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September 19: How Donald Trump’s Company
Violated the United States Embargo Against Cuba
A company controlled by
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for president, secretly conducted
business in Communist Cuba during Fidel Castro’s presidency despite strict
American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal, according to interviews
with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings.
Documents show that the Trump company spent a minimum of $68,000 for its 1998
foray into Cuba at a time when the corporate expenditure of even a penny in the
Caribbean country was prohibited without U.S. government approval. But the
company did not spend the money directly. Instead, with Trump’s knowledge,
executives funneled the cash for the Cuba trip through an American consulting
firm called Seven Arrows Investment and Development Corp. Once the business
consultants traveled to the island and incurred the expenses for the venture,
Seven Arrows instructed senior officers with Trump’s company—then called Trump
Hotels & Casino Resorts—how to make it appear legal by linking it after the fact
to a charitable effort.
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/14/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059.html
June 16:
Trump unveils new restrictions on travel, business with Cuba ... the latest attempt by the Trump
administration to chip away at Obama's legacy. ... "The policy isn't going to do
anything new," a source from the office of one Cuban American lawmaker
complained. "It's pretty weak."
Trump's new
policy will directly limit commerce with GAESA, the Cuban military's business
and commerce wing. The company is run by Gen. Luis Alberto Rodríguez
López-Callejas, Raul Castro's son-in-law.
November 8:What Trump’s Cuba crackdown
will look like
The days of Americans legally staying at Ernest Hemingway’s Old Havana haunt,
the Hotel Ambos Mundos, or making purchases at Havana’s only luxury shopping
arcade will be over under new regulations the Trump administration issued
Wednesday as part of a crackdown on U.S. business and travel to Cuba.
December 19: Cuba boosts Russia links as
Trump's America disconnects from neighbour
President sees US reverse its policy of slowly thawing relations with Caribbean
island
A number of Russian
state companies are in the process of negotiating deals with the Caribbean
island as it seeks to fill the void left by other trading allies.
April 16: U.S.-Cuba
relations are about to get worse
The orchestrated
presidential succession underway this week in Cuba, from Raúl Castro to his
likely replacement Miguel Díaz-Canel, is prompting a new round of speculation
about how the Trump administration should react to the long-awaited departure of
the Castro brothers from power. Judging from the heated rhetoric between the
U.S. and Cuban delegations at last week’s Summit of the Americas, relations are
likely to go from bad to worse.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2018/04/16/u-s-cuban-relations-are-about-to-get-worse/
April 16:
Before Trump was anti-Cuba, he wanted
to open a hotel in Havana
“We do not want U.S. dollars to prop up a
military monopoly that exploits and abuses the citizens of Cuba,”
Trump declared in June 2017. “We will enforce the ban on tourism. We will
enforce the embargo.”
May 1: Rubio recommends onetime Trump critic
for Cuba broadcast job
Sen.
Marco Rubio
is backing former Miami mayor and Cuban exile leader Tomas Regalado to lead the
troubled federal office that oversees Radio and TV Martí in its attempts to
counter Cuba’s state-run media on the island.
October 20:
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley is demanding the U.N.
Secretary General take action against the Bolivian and Cuban delegations after
they disrupted a U.S. event to draw attention to the plight of political
prisoners in Cuba -- damaging U.N. property in the process.
February 26:
Cubans will head to the polls on Sunday to vote in a
referendum on a draft constitution to update its 1976 charter on the heels
of significant economic reforms on the island over the past several years.
The new constitution,
approved in the National Assembly late last year after a popular
consultation, enshrines private property and promotes foreign investment. State
enterprise remains the cornerstone of the economy, though the new constitution
dictates state-owned companies have autonomous management.
