Trump’s America – Episode # 22 – Trump’s Caribbean Fantasies

Hey Trump, I’m Dead. Wake Up!

By Arthur Piccolo

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. June 16, 2017:  While the never ending comedy the Russian nonsense goes on and on ..

So does nonsense of consequence go on with Trump as President. Donald’s latest target is Cuba today – Friday, June 16th – but we could not wait for his speech in Florida for my Thursday evening dead line for Trump’s America …

We’ll tell you what he will say minus all the usual Trump bluster.

Friday, so called President Donald Trump will be SUCKING up to  Senator Marco Rubio, aka “Little Marco,” and his campaign financiers – Right Wing Rich Autocratic Cuban expatriates who needless to say are also big Trump supporters like all the other rich right wing autocrats all over America.

Most of all, we get to see STUPID and Hypocritical President Donald Trump yet again here in Trump’s America. Trump’s mindless attitude toward Cuba reflects his larger brain dead approach to the entire Caribbean region.

Let’s begin with Cuba – since it’s in Trump’s focus right now.

Let me bring in a new media partner today – Politico – to spread around the acclaim of being featured in Trump’s America and  to tell you what is going on with Trump going to Florida on Friday as well as surprise – a “good” excuse for him to make another weekend trip to Mar-a- Lago to see all his rich friends who are members of his exclusive club and to play more golf.

Here is what Politico reports Thursday. ..
“Making good on a campaign pledge, President Donald Trump on Friday will announce a significant rollback of former President Barack Obama’s accord with Cuba by …

1) clearly banning tourist travel to the island,

2) restating the importance of the 56-year-old trade embargo with the island

3) instituting a broad prohibition on financial transactions with companies significantly controlled by the Communist government’s military, according to a draft version of the directive obtained by POLITICO.”

Yes, it could have been worse and why isn’t it? Because NONE of this make any sense – nor is it in the interest of the U.S. but Trump had to placate his so called base of RICH ex-Cuban whackos and of course Little Marco.

Fortunately, while not doing even more damage, Trump does enough to set back American interests and give Cuban reactionaries in Cuba reason to keep bashing America and repressing their own people rather than encouraging free enterprise in Cuba and more contacts with the United States.

More from Politico  …

“My administration’s policy will be guided by key U.S. national security interests and solidarity with the Cuban people,” the draft of the five-point, eight-page Presidential Policy Directive reads. “I will seek to promote a stable, prosperous, and free country for the Cuban people. To that end, we must ensure that U.S. funds are not channeled to a regime that has failed to meet the most basic requirements of a free and just society.”

Yes, more Trump TRASH talk. We get it every day about something or other. Today it is Cuba’s turn ….

So what else does it mean as Politico reports ..

“For American tourists, Trump’s policy means that the days of drinking Havana Club rum in a Havana club will likely soon be over.”

“Under a strict interpretation of the directive, an American probably can’t even stay in an Old Havana hotel or use a tour service because they’re run or controlled by Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A., or GAESA, the business arm of the Cuban military that controls a vast swath of the country’s economy, including most of Cuba’s foreign-run hotels. The prohibition includes any subsidiaries or affiliated companies, along with certain other state-controlled entities.”

Does that sound good to anybody? The “big bad” Cuban military, NO threat of any kind to the United States or our interests at the same time, our Hypocrite in Chief is the BIG fan of all kinds of repressive regimes all over the world who are a threat to American interests. But Cuba is “different.”

Let’s get to the corrupt heart of Trump’s Cuban “strategy from Politico …

“A Bay of Pigs veterans group endorsed Trump a week before the election. In return, people familiar with the president’s decision-making said, Trump wanted to make good on his promise to crack down on Cuba.”

Luckily ‘businessman’ Trump who surely sees potential profits for the family business in Cuba selling naming rights to all kinds of places Trump this and Trump that in the future,  is not banning all travel or all business with Cuba and he is NOT closing the new America embassy in Cuba but neither is he naming an Ambassador to Cuba which would be useful.

NOT naming an Ambassador is one more example of STUPID Trump even in pursuit of his repressive Cuban policies. He could name a right wing whacko as Ambassador who would advance them. Thank God he did not.

Most of all NEVER forget the far larger embarrassment of the long American EMBARGO on Cuba which Trump of course fully supports and is the ONLY reason Cuba is still an “enemy” of the U.S. and why we are not benefiting mightily from a NEW Cuba. Only North Korea has an comparable U.S. embargo imposed on it. Cuba treated like North Korea!!

