Clinton, Trump, Cuba and the 2016 Election

Trumps words and actions versus Clinton's words and actions on Cuba, the rule of law and the 2016 election

The Cuba embargo has become an issue in the 2016 election

In June of 2014 the New York Post reported on Hillary Clinton’s address to the Council of Foreign Relations while promoting her book, “Hard Choices” where she declared “The embargo is Castro’s best friend,” and that the regime was using it as an excuse” to blames all of its problems on the United States.  

In a previous book, Living History, she describes an exchange with Raul Castro’s wife in 1995 on pages 314-315 offered a different perspective: “I climbed aboard the bus and spotted an empty seat next to an amiable-looking lady with white hair. She looked familiar but I couldn’t remember who she was. Probing for clues, I asked her how long it had taken her to reach Paraguay (which would give me an idea of her country’s geographical location) and how things were going in her homeland:  “Fine,” she said stone-faced. “Except for the embargo.” I had managed to seat myself next to Vilma Espin, Fidel Castro’s sister-in-law who was representing him at the Conference.”

The dictatorship viscerally wants all sanctions eliminated in order to be completely legitimized internationally and to obtain additional financial credits. The claim that the Castro regime wants the embargo to continue is an absurdity when one considers that all the spies for the Cuban dictatorship uncovered by U.S. counter-intelligence were pushing an anti-embargo agenda within the U.S. government, academy and media.

Secretary Clinton might want to ask herself why her brother in law Roger Clinton was paid $30,000 by Cuba Travel Services in 2000 to lobby his brother, President Clinton to loosen government restrictions on travel to Cuba. Roger Clinton may have violated the law when he failed to register as a lobbyist in this matter.

A close Clinton ally, Terry McAuliffe, in 2010 traveled to Cuba to do business with the dictatorship, but could not produce the paperwork with the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to obtain a license to travel to Cuba, saying they no longer had copies. At the time when journalists requested copies of the paperwork from OFAC they were told by an OFAC spokesman that "the office does not comment on specific licenses."  Apparently an exception was made with Donald Trump.

When Secretary Clinton on July 31, 2015 went to Florida International University to make a speech in which she called for the lifting of the embargo on the Castro regime stating “Engagement is not a gift to the Castros – it’s a threat to the Castros. An American embassy in Havana isn’t a concession – it’s a beacon. Lifting the embargo doesn’t set back the advance of freedom – it advances freedom where it is most desperately needed,” she failed to make a simple gesture. A few hundred yards from where the former Secretary of State spoke there was a monument to the thousands of victims of the Castro regime, but she did not visit it.

History contradicts her analysis. The only time the Castro regime permitted the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Cuban prisons, and Amnesty International to visit Cuba was in the late 1980s after Ronald Reagan took a hard line on human rights violations in Cuba at the United Nations, rolled back the Carter Administration’s 1977 opening of the travel embargo in 1982, toughened economic sanctions, and began broadcasting uncensored news to Cuba over Radio Marti.  

The Clinton Administration engaged in unilateral concessions to the Castro regime and ended up with a mass exodus in 1994, a worsening human rights situation in Cuba, four young humanitarians murdered in an act of state terrorism over international airspace ordered by Fidel and Raul Castro on February 24, 1996. Despite all of this Bill Clinton refused to enforce the law tightening sanctions in 1996 in response to the shoot down, shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and opened up trade with the Castro regime. In 2015 former President Clinton warmly greeted and met with Raul Castro despite his role in the murder of American citizens.

Some of what Newsweek missed in their Cuba reporting and the 2016 election

Meanwhile the Obama policy that Hillary Clinton championed in 2014 and 2015 has not had the desired results.  Human rights violations are at record levels in Cuba, there is a mass exodus of Cubans fleeing the island not seeing a future there  with the U.S. legitimizing the regime and assisting in a generational succession, and the U.S. is more isolated than ever in Latin America with its embrace of the Castro regime alienating it from democrats. The Colombian peace initiative, backed by the Obama administration, mediated by Raul Castro in Havana was rejected by the Colombian people in a national vote. The situation in Venezuela has descended into crisis as Nicaragua slides into dictatorship.

