabilities are already committed elsewhere."

In June, the U.S. military met to conduct a "concept-of-operations briefing," which dealt with the early-stage military planning that could involve a Cuba attack, the officials said.

CBS News said that such briefings are "routine" because the military wants to give the president a large range of options and "contingencies."

2012 400 non agric co-ops, decentralize and democratize economy

cf

richard hobbs on wolff

https://kpfa.org/episode/economic-update-november-1-2019/

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FOX NOTICIAS HOST: "NICARAGUA COULD BE NEXT IN LINE" AFTER CUBA 06/18/26

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Jesse Watters on Cuba: “My banking buddy told me that after we topple Castro, we’re going to be able to buy 100 acres of pristine Cuban coastline for like 50 Gs”}:

06/23/26

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5 25 26 HASAN PIKER CODE PINK MED BEJ?

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INFLUENCER --> CHARGED/INVESTIGATED FOR STAYING IN FORBID HOTEL BUT NICK S ACTUALLY DID; FOOD AND MED SUPPLIES.

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mma

Right-wing media team up with the Trump administration to sell regime change in Cuba

Conservative pundits have spent months agitating for regime change

Written by John Knefel

Research contributions from Janos Balazs

Published 05/21/26

Right-wing media figures are helping administration officials lay the groundwork for regime change in Cuba in what would potentially be the latest unprovoked act of military aggression by the Trump White House.

MAGA media figures have long embraced a Trumpy version of the Monroe Doctrine, the notion that the United States has the right to exert dominance over the Western Hemisphere. As the second Trump administration has pursued more openly imperialist ambitions, many conservative pundits have cheered on the White House every step of the way, including when the administration started to threaten Cuba.

If Trump does attack Cuba, it may be an attempt to replicate what he sees as the successful operation to capture Nicolás Maduro, the former president of Venezuela — in contrast to the administration’s increasingly unpopular war on Iran.

On May 20, deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller appeared on Fox News’ Jesse Watters Primetime to discuss the Justice Department’s indictment of former Cuban President Raúl Castro.

“Today, finally, accountability is coming for Castro,” Miller said, before offering the administration’s case for escalation.

“Cuba, positioned just a 45 minute flight from American shores, has been a staging ground for America's adversaries for decades,” Miller said. “It is the last outpost of communism. It is the last outpost of the Cold War. American presidents for generations have tried to deal with the problem, the threat of this communist foothold just miles away from American shores.”

“And President Trump,” Miller argued, “has brought us closer than ever to the day when Cuba will be free and when Cuba will no longer be a threat to America but Cuba will be a friend and partner to America, which is essential for our national security.”

Watters responded: “Absolutely, and it will be a historic achievement if that does happen.”

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From the May 20, 2026, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime

A week earlier, Fox’s Sean Hannity interviewed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime advocate for regime change in Cuba, aboard Air Force One.

“It’s my personal opinion, you cannot change the economic trajectory of Cuba as long as the people who are in charge of it now are in charge of it. That’s what’s going to have to change,” Rubio said.

Hannity agreed and speculated about the possibilities for U.S. capital to flood the country. “If these people are not in charge, I mean, I can envision American wealth and companies — it could become the destination.”

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From the May 13, 2026, edition of Fox News' Hannity

Amid a report that the Cuban government was considering using drones to attack the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay or Key West, Florida, MAGA streamer Benny Johnson speculated the leaked intelligence could be a “pretext” for launching a war — though he appeared to support the administration’s overall goal.

“I don't buy this,” Johnson said. “Right? Like, why would Cuba ever consider doing this unless it was a false flag — unless it's a false flag that's getting set up by the American administration, and that's what I believe that this is.”

Despite acknowledging the intelligence could be false, Johnson concluded the segment by seemingly endorsing military action.

“Expect this to pop off any day now,” he said. “Hopefully, Iran signs a peace deal, and then we can get Cuba done, as they say.”

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From a May 18, 2026, video posted to the YouTube account of Benny Johnson

For months, some of the loudest voices suggesting regime change in Cuba have come from right-wing Spanish-language media, a trend that has continued into May.

On May 5, Fox Noticias host Andrea Linares said that before there could be any foreign investment in Cuba, “there would have to be a total regime change.”

On May 19, Augustin Acosta, co-host of Actualidad Radio's Cada Tarde, argued that if Trump “believes he can fix Cuba while leaving the regime in power, the president is either completely wrong or has started to lose his mind.”

