What started as a medical mystery in Cuba is fast developing into a diplomatic scandal that may damage improved relations between the USA and Cuba.
Donald Trump who did not hide his hostility to the historic move by President Obama in 2014 to ease diplomatic tension between the two cold war adversaries is jumping at the opportunity to make real his campaign rhetoric against Cuba.
He had called Fidel Castro “a brutal dictator” during his campaigns for the 2016 elections and promised that “all of the concessions that Barak Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them, and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands.”
It is therefore no surprise that even when the cause of the illness that has affected 21 diplomats in the American Embassy in Havana – who are afflicted with hearing loss and cognitive difficulties – is yet to be established, the US under President Trump is using it as a reason to reverse the gains in the relations between the two countries.
With no evidence that the Americans were deliberately attacked, the Trump administration spontaneously expelled two Cuban diplomats over the illness and the State Department issued an advisory that Americans should not travel to Cuba. In a statement, Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson repeated the American assertion which has not been substantiated that the embassy personnel were deliberately targeted. But he did not blame Cuba, and even his officials held out the possibility that a third party might have been responsible.
“Cuba has told us it will continue to investigate these attacks, and we will continue to cooperate with them in this effort,” Mr. Tillerson said. Even with such reassuring words from Tillerson, the actions of the US government since the outbreak of the mysterious disease has been decidedly hostile.
Because some of the attacks occurred in hotels where US State Department employees were temporarily staying, officials said they worried that tourists and others could be affected.
Even with assurances from the Cuban government that they could and were willing to protect American diplomats, the State Department announced that it was withdrawing all nonessential personnel from the embassy.
The Trump administration, which has already expelled two Cuban diplomats over the strange illnesses, is considering further retaliatory steps. All these rash steps were taken regardless of the reaction of the Cuban President Raul Castro’s surprisingly open and cooperative attitude in his response to the crisis. He went as far as inviting the FBI to Havana to investigate the attack so as to substantiate his claim that Cuba had nothing to do with what was suspected to be an attack on U.S. diplomats.
The Cuban government expanded the frontiers of cooperation with their response of dismay even as they promised to continue to cooperate in the investigation, calling the US decisions on the matter as a “hasty” one that “will affect the bilateral relations.”
Given the positive reaction of President Rauf Castro and that of his government, it is abundantly clear that the steps taken by the US government are in line with Donald Trumps prejudiced and predetermined views on what the US policy to Cuba should be. In fact they represent a dangerous trend in Trumps disposition to foreign policy issues as they affect other flash points in global affairs be they in Iran, North Korea, Europe and Africa. Trump has threatened to repudiate the multilateral agreement that was signed by the US, China, France, Russia, Germany and the UK brokered by Obama with Iran on nuclear weapons. Over the weekend, he said he would not recertify the deal, opening another window of enmity with a strong Middle East country and other international players who endorsed the deal. His decision has already sparked reactions from the countries who signed the deal with some analyst saying the US under Trump is behaving like a rogue state.
The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), backed by then-President Barack Obama, imposed a series of internationally enforced safeguards on Iran’s nuclear activities — inspections, monitoring, dismantling of some facilities — meant to prevent Tehran from developing the world’s most devastating weapons. In return, the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia eased economic sanctions that had been imposed on Iran over its alleged pursuit of nuclear arms.He has gloated over Brexit and even with his closest buddy Putin of Russia, he does not seem to be on the same page on issues in Syria and Cuba. In North Korea, the twitter happy President has met his equal in a leader who is happy launching rockets and hauling insults. On Africa because of his hatred for Obama and contempt for the black race, he advocated during his campaigns for presidency that African countries should be recolonised. Today, as President of the USA, he hardly ever mentions the continent of Africa which ranks lowest in his foreign policy calculations.
Given his bellicose stand on all issues in these troubled parts of the world, it would appear he came into office “in search of enemies” as excellently argued by John Stockwell the CIA chief of station in South Africa in his book by that title during the cold war years of the 70’s. America couldn’t have given the world a more dangerous President in the post-cold war era than Donald Trump.[myad]
