This maxim fits perfectly, since just days before the vote, his admiring neighbor – Brazilian right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro – contacted Donald Trump, asking him to visit Argentina before the October elections, as a sign of support for Macri.

Along the same lines, he suggested a meeting with other right-wing Latin American figures – active in the OAS and Lima Group – and the presentation of a plan to avoid what he called the emergence of a “new Venezuela in South America.”

Such is the fear regarding the example of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, that its name is used by Bolsonaro and others of his stripe, as a regular reference in their policy of subservience to Washington.

These three characters – Trump, Bolsonaro and Macri– are trying to coordinate efforts to ensure that on October 27, the day of the Presidential elections, there will not be what has already been called “the birth of another Argentina.”

What fear motivates Bolsonaro when he asks Trump for help? It could be that he is getting ready so he has help when it’s his turn to face popular scrutiny for the second time.

The press has in fact noted that the results of the primary in Argentina left Brazilian authorities perplexed and divided on the attitude that Brazil should take from now on.

A Rio de Janeiro newspaper commented, “While President Jair Bolsonaro insists on a firm alliance with the government of Mauricio Macri, and is supporting him in the race against Alberto Fernández, military members of his cabinet and the head of the Chamber of Deputies advocate maintaining caution and acting with pragmatism.”

Bolsonaro has been very critical of former Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, denouncing her ties with the Nicolás Maduro government in Caracas, and previously with Hugo Chávez, as well as the relationship she has with Brazilian leaders Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff, of the Workers Party (PT).

But there is more: the Brazilian head of state has ignored all protocol and supported the re-election of Macri, although some of his advisors pointed out that his comments could have a negative effect, given widespread disdain for Bolsonaro in Argentina.

Macri, who after the primary defeat, is now blaming “the left” for everything bad that has happened in his country, preparing for the final stage in his campaign against Alberto and Cristina Fernández.

He is forgetting that the Kirchner years were the result of popular votes and repudiation of the fiercely neoliberal policies of then President Carlos Menem.

Macri should do something about the dire economic and social situation to which he has led the country over these last few years as President, rather than looking for help elsewhere.

Argentina is currently facing a recession, plus 22% inflation during the first half of the year, one of the highest rates in the world.

The population is suffering, among other neoliberal measures, an increase in the price of public utilities such as electricity and gas, which have experienced a cumulative increase of 1,490% in the first case and 1,297% in the second.

Meanwhile, unemployment increased from 7.1% in the first quarter of 2015 to 10.1 in the same period this year. Thirty-two percent of the population is living in poverty, and according to the Catholic University of Argentina, this includes half of all children, 10% of whom are going hungry.

It is clear that Macri’s request to the IMF, which awarded him a loan of 56 billion dollars, was of little use.

With such a measure, he has not only indebted the nation to the bone, and led the population to one of its worst crises, while becoming one of the most unpopular Presidents ever in Argentina, perhaps tied or surpassing Carlos Menem.

Oblivious to the results of his term in office, Macri intends to be re-elected as President, with the advice of Trump and Bolsonaro. The people will decide.

(Granma)

With great fanfare, the tycoon-come-president, using several of his advisors, intends to deceive the world with a formula to fully favor Israel and deny territory and freedom for the Arab population.

According to a document leaked in Tel Aviv, the deal would be a “tripartite agreement” signed between Israel, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and Hamas to establish a so-called “New Palestine” in the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip, but this would exclude Israel’s illegally built settlements, which will remain in the hands of the Zionist government.
Jerusalem would remain under Israeli control, and the Arab population that lives there would be citizens of the New Palestine. The deal represents a coup de grâce to the Palestinian right to East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, recognized by the UN and other international bodies.

According to the leak, “New Palestine” would not have an army, just a police force. A protection treaty would be signed with Israel, with Palestine having to pay for its services to defend it from any external attack. Hamas would hand all its weapons, including personal weapons, to Egyptian authorities.

I do not think it necessary to write any more on the matter to know that this so-called “Deal of the Century,” conceived by Trump, is doomed to failure.

In recent days, the Israeli army has killed more than a dozen Palestinians in Gaza, in an attack that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) has described as a “prelude” to the Deal of the Century.
The PNA also stated that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking to further Israeli and U.S. interests by consolidating the division between the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Sputnik cites Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who notes that any deal to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a road to nowhere if the principle of two States, one Arab-Palestinian and one Jewish, is ignored.

Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh said that those who believe that PLO will be pressured by the United States are mistaken. “We say no and 1,000 no’s to any initiative that does not meet the minimum demands of the Palestinian people,” he stressed.