Not to mention that what Secretary Clinton and the Obama administration call “engagement” and advancing freedom” in practice has meant American companies such as Starwood trafficking in stolen properties, and Cuban Americans discriminated against by American corporations such as Carnival and American Airlines to satisfy the whims of the Castro dictatorship. Unfortunately opening up business with the Castro dictatorship has been a long term objective of Hillary Clinton most likely pushed on her by her donors. 

These positions have had consequences in the 2016 election in Florida after Mr. Trump switched positions on Cuba policy, abandoning his previous support of the Obama administration in this area.

Young millennials at Florida International University in Miami were outside picketing against Secretary Clinton protesting her anti-embargo speech on July 31, 2015 and harassed by the police, who did not want the youthful protesters to be visible, and tried unsuccessfully to corral them in a designated protest zone. Nevertheless an FIU poll appeared on September 14, 2016 claiming that a majority of Cuban Americans no longer supported the embargo.

Two days later on September 16, 2016 Donald Trump announced that he would roll back the unilateral concessions made by the Obama administration and tighten the economic embargo if the human rights situation didn’t dramatically improve and all political prisoners freed. Havana rejected the offer. Polls began to tighten in Florida and crowds of Cuban Americans met with candidate Trump in Little Havana chanting his name. It was a good start after spending more than a year on the same page as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on Cuba policy.

One sided hit piece on Trump ignored Clinton's Castro connections

This appears to have led the Clinton campaign to mount an offensive to block what inroads Mr. Trump could make in the Cuban community that could make the difference in a tight race in Florida.

Less than two weeks later on September 29^th Newsweek broke a story that Trump may have violated the embargo in 1998 and Hillary Clinton began attacking him with radio advertisements, without mentioning her own anti-embargo position. Nor did she mention that Trump enterprises in 1998 like many businesses today hired a consulting firm to explore opportunities in Cuba because the Clinton administration was encouraging it at the time. Mr. Trump began to lose ground in Florida to Secretary Clinton when he did not provide context to the events of 1998 in a sustained manner. Meanwhile staunch Cuba embargo supporter Senator Marco Rubio is doing much better in the polls.

All of this may explain why many Cuban exile leaders have not taken the red meat dished out by the Clinton Campaign. At the same time Cuban Americans maintain a healthy dose of skepticism with both campaigns, but unlike Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton has a track record not just of words but also actions that could impact her support among Cuban Americans, but this would require a Trump campaign in Florida that could seize the initiative and so far that has not happened. Meanwhile the members of the Latin American Builders Association have endorsed Secretary Clinton despite the above facts.

However, this obvious manipulation by the Clinton campaign can be quickly neutralized by the Trump campaign by a sustained advertising campaign highlighting on Spanish radio and TV in the South Florida market the contrast between him and Secretary Clinton on this issue. This would place Secretary Clinton in the unenviable position of either continuing to support the Obama administration Cuba policy's many failures or distancing herself from it with a pledge to empower Cubans and not the Castro dictatorship as the current policy does. 

In the post-mortem of this election the Cuban American vote in South Florida will be worthy of study and analysis.

Newsweek's bait and switch on Cuba in the 2016 election

The ugly truth

Bill Clinton shook hands with Fidel Castro in 2000 and Raul Castro in 2015

Kurt Eichenwald's article " How Donald Trump’s Company Violated the United States Embargo Against Cuba" is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," in terms of the main charge, carried in the report's title, but requires adding a few more facts to provide context and meaning.  Chris White in Law Newz characterizes Trump's dealings in Cuba as "another media distortion" and a "non-scandal" and one should read Mauricio Claver-Carone of Cuba Democracy Advocates analysis of the Trump non-controversy.

President Bill Clinton in 1992 ran  as a "hardliner" on Cuba policy supporting the Cuban Democracy Act also known as the Torricelli Bill. A bill that President Bush had initially refused to sign, but relented once Cuban exiles got Candidate Clinton's backing. As was the case with his approach to China once he got into office he did an about face.

