By Walt Zlotow
66 years of US sanctions and embargo degrading Cuba have become depraved under Trump.
President Trump just made one of the most depraved statements about destroying living conditions for a foreign people ever uttered by a US president. “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.”
Trump doesn’t just talk depravity. He practices depravity. He’s ratcheted up America’s 66 yearlong campaign of economic sanctions and embargo to unprecedented heights. For the 11 million beleaguered Cuban people that means a new low in living standards from Trump’s cruelty.
Trump‘s criminal intervention in Venezuela allows him to cut off Venezuelan oil which suppled one third of Cuba’s oil. Not satisfied with that, Trump is pressuring Mexico to cut off the 44% of Cuban oil it supplies. If successful that would cut Cuba’s oil supplies by 78%. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum canceled one oil shipment but says Mexico will still provide Cuba oil based on “humanitarian needs.” Tho reducing oil shipments, Mexico is sending two ships containing 800 tons of desperately needed food, water and hygiene products. Hopefully Trump won’t mistake the Mexican ships for drug boats to be obliterated.
The oil shortage has already created a humanitarian crisis as less than half of Havana’s garbage trucks have fuel to cope with mountains of waste. Russia has ordered all its tourists out of Cuba. The collapsing tourist industry is destroying one of Cuba’s last economic lifelines.
But that is not good enough for Trump who’s considering a total blockade on oil imports to collapse the Cuban economy and depose the communist government. Last month Trump signed an executive order imposing tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba. Seeking to out-deprave the depraved Trump when it comes to Cuba, U.S. Charge d Affaires in Havana Mike Hammer told his staff “Now there is going to be a real blockade. Nothing is getting in. No more oil is coming.”
Nine years ago my wife and I visited Cuba for 10 days before newly elected Trump began dismantling Obama’s wonderful détente with Cuba. While his détente reestablished diplomatic relations and increased badly needed US tourism, it did not end the embargo which requires Congressional legislation. It was heartbreaking being there to ponder the madness of US policy inflicting such cruelty on such a beautiful country and its people for the past 57 years.
I’d been studying US Cuban relations since January 1, 1959 when news broke on Castro’s successful takedown of the brutal US supported Batista regime. I welcomed the news that 60 years of US exploitation of Cuba following our takeover of Cuba from Spain in 1898 had ended. Sadly, Ike rescinded his initial outreach to Castro within a year over US obsession in destroying any popular left wing government seeking to uplift its people suffering under colonialism.
My visit greatly expanded all I’d been studying about Cuba since 1959. It inspired me to develop a talk entitled ‘US Cuban Relations 1898 to Present: What They Didn’t Teach Us in School’ which I’ve presented many times. I end the talk imploring attendees to stay informed, support end to America’s cruel, heatless embargo, and visit Cuba to see for yourself its beauty and the need to end senseless US cruelty.
Alas, at next presentation I’ll drop the third request they visit Cuba to see for themselves its beauty and its people. The current depraved US administration is making Cuba unlivable for its 11 million citizens and any tourist who dares visit.
Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition Glen Ellyn IL
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And Australian politicians think that the USA (United States of Apartheid) will treat Australia any differently should our politicians grow sufficient political testicles to stand up to the geriatric demented PPOTUS (Pederast Protector of the United States)??
Trump has achieved regime change in Venezuela, is aiming at the same thing in Cuba and Iran and seems to expect to take Greenland which would mean toppling the Danish government.
It’s not clear what Trump’s ultimate objective is, unlike Hitler he doesn’t appear to want world domination although that’s not out of the question.
He will need to neuter democracy in the US to reach his goals and he seems well on his way to doing that.
I heard somebody from the Liberal Right suggesting that Australia should invite him here for a royal visit so that we can pledge our allegiance – I hope sincerely that they were joking as we have standards and Trump doesn’t measure up.
What is it with USA and Cuba? OK, in the 1950s Castro lead a rebellion against Battista who was a front for US Mafia activities in gambling, prostitution and drug running. Many of Florida’s elite enjoyed naughty weekends in Havana but Castro put an end to that. And…, in the 1960s there was the fiasco whereby Khruschev placed nuke/missiles on Cuba but that was short-lived and of no further consequence. Since then every US President, (except JFK – that is why they killed him), has been possessed with destroying Cuba with the vain thought that Cubans want to be Americans. Cuba is no threat to USA – they just want to be Cubans and live their own lives. USA was at war with Germany and Japan but USA does not sanction them or attempt to destroy German or Japanese economies. So what is it with Cuba?
Mediocrates, four words suffice. America’s paranoia about communism.
It’s not just Cuba he is trashing. The whole world is sadder and more disappointed at politicians and life in general.
If the world does have any history from now on Trump will go down as the most despicable character to ever rise to the top.
@ Mediocrates: Uhm ….. JFK was assassinated for a number of reasons, ALL of them internal to the USA (United States of Apartheid). The assassination executor was an FBI agent who only joined the Presidential Security team on the morning of the Dallas drive. There was no love lost between the cross-dressing J Edgar Hoover and either of the Kennedys, who used the FBI to ”clean up” and ”sanitise” their unsavoury dealings. JFK’s brain was removed by surgeons post-shooting to remove the evidence of dum-dum bullets only used by FBI security teams; no brain, no evidence, no sensible reason to remove.
A main reason was JFK was questioning the push from various American quarters to ”invade Vietnam” and start the unholy US v Vietnam Imperialist War that cost about 70,000+ lives of US servicemen, left 100,000+ with PTSD, and created HUGE PROFITS for the US military armaments industry. The old ”military industrial complex” that Eisenhower warned America about when he stood down from the Presidency.
Let the record show that the Vietnamese thrashed the US forces eventually chasing them out of Saigon from the roof-top of the US Embassy in helicopters.
The long overdue Castro revolution removed a brutal US puppet dictator who was protecting US investments in agricultural industries, supplying various American markets with fruit & vegetables at huge profit margins by paying the Cuban workers as little as possible.
Much of the anti-Cuba American policy came from this family who were represented in successive governments during and after the revolution.
Meanwhile Myer Lanski ”oversaw” the brothels, gaming and associated Mafia interests, secure in the knowledge that J Edgar Hoover would NOT interfere because Lanski held some pics of Hoover cross-dressing, a social ”sin” in the 30s & 40s.
The CIA unsuccessfully attempted to disrupt and overthrow the Castro & later Cuban governments with the Bay of Pigs ”invasion” among others.
Obviously the success of the Castro government resulted in support from other non-American aligned countries like, Russia, PRC China, while the Chauvez Venezuelan government supplied fossil fuels. In return, Cuba trained medical doctors at cost and provided doctors to third world countries ignored by Western countries. There was also military support to some foreign countries.
Michael Moore is one of his films notes that a person could get trained in medicine in Cuba for free but pay through the nose for inferior training in the American university system.
Many Central & South American countries drew strength from the Cuba situation, resulting in the Chilean socialist Allende government being democratically, then overthrown by a CIA operation funded by US owned corporations.
The CIA was responsible for the capture and execution of Che Guevara, a senior lieutenant to Castro.
@Canguro “America’s paranoia about communism.”
Strange how GOP and Trump don’t acknowledge their socialism for the Oligarchs and uber wealthy!