And since everything that comes from Trump ultimately carries with it a threat, this time Washington has warned that if the PLO and Hamas reject the agreement, the United States will cancel all its financial support to the Palestinians.

(Granma)

The United States President Donald Trump and his cortége (Bolton, Pompeo, Rubio, Abrams) are obsessed with Venezuela. They have breakfast, tweet and talk in their unique language of aggressiveness against Caracas.

Public and secret funds are now being allocated for an imperial attack against the South American country. The U.S. State Department is requesting 500 million dollars for its interventionist activity in Venezuela next fiscal year. The Pentagon is making calculations for an eventual military assault. Meanwhile in Puerto Rico, authorities, inhabitants, the media, question where is the promised and unfulfilled aid on behalf of the United States Administration to face the unresolved effects of two powerful hurricanes, Irma and Maria, that hit in September 2017, as well as the increasing accumulated poverty rates in the so-called Island of Enchantment.

President Donald Trump complained a few days ago that his Administration, which controls Puerto Rico as a colony, allocated about $ 91 billion for its recovery. According to him, that amount exceeds the aid granted by the Federal Government to other states also affected by tornadoes. Nevertheless, Puerto Rico’s governor Ricardo Rosello refuted those statements and stated that in fact Washington had only granted $5.3 billion, specifically to restore their power supply and to replace steel and wood roofs ripped off by strong winds with tarps.

Rossello said that 18 months after Hurricane Katrina struck Louisiana in 2005 under the George W. Bush Administration had, 2,400 permanent building projects, while Puerto Rico has only 46.

Puerto Rico suffered more than 4,000 deaths during and after Hurricane Maria, an amount not recognized by the administration in Washington, and more than a year passed before its power grid was restored. People around the globe will never forget the image of Mr. Trump throwing paper towels to an audience that received him during his brief 4 hour visit to Puerto Rico.

High Child Poverty Rates

Childhood poverty has been a heavy burden for Puerto Rican society for decades. According to statistics released by the non-profit Institute for Youth Development (IDJ), it has never dropped below 50% since 1999.

The latest Well-being Index of Children and Youth, released yearly by this non-governmental organization during the last five years, shows an increase of 58 per cent in 2017, the last year with available statistics which is 2% more than in 2016.

What is worse, according to newspaper El Nuevo Dia, Puerto Rico has had more poor children than non-poor for decades but there are no governmental policies against it.

“We have never had a public policy aimed at this issue of childhood poverty. It is not incorporated into economic development plans. Sometimes we talk about the participation of the labor force, which is helpful but it’s not the same as taking into account the needs of families with children, who have very specific challenges. We do not see that either in political agendas,” says IDJ executive director Amanda Rivera.

Statistics from the United States Census Bureau show that Puerto Rico’s standard of living has continue to decline. . At the end of July 2018, 44.4% of the Puerto Rican population was in poverty.

That same information shows that poverty rates in the United States is at 12.3%.

U.S. Census Bureau Data

The famous showcase colony that the United States tried to display in the sixties and seventies as opposed to the Cuban Revolution has completely broken down.

A news article recently released by Puerto Rican Jose Calderon, President of the Hispanic Federation in the U.S., warned about the situation of living on the island; “A real national emergency continues in our nation almost a year and a half after Hurricane Maria ripped apart the homes and livelihoods of millions of Puerto Ricans, leaving tens of thousands struggling without jobs and housing, and suffering through a federal disaster-relief effort that is so poorly managed that it almost appears intentional. A year later, we continue to see heartbreaking evidence of how President Trump and his administration continue to dismiss and disregard the plight of American citizens living in Puerto Rico.”

The Puerto Rican people are second-class citizens for Trump and his Administration. They are loathed and forgotten. They are colonized and discarded.

There is not one single thought from the White House’s boss for the Boricuas in need. He is too busy drafting his next tweet or a new sanction against Venezuela.

http://www.cubadebate.cu/opinion/2019/04/23/trump-obsesionado-con-venezuela-mientras-deja-a-puerto-rico-a-la-deriva/#.XMIebNhlAb5

Source: Cubadebate, translation by Resumen Latinoamericano North America bureau

The Bible says that Adonijah, son of Jaguit, conspired with Joab, son of Sarvia, and the priest Abiathar, to gather his followers and relatives by the Stone of Zochelet in Enoguel, and proclaimed himself king of Judah, behind David’s back.

Don Fernando de Guzman proclaimed himself, “by the grace of God, Prince of Terra Firma and Peru,” ignoring his allegiance to King Phillip of Spain. Guzman was not willing to share the riches of the mythical Dorado with any king across the Atlantic.

