Just before Easter the Trump Administration announced multiple new sanctions on Cuba. In doing so, senior US officials made clear that Washington was not just trying to break Havana’s close economic and political ties with Venezuela but intended the measures to bring about fundamental political change.
It is a position that stands in stark contrast to that of the EU, Canada, Mexico and most other nations worldwide that believe the only way to encourage change in Cuba is through dialogue, calibrated support and the exploration of the potential that generational change offers.
Speaking on April 17 to Bay of Pigs veterans in Miami, the US National Security Adviser, John Bolton, could not have been clearer about US intentions. US policy in the Americas, he observed in a speech high on aggressive rhetoric against Cuba, now ends with the removal of communism and socialism from the hemisphere. “We proudly proclaim for all to hear: the Monroe Doctrine is alive and well,” he declared in remarks that anticipated “the coming of the first free hemisphere in human history.”