“In Cuba there is nothing that can be fixed — absolutely nothing that can be fixed — while leaving the dictatorship in power,” Acosta added. “That is absolutely impossible.”

Still, there are already some signs of discontent in right-wing media. Newsmax host Rob Finnerty questioned the wisdom of “another foreign entanglement” in addition to the Venezuela operation and the Iran war, which has caused gas prices to skyrocket across the country.

“According to two new polls — and say what you want about the polling, but it's not good,” Finnerty said. “People are clearly losing their patience.”

He added: “I think people struggle with how this is America First when gas is $4.55 a gallon right now.”

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Laura Ingraham: “If the regime is truly decimated as we've heard and the military is decimated, why isn't this really a victory?”

05/21/26 8:04 PM EDT

  1. ### Right-wing media react to Trump's slush fund for allies with unquestioning loyalty — and some vague skepticism

05/21/26

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Spanish- and English-language right-wing media figures call for U.S. military intervention and regime change in Cuba

MAGA podcaster Benny Johnson said, “I’m here for the invasion of Cuba,” adding, “I'll join Bay of Pigs 2.0”

Written by Monica Rodriguez & Pete Tsipis

Research contributions from Jack Winstanley

Published 03/24/26

Right-wing media pundits, in both English and Spanish, have advocated for U.S. military intervention or U.S.-backed regime change in Cuba — a recent target of the Trump administration following the January 3 U.S. military operation against Venezuela, a longtime Cuban ally. While hosts and guests on Spanish-language conservative radio and online shows have been pushing for U.S. intervention against Cuba for months now, Fox figures have also recently backed the Trump administration’s warmongering, while podcasters have called to make Cuba a U.S. territory as part of an American “empire.”

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Right-wing media rally behind Trump’s efforts to trigger regime change in Cuba

Written by Zachary Pleat

Published 02/06/26

After right-wing media pushed for and then celebrated the Trump administration’s ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and seizure of the country’s oil supplies last month, they quickly pivoted to the administration’s reported efforts to overthrow Cuba’s government, which for now primarily involves starving the island of oil.

MMA //

  1. ### Trump delivered on right-wing media’s desire for regime change in Venezuela over oil

01/06/26

  1. ### Greenland, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran, and more: After Maduro’s capture, right-wing media encourage escalating US involvement around the globe

01/07/26

  1. ### Fox Noticias host suggests military buildup in the Caribbean could lead to toppling of Cuba's government

12/11/25

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VENEZ TANKER GRABBED IRAN OIL TO CUBA?

  1. ### Fox Noticias host suggests military buildup in the Caribbean could lead to a US invasion of Cuba

12/11/25

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AN 10 25

Cuba's foreign minister not only accused Secretary of State Marco Rubioof being corrupt, but he also said the Cuban American "knows nothing about Cuba," The Hill reports.

In an interview with the Associated Press Wednesday, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla said Rubio, whose parents are Cuban immigrants, said he has made it his mission to carry out a "maximum pressure" campaign against the island nation.

"There is a very personal and corrupt agenda that he is carrying out, which seems to be sacrificing the national interests of the U.S. in order to advance this very extremist approach," Rodríguez Parrilla told the AP.

Since taking office, the Trump administration redesignated Cubaas a state sponsor of terrorism, days after former President Joe Biden lifted that designation before the end of his term. Trump has also placed new restrictions on Cuban tourists and revoked legal protected status that shielded approximately 300,000 Cubans in the U.S. from deportation.

Despite all that, Cuba's top foreign diplomat since 2009 says he doesn't blame Trump, but, rather, Rubio.

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"Trump 'portrays himself as an advocate of peace,' Rodríguez Parrilla said, but Rubio “promotes the use of force or the threat to use force as an everyday, customary tool.”

The foreign ambassador then cut into Rubio's Cuban American heritage, saying, “The current secretary of state was not born in Cuba, has never been to Cuba, and knows nothing about Cuba."

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an 10 25

Cuban American outrage is growing following theFlorida Cabinet's unanimous vote to designate a $67 million plot of land in downtown Miami to the foundation for President Donald Trump’s presidential library, according to the Washington Post.

The announcement last week that Governor Ron DeSantis (R) and his administration planned to take over a vacant lot on the campus of Miami Dade College — next to the iconic Freedom Tower — to donate for the library drew outrage, especially from Miami's Cuban American community.