England, during the second half of the 15th century, was plunged into a chaos of intrigue and shifting alliances. Two irreconcilable sides, the Yorks and the Lancasters, fought to the death for the throne. The self-proclaimed kings were many, as ambitious men and women competed ruthlessly for the crown.

In his book The Lesser Evil, Maruan Soto Antaki tells the story of Joshua Abraham Norton I, who called himself the Emperor of the United States and, later, protector of Mexico, at the end of the 19th century.

According to Venezuela’s Mission Verdad, a story published by Orlando Avendaño in the reactionary PanAm Post affirms that “the figure of interim president adopted by Juan Guaidó arose in a meeting at the headquarters of the Organization of American States (OAS).” According to Avendaño, in that December 14 meeting, OAS Secretary General Luis Almagro, Julio Borges, Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado, and Antonio Ledezma stated that the anti-Chavez opposition’s best move would be to promote a “transitional government”.

A TRANSITION TO DEATH
When the farce that led to the attack on Libya, and the assassination of Muammar Gaddafi, was put into action, a university professor, unknown in academic circles, began to announce on social media that a “chaotic” situation was developing in his country, and when the media war was at its height, the professor, now in front of corporate broadcasters’ television cameras, dramatically appealed for a NATO intervention in Libya. He died, just days later, at the hands of Gaddafi’s forces, a “victim of the dictator’s repression.”

Attempts were made to create a similar scenario in Cuba, in 2006, when a little known counterrevolutionary organized a “popular uprising” on August 13 in
Centro Habana. Many who knew of the plan suspected that the alleged activist would die in the “uprising,” given the language being used in U.S. media, especially in Miami. He was described on U.S. television as a human rights activist who was willing to “immolate himself for democracy.”

With clear intentionality, Fidel’s birthday was chosen for the provocation – the true nature of the action. Organizers, functionaries at the U.S. Interests Section In Havana, and CIA agents knew very well there would be no “popular uprising,” but that a vicious campaign would be unleashed on social media and in the corporate press to create the impression that Cuba was in a state of ungovernability and chaos, given the Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro’s illness and the naming of Army General Raúl Castro to lead the government. When this fabricated perception was well disseminated and possibly the death of an activist at the hands of “security forces,” a Cuban university professor/ CIA agent would request help from the U.S. government, assistance that would be provided via a military intervention. This man, trained by the CIA, a leader manufactured by them, would be the self-proclaimed “transition President.”

When the “self-proclaimed” leader asked the question, as Guaidó pointedly did, from the United States, who would guarantee his safety, they replied with cold logic, “The best thing that could happen would be that they try something against you.”

The manufacturing of Latin American leaders went to work in overdrive, well before the so-called transition to democracy began to put an end to dictatorships on the continent. The U.S. needed leaders of a new type to protect transnational corporations, sources of raw materials, and strategic locations in its “back yard.”

By the end of the 1980s, the real possibility that authentic popular movements could triumph was more than a forecast studied by U.S. intelligence services and labs. A new progressive wave could sweep aside imperialist interests, since the dictatorships could no longer play the role of containment walls. A new variant was needed.

U.S. trained leaders would play an essential role in maintaining Yankee domination throughout the region. Academic exchange programs, scholarships, leadership courses, ensured that the majority of those who occupied important positions in society, the economy, and politics south of the Rio Bavo would defend U.S. interests.

THE GUAIDÓ PLAN
February 22, in violation of a court order prohibiting his leaving the country without permission, Guaidó arrived in Cúcuta, Colombia, to attend a concert there, the prelude to an intended violation of Venezuelan national sovereignty set to take place February 23. Since then, he has conducted a tour of Latin America, during which he said he would return to Venezuela, and has done so.

The “self-proclaimed President, Juan Gerardo Antonio Guaidó Márquez, knows that his status as a deputy affords him immunity, but not impunity. He now faces a criminal procedure for violating a clear, express court order, which he ignored. When a citizen fails to abide by a court order, the Public Ministry is expected to request that the court revoke the order – or it does so ex officio – usually imposing a more severe measure on the citizen who ignored a previous order.

Best to await the court decision and avoid creating a scenario without all the necessary information, since we can expect a just, well-substantiated ruling, in accordance with the law.

The Guaidó case has all the characteristics, all the components of the type of operation the CIA has mounted to overthrow governments not to its liking. It is no accident that Marco Rubio posted a photo on Twitter featuring the bloodied face of Gaddafi. Was this a threat or a slip?
Now, as part of the plot, sabotage left several regions of Venezuela without electricity, and within five minutes of the initial outage, Marco Rubio stepped up to the podium to talk about chaos and ungovernability in Venezuela, an effort promptly seconded by Mike Pompeo and Elliot Abrams.

