How can POTUS Donnie say “now we hold the cards” in concerns over Cuba when they can just walk away and deal with Europe or China. There were many GOP’ers that wanted to open more, not too mention the Travel/Hotel/Construction industry salivating for wider paths of opportunity.. oh don’t give me the “humanitarian” cry because the US deals with worse – PB/TK
Obama sparked a tidal wave of change in Cuba. Trump’s new policy misses the point – By Patrick Symmes / June 16 2017
The Rolling Stones played in Cuba last May, after decades in which their music was either banned or ignored by the tyrants in Havana. They were right to be afraid. As crowds surged out of the concert grounds, a dozen young men began a call-and-response chant: “Who made this possible? Obama made this possible!”
Former President Barack Obama didn’t really summon Keith Richards, or turn Cuba overnight into a paradise of freedom. But emotion, and the momentum behind such symbolic moments, is powerful on an isolated island. President Trump’s strident announcement in Miami, by contrast, included a promise to peel back parts of the “terrible and misguided deal” Obama struck with Cuba. The president instead asked Cuba to “come to the table with a new agreement that is in the best interest of their own people,” but his restrictions will likely stop real progress on the island, even if they were greeted in Florida with shouts of “We love you, Donald!”
Tump talked tough, saying that “we now hold the cards” in the relationship with Cuba, but he may have just traded those cards away. His speech was tough, demanding free elections and the return of American fugitives, but his actual changes are just partial restrictions and minor retrenchments — a nothingburger, compared to what Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and other hardline Cuban-American voices had requested. Trump’s real policy is obvious for what it does not do. U.S.-based airlines will continue to fly to Cuba, American cruise ships can continue to call in Cuban harbors and there will be no return to the “wet foot/dry foot” policy that allowed Cubans immediate and unrestricted immigration if they succeeded reaching United States soil. The biggest change limits Americans to one visit per year, with fewer ways to justify that travel.
Continue to yahoo.com article: https://www.yahoo.com/news/obama-sparked-tidal-wave-change-cuba-trumps-new-policy-misses-point-191214413.html