Downtown Miami's iconic landmark Freedom Tower, a National Historic Landmark known as the “Ellis Island of the South,” is a beacon for Cuban American immigration and the antithesis of Trump’s mass deportation efforts of late. The land — currently being used as a parking lot — is valued at an estimated $67 million.

The college spent $30 million restoring the 11-story tower built in 1925 by a newspaper publisher as headquarters for the Miami News. In August, “El Refugio” — the refuge, as generations of Cuban Americans call it — reopened as a museum dedicated to the plight of refugees and immigrants.

While the president's youngest son Eric, a trustee for his father's library foundation, celebrated the move, saying on his X account that it will be “It will be the greatest Presidential Library ever built, honoring the greatest President our Nation has ever known," Cuban Americans with connections to the Tower disagree.

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“I can’t think of any two narratives that are any more in opposition than the one of the humanity that the Freedom Tower is a symbol for, and then how this president has spoken about immigrants and immigration,” Ana Sofia Pelaez, co-founder and executive director of the Miami Freedom Project, told the Washington Post.

Pelaez, whose mother arrived to America via the Pedro Pan flights that in the 1960s brought in thousands of Cuban children fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro, added that the Tower "is a monument to what that experience was and the help that they received and the support that they received. It is very much about receiving refugees.”

And though nearly 70 percent of Cuban Americans in Miami-Dade County in Florida voted for Trump, his harsh immigration crackdown has seen the president losing support of what was once his stalwart base, with a recent Politico poll showing his Latino support down 20 percent. This latest move isn't helping.

"It was our lifeline,” said Mercedes Toural, 77, who came to Miami—specifically to the Freedom Tower— with her sister Amelia on a Pedro Pan flight. “It helped us to survive. Now they’re using El Refugio as something political for political games, and I think that is dreadful.”

Toural's sister Amelia agreed, saying, “To put it right next to the building that represents immigrants, that is a symbol for freedom, that is a slap in the face to immigrants.”

for trip canceled b/c leaders refused to meet him post insurrection?

posture for so fla 2024?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/pompeo-cuba/

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Jefferson Morley - June 25, 2019 - Deep State

hmmn

“false flag operation” is a time-tested technique of intelligence services. It is the propagation of a vicious lie—the deceptive attribution of an outrageous deed to the enemy—so as to justify hostility and war.

From the explosion on the*Maine*battleship in Havana Harbor in 1898 to the supposed attack on U.S. Navy ships in Vietnam’s Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 to the bogus story of Iraqi anthrax in 2002, American advocates of war have falsely attributed heinous crimes to target regimes for the purposes of justifying U.S. military action.

Once the jargon of military and intelligence professionals, the term “false flag operation” has entered the American vocabulary. Thanks to Alex Jones, James Fetzer and other hucksters, “false flag operation” now signifies treacherous machinations by unseen forces to dupe unwitting Americans into believing the media. To call the massacre of schoolchildren a “false flag operation,” as Jones and Fetzer have done, is itself a vicious lie that treats the victims and survivors as an enemy, the better to demonize mainstream news organizations. It is a demonstration of cruelty that is proven to drive traffic.

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When the opposition leader Juan Guaidó was briefly detained by Venezuelan intelligence agents last week, some saw the hand of another government at work.

“This specific agency will be controlled & directed by experienced oppressors sent by #Cuba & these kinds of tactics are textbook methods used by the Cuban regime,” Senator Marco Rubio of Florida said on Twitter.

Cuba seems to loom over the political crisis roiling Venezuela as President Nicolás Maduro faces a robust challenge via Mr. Guiadó, who declared himself interim leader This specific past week.

Cuba will be a longtime ally of Venezuela in addition to its biggest supporter inside the region. The government of President Miguel Díaz-Canel has offered Mr. Maduro its “unwavering solidarity” in addition to called Venezuela’s political turmoil “the attempt to impose a coup d’état, a puppet government at the service of the United States.”

inside the view of many of Mr. Maduro’s opponents, however, Cuba will be to blame in large part for the Venezuelan president’s endurance in office. They point to the presence of Cuban operatives inside the country — spies, intelligence in addition to political advisers, counterintelligence agents, military trainers — in addition to contend that will they have propped up Mr. Maduro by helping to suppress dissent within the armed forces in addition to throughout society.