First, President Bill Clinton between 1993 and 1996 pursued a policy of engagement with the Castro regime. In 1994 the Clinton administration initiated regular contacts between the U.S. military and the  Castro regime's military that included joint exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. This was  confirmed by Raul Castro in a December 2008 interview with Sean Penn where he stated "we've had permanent contact with the US military, by secret agreement, since 1994." Not only contacts but joint military exercises according to General Raul Castro:

"It is based on the premise that we would discuss issues only related to Guantánamo. On February 17, 1993, following a request by the United States to discuss issues related to buoy locators for ship navigations into the bay, was the first contact in the history of the revolution. Between March 4 and July 1, the Rafters Crisis took place. A military-to-military hot line was established, and on May 9, 1995, we agreed to monthly meetings with primaries from both governments. To this day, there have been 157 meetings, and there is a taped record of every meeting. The meetings are conducted on the third Friday of every month. We alternate locations between the American base at Guantánamo and in Cuban-held territory. We conduct joint emergency-response exercises. For example, we set a fire, and American helicopters bring water from the bay, in concert with Cuban helicopters.

( Despite his rhetoric George W. Bush continued the practice during his presidency.) During this period of "constructive engagement" brutal massacres of Cubans such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down took place. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters. Since it occurred while President Clinton was seeking re-election and his only options were to do nothing, military action, or toughen sanctions he opted for the latter signing the Cuban Libertad Act of 1996. 



This ended his first round of normalizing relations which lasted less than two years. Thus Eichenwald's reporting on the Clinton administration's Cuba policy is incomplete when he writes:

"The first signs that American policy might be shifting came in March 1998, when President Clinton announced several major changes. Among them: resuming charter flights between the United States and Cuba for authorized Americans, streamlining procedures for exporting medical equipment and allowing Cubans in the U.S. to send small amounts of cash to their relatives on the island."

Nor does Eichenwald mention what happened after 1999. Bill Clinton was the first sitting president to shake hands with Fidel Castro on September 6, 2000 and one month later he signed  Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TEFRA) that opened trade between the Castro regime and U.S. companies. Opposition in congress led to that trade not being subsidized by U.S. taxpayers by through government backed credits ensuring that business would be cash and carry.

At the time of its passage,  Fidel Castro said "his country would not buy 'even a grain of rice' under the current terms."  The Cuban dictator ended up buying much more than a grain of rice under those terms. Between 2000 and 2016 American companies sold $5.2 billion dollars in goods to the Castro regime on a cash and carry basis.

Trade with the Castro regime peaked at $711.5 million in 2008 under the Bush administration with sanctions that protected U.S. taxpayers from picking up the tab while under the Obama administration's Cuba policy of unilateral concessions trade collapsed to $180.3 million in 2015 and in January 2016 the White House opened up financing for the notorious deadbeat nation. This may be great for the Chamber of Commerce but it is terrible for the American taxpayer.

Young Cuban Americans picketed Clinton, protested Cuban embassy opening (2015)

Donald Trump explored opportunities for business in Cuba in 1998 and a year later in The Miami Herald explained why he would not do it. When President Obama announced on December 17, 2014 the normalization of relations with the Castro regime Trump gave his lukewarm support saying "I think it's fine" but characteristically that we "should have made a stronger deal."

On this blog I explained repeatedly why Trump's echoing of Obama and Clinton's Cuba policy would cost him and the Republican Party the Cuban American vote.  This would not be the first time that Republican's abandoned an anti-communist position supported by an ethnic group only to lose their support. This happened with Chinese Americans in the 1990s.

Only 35% of Cuban Americans were supporting Trump before he indicated on September 16, 2016 that if elected he would rollback Obama's normalization of relations with the Castro regime if human rights were not dramatically improved in Cuba. It will be interesting to see what are the new polling numbers for Mr. Trump among Cuban Americans after his mid-September announcement on Cuba policy.

Yesterday, on this blog the question was raised if the Obama Administration's Cuba policy legacy project would throw Clinton under the bus? Reading today's desperate piece in Newsweek Magazine the answer appears to be yes. Remember both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama maintained a pro-embargo position when running for president and did well in Florida.