Time to leave Cuba for now – I am sure we will return here in Trump’s America even if Donald tries to stop us – -and now visit the wider Caribbean. Let’s stop close by in Haiti another Trump failure of a different kind.

I’m going to bring in another very rare mea partner The Economist and their recent story about Haiti “A time to Sow” … a NEW future for Haiti ….

Let’s set the stage what has Trump done for Haitians so far even after the Haitian American community strongly hacked him for President. Trump has done nothing except very temporarily halt the deportation of thousands of Haitian in the United States who were allowed in to the U.S. for humanitarian reasons after the devastating Haitian earthquake.

Let’s get to the Economist article, June 8, 2017, which speaks volumes with its lack of reference to President Trump or his Administration ..

“Jovenel Moïse, Haiti’s president since February, who has vowed to make rural areas more productive. That he is actually trying to keep this promise is startling in a country notorious for bad government. Haiti’s long-run economic record is atrocious. In countries that were as poor as Haiti in 1981, GDP per person rose by half on average by 2012; in Haiti it dropped by 40%. After an earthquake in 2010 that killed more than 200,000 people and cost 120% of GDP, foreign governments and NGOs donated $10bn, about 150% of GDP.”

Haiti is the POOREST county in the Western Hemisphere to keep perspective.

Back to the Economist …

“Mr. Moïse governs from the rump of the presidential palace, whose stately central dome collapsed and has not yet been rebuilt. Nonetheless, he is the first president since 2010 who can move beyond a single-minded focus on reconstruction to devise a new long-term development strategy for the poorest country in the Americas. “I have to deliver results so that people understand that politics is relevant to their lives,” he says.”

“So far, he has focused on what he knows best: the needs of the countryside. “We have to feed the people first,” he says. “That’s why agriculture is my priority.” But growing more rice and bananas will not lift Haiti out of poverty. Mr. Moïse is casting about for new ideas in a country where few policies have worked as intended.”

In other words Haiti’s NEW President may finally be the leader Haiti has long needed. The article goes on to detail his plans and hopes fir the future. The problem is there is NO mention at all about the U.S. and specifically the Trump Administration doing anything at all to assist him or Haiti when it would be so so easy for our government to assist this Haitian reformer.

In its own way it reflects Trump’s STUPIDITY as does the “new” Cuba policy. Let’s conclude this episode extending Trump’s STUPIDITY throughout the Caribbean with yet a third media partner to this episode.

Bloomberg Business Week and its June 12, 2017 article titled “ The Red Tide Sweeping the Caribbean.”  My readers should be delighted I am so well and widely read in order to serve my readers and costing them nothing.

To the BW article!! It begins …     ( SURPRISE )

“Russia and China are building influence in the U.S.’s backyard”

“As supplies of crude from its old ally Venezuela dwindled last year, Cuba began turning out the lights in government offices and shuttering oil refineries. Then Havana turned to another old friend for help: Russia. In early May the Kremlin sent a tanker full of fuel across the Atlantic as part of a deal to keep the communist island running for three months. It was the first such shipment Cuba had received in years from its former benefactor, but it wasn’t the only sign Russia has returned to the Caribbean Basin, a region it had all but abandoned after the Cold War.”

“China also has been building up its presence in the Caribbean. Chinese companies and the government have poured $6 billion into the area since 2012, according to a tally of large investments by the American Enterprise Institute. Beijing’s interest isn’t just economic: It wants to persuade the Dominican Republic and 10 other countries in the region to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan to curtail its rival’s role on the international stage.”

“Even before Donald Trump signaled that the U.S. would scale back its global role under his “America First” policy, China and Russia were using their size and resources to win over small, mostly poor countries with promises of aid, military support, and investments in everything from cricket stadiums to a proposed canal stretching across Nicaragua. “Both Russia and China recognize the region’s geopolitical importance due to its proximity to the U.S.,” says Evan Ellis, a professor of Latin American Studies at U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute in Carlisle, Pa.”

The article concludes …

“The bottom line Russia and China are using investments, loans, and aid to court countries in a region once considered off-limits to them.”

THE BOTTOM LINE IS …. Just like Obama but WORSE President Donald Trump is ignoring the Caribbean while Russia and China advance their interests in a region that is VITAL to the United States.

Anyone who does not understand – I have proven just how STUPID Trump is as our President in this episode. Sorry I have to say it you are as STUPID as Trump is and I refuse to believe any of my readers are that STUPID.

If any of you are I will pray for you every single day that you recover.

EDITOR’S NOTE: About The Writer: Arthur Piccolo is a professional writer and commentator and often writes about Latin America for New Americas.