In this season of “anything goes” which is the U.S. Presidential election campaign, satisfying interest group lobbies is key, since they can play a decisive role in mobilizing the vote for the candidate that best responds to their demands.
Some practices, however, are as laughable as they are serious, as is the case with current President and candidate for re-election, Donald Trump, who reaching new heights of the ridiculous and the shameful, once again kowtows to the anti-Cuban mafia in South Florida, which he apparently believes can help him win the vote in the state. This time he celebrated, at the White House, the support he received from the ultimate symbol of imperialist defeat in the Americas, the 2506 Brigade, routed at Playa Girón. He promised the aging members of the group his firm solidarity with their cause of “freedom” in Cuba.
During his speech “in honor of Bay of Pigs veterans,” Trump announced new sanctions against the island’s people, which were immediately denounced by Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in the same explicit, straightforward language he used at the United Nations, “The empire has announced new measures that violate the rights of Cubans and also those of U.S. citizens. Its cruel, criminal policy will be defeated by our people who will never renounce their sovereignty,” he tweeted September 23.
Trump announced that the Treasury Department is modifying regulations governing implementation of the blockade against Cuba, prohibiting imports of rum and cigars by U.S. visitors to the island, as well as stays here in hotels or “properties controlled by the Cuban government, functionaries of the government or the Communist Party of Cuba and their close family members.”
The State Department created a list of more than 430 facilities that allegedly fall into this category, with which travel agents and tourism companies may not make reservations. The Treasury additionally eliminated a previous policy that allowed authorization of travel to Cuba for the purpose of participation in or organization of conferences, seminars, exhibitions, or sporting events.
The new regulations, effective September 24, are the latest to be tightened in the campaign of maximum pressure being waged by the U.S. government, that issues a new economic sanction against Cuba practically every week.
The stars and mercenaries of anti-Cuban U.S. policy present at the announcement applauded fervently for the man who bragged in a tweet, just a few days earlier, “Remember! Miami Cubans gave me the Bay of Pigs award.”
Along with the fake prize – which news agencies like CNN and NBC, as well as several figures in the Cuban emigre community describe as previously non-existent – included in the evening was the promise to finish off the Revolution, along with comical staged photographs that turned the festivities for the defeat at Girón into another unfathomable chapter in an ongoing farce.
Source: Granma.