María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader, said in an interview that will the presence of Cubans inside the Venezuelan armed forces was “unacceptable.” The Cuban government, she insisted, “must understand that will they have to let go of Venezuela.”

The two nations started out drawing close with the election of Mr. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez, in 1998. The relationship was driven by a deep friendship between Mr. Chávez in addition to his Cuban counterpart at the time, Fidel Castro.

“They were very close, like a father-in addition to-son relationship,” said Richard Feinberg, professor at the University of California, San Diego, in addition to a specialist on the Cuban economy.

The two leaders developed a close economic in addition to political alliance. In addition to sending security in addition to military specialists to Venezuela, Cuba sent experts via additional professions — including doctors, nurses, teachers in addition to athletic coaches — to beef up the South American nation’s professional ranks.

Still, some analysts say that will while Cuba’s support for the current Venezuelan government will be important, that will ultimately will not be decisive.

“This specific claim that will Cuba will be controlling Venezuela has been around, truly, since Chávez started out,” said David Smilde, a sociology professor in addition to expert on Venezuela at Tulane University. “that will’s been long overblown.”

The Cubans, he added, “are key consultants in addition to advisers, nevertheless I don’t think they’re calling the shots or telling them what to do.”

While former military officials who have fled Venezuela have reported the involvement of Cubans within the security in addition to intelligence forces, experts say the extent of that will involvement remains shrouded in mystery.

In testimony to the United States Senate in 2017, Luis Almagro, the secretary general of the Organization of American States in addition to an outspoken critic of Mr. Maduro, asserted that will there were about 15,000 Cubans in Venezuela in addition to likened that will to “an occupation army.”

“There’s been a lot of speculation about This specific, in addition to rumors about numbers in addition to about how close they are to Maduro,” said Ted Piccone, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “nevertheless I haven’t seen any hard, solid reporting on that will.”

Whatever the extent of Cuba’s support, Venezuela for years supplied heavily subsidized crude oil to the island nation, at a rate of about 100,000 barrels per day, experts said. Cuba would certainly refine the surplus in addition to resell that will on the international market.

According to a policy brief published by the Brookings Institution, by 2012 the trade in goods in addition to services amounted to 20.8 percent of Cuba’s gross domestic product.

During the Venezuelan economic crisis of the past several years, however, crude exports to Cuba have dropped as Venezuelan oil production has collapsed. In 2017, the financial health of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Pdvsa, had declined so much that will Cuba took the company’s 49 percent share in a Cuban refinery as payment for outstanding debts.

In addition, the ranks of Cuban professionals working inside the South American country have thinned in recent years, analysts say, in addition to the relationship between Mr. Maduro in addition to the current Cuban leadership will be not nearly as warm as the friendship between their predecessors.

“They are certainly ideological brothers-in-arms — against the United States in addition to all that will,” Mr. Piccone said. “nevertheless that will doesn’t hold the same friendliness as that will used to. in addition to the Cubans aren’t getting as much out of that will as they used to.”

Yet the alliance has been resilient.

Mr. Maduro said in a televised broadcast This specific month that will Venezuela would certainly take in 2,000 Cuban doctors who left Brazil after a dispute between the Brazilian in addition to Cuban governments. Medical clinics run by Cuban doctors once proliferated throughout Venezuela, nevertheless many have fallen into decay amid the economic crisis.

Political advisers still hold the ear of key officials inside the Maduro administration, though Mr. Smilde said: “Cubans often complain that will Maduro doesn’t listen to them.”

nevertheless perhaps most crucially to Mr. Maduro, Cubans remain a key component inside the intelligence in addition to military sectors, providing assistance with domestic surveillance, electronic wiretapping, in addition to internal military surveillance — to help squelch dissent in addition to shore up loyalty, analysts said.

“A coup plot will be a big worry,” said Harold Trinkunas, deputy director at the Center for International Security in addition to Cooperation at Stanford University in addition to an expert on Venezuela.

inside the absence of a clear information about the extent of Cuban involvement in Venezuela, rumors have spiraled, in addition to outside assessments have often been molded for political convenience.

Speaking at a United Nations Security Council meeting on Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pointed to Cuba’s involvement in Venezuela, saying its intelligence officers have brought their “own worst practices” to Caracas.

“No regime has done more to sustain the nightmarish conditions in Venezuela than the regime in Havana,” Mr. Pompeo said.