JUST ONE STEP FROM TRAGEDY TO COMEDY AND VICEVERSA
The jokes were not long in coming. One Anacleto Panceto tweeted: “I, Anacleto Panceto, self-proclaim myself head of the Spanish state. Advise Rivera, Casado and Abascal to support me.” Débora followed the rhyme: “If I say I self-proclaim myself President of Argentina, who will follow me?”
Jaos Now proclaimed himself on Twitter “Archduke of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and all of Prussia,” adding that Trump was recognizing world leaders like crazy. Inna Afinogenova named herself Empress of Russia, while Luis Monta proclaimed himself the “interim President” of Ecuador, joining Colombian Alejandro Muñoz and Brazilian José de Abreu, who jokingly declared themselves President of their respective countries. Monta proposed a vaccination program for all newborns, boys, girls, and youth to ensure that the country was “free of traitors.”

This is the same script we witnessed in Libya, the same one they attempted in Cuba. Guaidó’s return is a provocation. The latest U.S. puppet will follow U.S. orders: Provoke Venezuelan authorities hoping to be imprisoned. His physical safety will be at stake, since “Venezuelan authorities, including the president of the National Constituent Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, have warned that Guaidó’s life is in danger as the messenger in service of his masters, who could sacrifice him, considering him more useful dead than alive.”

(Granma)

A group of 18 Republican Party congressmen sent a letter to the chairwoman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee to nominate Trump “in recognition of his work to end the Korean War, denuclearize the Korean peninsula, and bring peace to the region.”

The history of the Nobel Peace Prize includes several unlikely recipients. But Trump would be the most preposterous proposal yet and, if awarded, would represent a coup de grâce for the Norwegian Academy.

Regardless of whether he gets it or not, the proposal reflects how the power elites of the United States act.

Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, and withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change – announced in one of the tycoon’s many buffoonish and unpresidential performances – to mention just a few examples, count for nothing.

What peace can the Congressmen nominating Trump speak of? That of the man who orders bombings of Syria, causing the death of hundreds of civilians, including women and children?

Or even more recently, the Trump who arrogantly moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, provoked another Israeli massacre of the Palestinian population, and then vetoed a possible UN Resolution condemning the Zionist government for the carnage.

The Nobel Peace Prize, honorable when awarded to personalities such as Mother Teresa of Calcutta, South African leader Nelson Mandela, or civil rights activist Martin Luther King, would definitively lose its raison d’être, should the undeserving Trump be awarded.

Just for curiosity’s sake, I reproduce below the argument offered to BBC Mundo by Steve King, one of the Congressmen who signed, along with 17 others with equal responsibility, the letter requesting the award for the current U.S. President.

I quote: “This came to my mind in the hour, perhaps in the minutes, after I learned that President Trump had accepted the invitation of [North Korean leader] Kim Jong-un to have discussions and negotiations on the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.” And he added: “I thought, well, Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize and to this day we don’t know why, except that he was elected President of the United States.”

According to the same article, when asked about the possibility, Trump offered a reserved response for someone who usually likes to highlight and exaggerate his achievements.

“Everyone thinks so, but I would never say that,” he replied, smiling, “The prize I want is a victory for the world.”

His supporters were less reserved, shouting “Nobel!” over and again during a public act with the President in Michigan. Meanwhile, his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, said he had assured the tycoon: “You’re going to get the Nobel Peace Prize.”

The end of this horror film may well be the Nobel Prize for Trump, or simply a raspberry for those who nominated him… a terrible joke.

Along with the changes in the command of the State Department and the
National Security Council, also the budget that Trump just signed last
Friday, for the remainder of fiscal year 2018, shows the pre-eminence
of policies of force over the diplomacy, in the most classic style of
so-called “hard power”. While the Department of Defense budget grew by
more than 60 billion dollars, the budget of the US Foreign Ministry
and its related bodies for public diplomacy has been cut by 32%. While
total defense spending, including the renewal of the nuclear arsenal,
has reached 700 billion dollars, while the rest of the expenses will
total 591,000 million. The United States spends on defense more than
the spending of the following seven countries together.

Introducing the budget proposal 2018 a year ago, the Director of the
Office of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney, was resounding in his
press conference, “The president said that he would spend less money
on people from outside and more at home” […] “It’s a hard power
budget, not soft, and it’s intentional. This is the message we want to
send to our allies and adversaries. This is a strong and powerful
government.”

