achieved the imaginable (kidnapped Nicolás Maduro) and the unimaginable (the Chavista vice president, , assumed the Presidency of the “Bolivarian Republic”, promising to prioritize “one with the “). Vice turning coat is nothing new, but the Bolivarian calm was surprising. In one of her first acts, Delcy Rodríguez expelled two French diplomats after President Emmanuel Macron expressed his preference for the oppositionist, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the wake of Maduro’s capture, Trump threatened Colombian President Gustavo Petro, claimed Greenland again and released a cryptic phrase: it’s not worth an invasion because of its communist regime. For 67 years, American presidents have thought that the Cuban government was about to fall. Fidel died, and his brother Raul turned 94 years old.
Colombia has oil, and Colombia has a left-wing president, but the crown jewel Trump seeks is Cuba. Overthrowing the Castro brothers’ regime is something that several American presidents have pursued. A communist regime 145 km from Florida justifies ill will, but for Trump, a real estate businessman, there lies a treasure, greater than all the pirate booty that thrived in the Caribbean in past centuries.
Cuba Libre hosts real estate estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars. Free from Castroism, American and Cuban businesspeople would have an open door for win-win operations. The families that lost properties after being compensated would win, the families that live in confiscated properties would win, going to properties with deeds issued by a notary. Entrepreneurs interested in doing real estate business on the island would win. Americans interested in buying a sunny house an hour and a half away would finally win.
Trump has his eye on Cuba because of the political prestige that the triumph would give him and the business that would come with it. When he says that the regime is ready “to fall”, he is certainly based on information from his secret services. In recent weeks he has given several clues showing that he was plotting something for Maduro. It did what it did.
A Cuban project would also please Marco Rubio, his Secretary of State, a Florida politician, son of Cubans who left the island. There was a time when he said that his parents fled Castroism. It was a lie, they left Cuba during the government of Sergeant Fulgencio Batista, deposed by Fidel in 1959.
Cuba is a toxic topic for American presidents. On November 22, 1963, the head of special operations at the Central Intelligence Agency was meeting in Paris with a Cuban who would kill Fidel. The conversation was interrupted by news coming from Dallas. John Kennedy was replaced by the vice president. Lyndon Johnson died in 1973 convinced that there was a Cuban hand in Lee Oswald’s shooting.
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