There will be plenty of motivation for Cuba to remain as involved as possible to shore up the Maduro administration. Havana risks losing an important economic benefactor, not to mention a leftist ally in a region that will has lately seen a rightward shift.

Should Mr. Guaidó in addition to the opposition gain control in Caracas, “that will would certainly, of course, be very bad news for Havana,” Mr. Piccone said. “They will very quickly change the relationship with Cuba.”

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Within Venezuelan Military Ranks, a Struggle Over What Leader to Back

Jan. 25, 2019

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Within Venezuelan Military Ranks, a Struggle Over What Leader to Back

Venezuela’s Opposition Leader Calls for More Protests ‘if They Dare to Kidnap Me’

Jan. 25, 2019

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Venezuela’s Opposition Leader Calls for More Protests ‘if They Dare to Kidnap Me’

A Short, Simple Primer on What’s Happening in Venezuela

Jan. 24, 2019

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A Short, Simple Primer on What’s Happening in Venezuela

Echoes of the Past in Venezuela Crisis, but Heard More Lightly

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In declaring Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela America’s latest “axis of evil” and implementing Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, Donald Trump has once again demonstrated his commitment to undoing Barack Obama’s presidency—even if it means harming U.S. interests.

Named after far-right North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms and his co-sponsor, Republican Congressman Dan Burton, the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1995 sought to strangle the Cuban revolution by tightening the United States’ economic blockade while simultaneously incentivizing other countries to impose sanctions on the island nation. But there was one especially damaging section of the bill that then-President Bill Clinton had failed to remove: Title III.

Clinton ultimately recognized that this section took the United States’ economic warfare a step too far: while precluding U.S. citizens, residents and companies from trading with Cuba (as previously laws had done), it also declared that no other country could do the same without facing economic reprisals.

Forcing foreign countries and their citizens to defer to U.S. law is anathema to any government that considers itself sovereign. This was stated in no uncertain terms by the European Union, the World Trade Organization and United States allies around the globe, which passed laws declaring the extraterritorial aspects of the Helms-Burton Act unenforceable, and called for sanctions against U.S. companies and their executives if they made claims under Title III.

As a result, Clinton’s—and every administration since—has exempted this section of the Helms-Burton Act from enforcement, even as they have implemented or eased other restrictions aimed at bringing the Cuban revolution to an end.

Obama helped thaw relations with Cuba by acknowledging that the last 50 years of economic sanctions—called an “embargo” by the U.S. and a “blockade” by Cuba—had been a miserable failure from Washington’s point of view. During his time in office, he reopened diplomatic relations and eased trade and travel restrictions. According to William LeoGrande, American University professor and author of “Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America, 1977-1992,” some of those measures included:

Trump hasn’t broken off diplomatic relations with Cuba, but he slashed diplomatic staff to a skeleton crew in 2018, and may be in violation of the 1994 migration accord. As of 2017, he has prohibited any transactions with a list of Cuban firms run by the commercial branch of the armed forces. Trump also scrapped the five-year multiple entry visa for Cubans to visit their families in the U.S. earlier this year.

Now, as the president pivots away from the Middle East and toward Latin America, Helms’ dark fantasy may finally come to fruition, undermining Washington’s relations with key allies around the world.

Karen Lee Wald, author of “Children of Che: Child Care and Education in Cuba” (Ramparts Press), has written about Cuba for over four decades, including two from inside Cuba, and continues to regularly visit and report from the island. She circulates a private list, Cuba-Inside-Out.

Apr 04, 201Z

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William M. LeoGrande, American University School of Public Affairs

The Trump administration has declared the most severe new sanctions against Cuba since President John F. Kennedy imposed an economic embargo banning all trade with the communist island in 1962.

Speaking in Miami on April 17, the anniversary of the United States’ failed 1961 invasion of Cuba’s Bay of Pigs, national security adviser John Bolton announced the end of virtually all non-family travel to Cuba and placed new limits on the money Cuban Americans can send to family on the island.

He also said the U.S. will now implement a 23-year-old law aimed at blocking both U.S. and foreign investment in Cuba, first passed by Congress in 1996 as part of a broader sanctions package against Cuba but put on hold because it triggered immense opposition among U.S. allies.

The harsh new sanctions reverse “the disastrous Obama-era policies, and finally end the glamorization of socialism and communism,” Bolton said.