The Hawks Make their Nest

In an imitation of the most sinister days of the Bush administration,
old and new hawks are assuming the leadership of imperial foreign
policy.

Donald Trump has just named as his National Security Adviser the
sinister John Bolton, one of the main promoters of the Iraq war. In
2001, Bolton became deputy Secretary of State for arms control, a
position that gained weight in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq
because Bush’s rationale for attacking was focused on the alleged
possession of chemical and biological weapons by Saddam Hussein, that
later were not found. “We are sure that Saddam Hussein has hidden
weapons of mass destruction,” Bolton said in a speech in 2002.

He is such a controversial figure in Washington that in 2006 he had to
leave his position as US ambassador to the UN after just 14 months due
to the refusal of the Senate to confirm him definitively for the post,
which Bush appointed him to, taking advantage of a congressional
recess.

Bolton, 69, who will assume his new duties on April 9, was one of the
candidates shuffled by Trump to win the nomination to be at the head
of the State Department. The man is a reluctant advocate of
Washington’s hegemonic unilateralism. Among his famous phrases, is one
that is a true example of his intolerance, “For me, if the UN loses 10
floors, there will be no difference,” he said in 1994 when Kofi Annan
announced his willingness to limit armed conflicts in order to install
UN peacekeeping forces. At a press conference he also said that “the
United Nations does not exist as an institution” and when asked how he
would reform the Security Council Bolton was absolutely clear. “The
reform would be to put in the Security Council a single permanent
member because it is the real reflection of the distribution of power
in the world. That member would be the United States.”

A regular commentator on the FOX television network, Bolton is an
ultraconservative ideologue, a vehement defender of the “national
interest” of the United States and someone who supports without
pretense military attacks as a preventive strategy. “It is perfectly
legitimate for the United States to attack first to respond to the
‘need’ (self-defense) of North Korea’s nuclear weapons,” he wrote in
an article published two weeks ago in The Wall Street Journal.

Bolton will apparently have a good ally in the Secretary of State. The
exit of Rex Tillerson from that position did not surprise anyone. The
oil tycoon did not agree with the real estate mogul and his television
reality shows that today dominates the White House; even though in the
long run they shared strategic purposes. Quite the opposite of what
will happen with Mike Pompeo, the new head of American diplomacy, who
is considered as the most loyal to Trump of the any member of his
cabinet. “With Mike Pompeo, we have a very similar way of thinking,”
the president said when announcing his new appointment.

Pompeo comes from a meteoric political career, conveniently financed
by the reactionary Koch brothers. Graduated from the Military Academy
of West Point, in 2010 he was elected to the House of Representatives,
where he spent six years, until Trump appointed him to be head of the
CIA.

He gained fame in Washington for the harshness with which he punished
Hillary Clinton in the special commission to investigate the Benghazi
(Libya) bombing of 2012, when the former presidential candidate was
Secretary of State. The investigation ended without finding
responsibilities in Clinton, but Pompeo came to describe the case as
something “worse than Watergate in some aspects.” That put him in a
favorable line of sight for Donald Trump when shaping his government.

He is considered a hawk, follower of the ultra-conservative Tea Party
philosophy. His vision as director of the CIA was clearly imperial:
“To be successful the CIA must be aggressive, implacable, tenacious,”
he said. He frequently, mockingly invoked the possibility of
assassinating the North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, raising fears of a
probable return of Washington to the practice of assassinations of
foreign leaders.

Pompeo, who now has to deal with the twists and turns of foreign
policy, has been in favor of “regime change” in North Korea and
sabotaging nuclear agreements with Iran.

The Bolton-Pompeo duo will be well assisted in the aggressive
projection towards the rest of the world by US Ambassador to the UN
Nikki Haley, a despot with a diplomatic post.

Last December, Haley threatened UN member states with reprisals if
they supported a resolution that criticized Washington’s decision to
recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and said President Donald
Trump took the vote as a “personal matter” and the United States will
“write down names.”

In a letter she sent to representatives of 180 countries, Haley
warned, “The president will observe this vote carefully and has asked
me to report on the countries that voted against us. We will take note
of each vote on this matter.”

To this she added an energetic message in her twitter account: “At the
UN we are always asked to do more and give more. That is why, when we
make a decision at the will of the American people on where to place
OUR Embassy, we do not expect those we help to attack us. On Thursday
there will be a vote on a critique against our choice. The U.S. will
write down the names. ”

Two simple pearls of thought and acting of the woman of Trump’s team
for foreign policy.

Venezuela and Cuba in the Cross Hairs

If something distinguishes and unites the people named above it is
their obsessed imperialist vision of Venezuela and Cuba, their
closeness to Senator Marco Rubio and his look towards Latin America as
a backyard that must be obedient.

Everyone should remember Mrs. Haley’s overbearing intervention in the
United Nations on the day that the resolution against the US blockade
against Cuba was approved by an overwhelming majority; which,
incidentally, received a strong response from the Cuban Foreign
Minister.

Haley has not stopped using the tribune of the UN to repeatedly attack
Cuba and Venezuela.

She recently went to Miami to meet with the most anti-Cuban elements.
Haley was at the International University of Florida (FIU) with
anti-Cuban congressmen Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Marco Rubio, Carlos
Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart to discuss, according to reports, “how
democracy can be strengthened in Latin America and especially in Cuba
and Venezuela.”

According to Senator Marco Rubio, the meeting was organized at the
request of Haley to know the demands of exiles from Cuba and
Venezuela, although there was also talk of the current state of
American business in Latin America and the relationship of the United
States within the region.

The new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, on the other hand, is the
support arm of Marco Rubio in the framework of the lies of the
supposed “sonic attacks” in Cuba against US officials, a good part of
who are, according to AP, intelligence officials. This has been
denounced by several sources and recently ratified by the Spanish
newspaper El País, which attributes the supposed acoustic attacks
against US officials in Cuba as a trick by the CIA to cool down and
eventually eliminate the process of rapprochement between both
nations.

Both Pompeo and Rubio share the ultra-conservative ideological line of
the Tea Party. They have a close bond for several years. In 2015, when
Pompeo was a representative for Kansas, he co-sponsored the bill
promoted by Rubio, entitled the Cuban Military Transparency Act, to
prevent any financial transaction with companies managed by the Cuban
military. It was not approved then, but President Trump pleased them
in his policy announcements for Cuba in June 2017.

Just three days after Trump’s speech in Miami, the director of the
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Mike Pompeo, met in Langley, on
June 19, with several members of the mercenary Brigade 2506 headed by
Felix Rodriguez Mendigutia (one of those involved in the assassination
of Che in Bolivia) and other characters, including Miami-Dade County
Commissioner Esteban Bovo Jr., Sheriff Jorge Gutiérrez Izaguirre and
Cuban-American Senator Marco Rubio.

Pompeo has also been an active champion of the Trump administration’s
anti-Venezuelan policies. Last January, during an exchange at the
American Enterprise Institute, he alluded to the influence that the
CIA had with Trump to order sanctions against the government of
Nicolás Maduro, based on “the intelligence we had delivered and he had
requested.”

As early as July 2017, the then director of the CIA had made some
controversial statements about Venezuela during a security forum at
the Aspen Institute in Colorado. “We have high hopes that there may be
a transition in Venezuela and the CIA is doing its best to understand
the dynamics there.”

“Venezuela could become a risk for the United States,” he would say a
month later to the Fox television network. “The Cubans are there; the
Russians are there, the Iranians, Hezbollah are there. This has the
risk of becoming a very bad place, so the United States should take it
very seriously. ”

The Lies of Bolton

Few American politicians in recent decades have been as perverse and
manipulative towards Cuba as John Bolton. His accusations are well
remembered in May 2002 (when Bush spoke of attacking 60 or more
countries, Afghanistan had been invaded by imperial forces, Iraq was
threatened for allegedly building chemical weapons and Chavez had
suffered the Coup d’état promoted by Washington ) that Cuba was
manufacturing biological weapons and was passing them to “terrorist”
countries.

“Here’s what we know; the United States believes that Cuba is
conducting at least a limited offensive work of biological warfare
research and development. Cuba has provided dual-use technology to
other renegade states. We are concerned that this technology could
support biological weapons programs in those states. We urge Cuba to
cease all cooperation applicable to biological weapons with the
renegade states and to fully respect all its obligations under the
Biological Weapons Convention. “Bolton told a surprised audience
listening to him at the Heritage Foundation.

A few days later, Fidel Castro would respond bluntly to Bolton: “As
far as weapons of mass destruction are concerned, Cuba’s policy has
been blameless. No one has ever presented a single proof that a
program for the development of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons
has been conceived in our country. For those who do not understand
ethics, and transparency in the conduct of a government like Cuba,
they could at least understand that doing the opposite would have
constituted colossal stupidity on our part. Any such program ruins the
economy of any small country; Cuba would never have been able to
transport such weapons, would not commit the additional error of
introducing them into combat against an adversary that has thousands
of times more weapons of that character, which would then be
receiving, as a gift, the pretext of using them.