A law too controversial to implement

Trump’s decision activates a long-suspended 1996 provision of U.S. Cuba sanctions that allows Cuban Americans to sue in U.S. courts any company that benefits from private property of theirs confiscated by Fidel Castro’s regime.

Normally, U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over property owned by non-citizens that is nationalized by a foreign government. For U.S. courts to sit in judgment of another government’s actions toward its own citizens in its own territory is a challenge to that government’s sovereignty.

U.S. allies who do business with Cuba vehemently oppose the move.

In 1996, when the U.S. law was first approved, the European Union filed a complaint with the World Trade Organization and adopted a law prohibiting EU members and their companies from complying with the U.S. legislation. Mexico, Canada and the United Kingdom soon passed similar legislation.

In response, President Bill Clinton suspended the lawsuit provision, which is called Title III, for six months, and in 1998 he signed an agreement with the EU that European companies who do business in Cuba would not be targeted.

Since then, every president, Democrat and Republican, has renewed the suspension. Trump himself renewed it three times – until he didn’t.

The president has now reignited international outrage over this sanction, which abrogates Clinton’s agreement with the EU and complicates already rocky U.S. relations with Mexico and Canada.

Who wins?

A small but elite community stands to benefit from Title III: Cuba’s former one percenters– members of the exiled upper class that owned nearly all the land and business in Cuba prior to the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Most wealthy Cubans fled the country after Fidel Castro’s Communist government nationalized their businesses and confiscated their homes, bank accounts and property. Some still dream of recouping their lost fortunes.

They can now sue Cuban, American and foreign companies that profit in any way from the use of that property.

For example, former owners of Cuba’s nickel mines could seek damages from Canada’s Sherritt International Corporation, which has invested in Cuba’s nickel mining industry. The former owners of Cuban hotels could sue the Spanish hotel company Melia, which manages hotels across the island.

Every U.S. and foreign company that does business with Cuba – or might do so in the future – risks being sued if they make use of property once owned by a Cuban exile who is now a U.S. citizen. According to a 1996 State Department analysis, implementing Title III could flood U.S. federal courts with as many as 200,000 lawsuits.

Trump’s 2020 bet

Most Cuban Americans will gain nothing from Trump’s latest sanctions.

It exempts private residences from compensation. So, if the main thing you owned back in Cuba was a house that was confiscated after Jan. 1, 1959, you’re out of luck.

The exiled owners of thousands of small Cuban mom-and-pop shops nationalized in 1968 won’t see compensation, either, because the law exempts Cuban small businesses that were confiscated.

Those who stand to benefit are the oldest, most conservative and wealthiest segment of Florida’s 1.5 million Cuban Americans.

Trump believes these influential Republicans helped him win Florida in 2016 because he promised to take a hard line toward Havana, rolling back President Obama’s restoration of diplomatic and economic relations with the island.

If the president thinks these punishing new sanctions can deliver Florida to him again in 2020, he may have miscalculated.

    I’ve studied \[Cuba-U.S. relations for decades\](https://www.american.edu/spa/faculty/wleogra.cfm). While activating the law may please Cuba’s former wealthy business owners, Trump’s new sanctions – like limiting the money Cuban Americans can send back to the island – are unlikely to be popular in the broader Cuban American community.

By decisive majorities, Cuban Americans support free travel between the U.S. and Cuba, broader commercial ties and President Obama’s decision to normalize relations. Every year, they send $3 billion to family on the island, and hundreds of thousands of them travel there to visit.

These Cuban-American voters don’t want to inflict more economic pain on the Cuban public, which includes their friends and family.

Hurting everyday Cubans

The punitive aspects of the newly implemented law, which administration officials have for months hinted that they would put into effect, are already having an impact.

Cuban American families who owned the land and facilities at the port of Havana and José Martí International Airport have warned the cruise ship companies and airlines that their use of these properties could put them at legal risk.

Along with money sent from their families abroad, tourism-related income sustains many everyday Cubans.

If travel businesses withdraw from Cuba, and if U.S. and foreign firms hesitate to enter into new commercial relations with Cuba for fear of incurring lawsuits in the United States, Cuba’s already fragile economy would take a serious hit.

That may play well with Cuba’s old elite. But the rest of Florida’s Cuban Americans will feel the hurt, too.

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irma   ‎August 30, 2017 cat 5 cuba took the brunt, thuis spared fla? cf nova superstorm 7/18

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Irma

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some site like thehill or something oddly obsessed with raul, anti-cmmie leftovers?