From the political point of view, we live in a time when there are and
will be more and more powerful weapons than any of those born out of
technology; the weapons of morality, reason and ideas. Without them
no nation is powerful; with them, no country is weak. Such an apothegm
requires an exceptionally deep motivation, cold blood and
intelligence. It should be known that for the Cuban people, above any
other value on Earth, are the values that inspire freedom, dignity,
love for their country, their identity, their culture and the
strictest sense of justice that human beings can conceive. They are
not weapons of mass destruction, they are weapons of massive moral
defense, and we are willing to fight and die for them. ”

Will Mr. Bolton have Understood the Message?

In 2014, when the Presidents of Cuba and the United States announced
the beginning of a new stage in bilateral relations, John Bolton
declared on a radio program: “I believe it is a tremendous defeat for
the United States. The President, with his action, has given political
legitimacy to this dictatorship and has extended an economic lifeline
to the regime precisely at the moment when we should increase the
pressures “.

The return of Bolton to positions of power in imperial foreign policy
augurs new days of threats and conflicts. On his projections, a senior
official of the Republican administration told El Nuevo Herald, “For
Latin America, it has always been emphasized how Cuba, Venezuela and
Nicaragua have undermined the interests of the United States
throughout the region” […] “Bolton believes that Venezuela, with its
economic crisis, is vulnerable and that other countries, including
Iran, continue to have a great influence in their government.”

While Senator Marco Rubio showed his rejoicing at the appointment of
the new White House Adviser: “I know John Bolton well, he’s an
excellent choice and he’s going to do a great job as national security
adviser,” Rubio wrote in his Twitter account.

Last August, Bolton told the far-right Breitbart that Venezuela was a
threat to the United States and urged Washington not to be “timid”
about Nicolás Maduro’s “dictatorship,” calling for more support to the
opposition that seeks to “restore” a representative government.

“Let’s not forget that Iran has a lot of weight in Maduro’s Venezuela
and it also had it during the government of Chávez,” he said. “Why is
the largest Iranian embassy in the world in Caracas? Because through
it they are laundering money and because Venezuela, together with
Canada, has the largest proven reserves of uranium. ”

Another God Son of Rubio in the OAS

Cashing in on the many favors that Trump apparently owes him, Senator
Rubio reinforces his influence in the current US foreign policy when
he succeeded in appointing Florida’s former state representative
Carlos Trujillo as US Ambassador to the OAS.

“Carlos has served his constituents diligently in the Florida House of
Representative for the past eight years and I know he will do the same
as a representative of the American people in the OAS,” Marco Rubio
said in a statement, as he was in charge of reporting the appointment.

Trujillo thus becomes a pre-eminent voice of the Trump
administration’s policy towards Latin America, since Congress has not
yet confirmed Kimberly Breier as undersecretary of State for the
Western Hemisphere.

Along with the hypocrite Almagro he will make a good duo in the OAS to
conduct the imperial interests in our region. Trujillo has expressed
that Venezuela is the priority of his administration.

Latin America will live a moment of redefinition of its relationship
with the United States at the very next Summit of the Americas. There
Trump will come surrounded by his entire band of hawks, heirs of the
Monroe Doctrine. Withering times are approaching.

Source: Cubadebate, translation: Resumen Latinoamericano, North American Bureau

According to the publication, Trump appeals to the so-called ‘hard power’ (strong power) and imperial blackmail as main tools of his foreign policy.

Under the heading ‘Hawks make nest,’ the publication recalls the recent changes in the command of the State Department, Mike Pompeo for Rex Tillerson, and the National Security Council, John Bolton for H.R. McMaster, and shows details of his political background.

In the case of Bolton, it points out that he was one of the main promoters of the war in Iraq, unhesitatingly supports military attacks as a preventive strategy and accused Cuba of making biological weapons and passing them on to terrorists.

Regarding Pompeo,it specified that from his previous position as director of the CIA, he showed a ‘clearly imperial’ vision, and ‘not a few times he mockingly invoked the possibility of assassinating the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

The article in Cubadebate also addresses the growth of the Department of Defense items by more than 60 billion dollars, while the budget of the US Foreign Ministry and its related organs for public diplomacy was cut by 32 percent.

Total defense spending, including the renewal of the nuclear arsenal, reaches 700 billion dollars, and the rest of the expenses total 591 billion. The United States contributes more to the military than the seven countries that follow it, the source adds.

Likewise, it is striking that ‘the Bolton-Pompeo duo will be well assisted in the aggressive projection towards the rest of the world’ by the permanent US representative to the UN Nikki Haley, ‘a despot with a diplomatic position’.

(Prensa Latina)

According to the academician and writer, that policy ‘is doomed to fail and isolate the United States,’ as illustrated by the 2017 vote at the UN General Assembly, in which 191 countries condemned Washington’s economic sanctions against Havana.

By placing the issue in context, Lamrani stated that ‘by returning to a policy based on the hostility towards Cuba, the Trump administration puts an end to the progress made during the presidency of Barack Obama and clings to an anachronistic strategy.’

The intellectual, author of several books on Cuba, exemplified the decisions marking a setback, such as to reduce staff at the U.S. embassy in Havana and expel diplomats from the Cuban representation in Washington, under the pretext of alleged acoustic attacks.

The Trump administration took those provisions despite acknowledging that its investigators were unable to determine those responsible for these alleged attacks and the causes, Lamrani said, citing U.S. government sources.

According to the specialist, the Trump administration with its hostility policy ‘is opposed to the will of most of U.S. citizens, who aspire to normalize relations with Cuba and to be capable of going to the island as tourists, without obstacles, which is prohibited by Washington more than 50 years ago.’

The university professor also mentioned the position adopted by Cuba, marked by the will to dialogue in conditions of respect.

(Prensa Latina)

With the announcement that the United States is set to raise taxes on steel and aluminum imports, the Donald Trump administration might has just launched the first bomb of a trade war with unpredictable consequences.

Following an intense White House meeting – it was reported that some of Trumps’ closest advisors categorically oppose the measure – the President announced he would impose duties of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum imports.

The United States is one of biggest purchasers of steel and aluminum worldwide. Last year, according to Reuters, the country acquired around 36 million tons of steel from a hundred or so countries.

Trump intends to impose duties of 25% on imported steel and 10% on aluminum imports. Photo: Getty Images
Trump tried to justify the measure claiming that the current state of the national steel industry poses a threat to national security, given the rise of emerging powers like China.

However, Canada and South Korea, both stanch allies of Washington and two of the biggest suppliers of steel to the U.S. could also be affected; while Brazil and Mexico are the Latin American countries that are set to suffer the most damage.

Although it has continually subsidized strategic sectors like agriculture and the military industry, over recent years the United States has been one of main defenders of free trade.

The protectionist rhetoric however, entered the White House with the arrival of Trump and his “America first” discourse. Although many believed that his message was intended more to win the election than actually reshape the country’s economic policy maintained by the Republicans and Democrats since WWII, the recent announcements show that the President is ready and willing to take concrete action.

The rise of rival powers such as China and Russia, and what President Trump calls “unfair trade” practices with allied nations, seem to have convinced some in Washington of the need to change the rules of the game.

However, experts agree that it will be difficult for Trump to maneuver in the tangled system of international trade without exposing himself to a trade war.

For example, Jean-Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission described the new tariff plan as “a blatant intervention to protect US domestic industry,” promising countermeasures by the bloc if Trump goes ahead with his decision.

China, supposedly the source of Trump’s concern, also has a few cards up its sleeve to offset U.S. markets, with Beijing stating that it will “take necessary measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”

On March 2, Trump confirmed analysts’ worst fears after posting the message: “Trade wars are good, and easy to win” on his Twitter account.

On March 5 however, the U.S President made another announcement which could explain his reckless policy, stating that he would be willing to review tariffs if a new and “fair” North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is signed with Mexico and Canada.

Although the president claims that his actions come in response to the United States’ geopolitical confrontation with China, the move could also be seen as an attempt to extract concessions from its neighbors, at a time when the almost 30 year-old trade agreement is be renegotiated and Washington is claiming that it has large trade deficits with the two nations.

In any case, if the measure is eventually implemented, the changes will have an immediate impact on the price of steel and aluminum in the U.S., benefiting national producers, but harming the rest of the industry which depends on such materials to manufacture aircrafts, cars, and even cell phones and household appliances.

The last time Washington applied a similar measure was in 2002, during the George W. Bush administration, which saw around 200,000 industry workers lose their jobs. The Republican President reversed the measure less than two years later.

However, a contradiction exists between the economic thought which has predominated in United States since 1945 and the country’s protectionist actions. Experts meanwhile, blame the trade war – which occurred from the end of the WWI through the start of WWII – for worsening the Great Depression in the 1930s and are advising not to make the same mistake again.

(Granma)

1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.

2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn’t let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must “heal the divide” and “come together.” They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.

3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn’t wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that’s about to begin.

4. Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked”. What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You’re fired!” Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.

5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: “HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!” The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don’t. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he’s president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we’ll continue to have presidents we didn’t elect and didn’t want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there’s climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don’t want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the “liberal” position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).

Let’s try to get this all done by noon today.