Washington and Florida insiders are exploring lucrative deals for a post-communist Cuba crushed by ever-increasing US sanctions

Spanish hotel chains. A Canadian mining firm. European shipping giants. Visa and Mastercard. Scores of foreign companies have been driven out of Cuba this summer over fear of being hit with potent, new secondary sanctions. Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, told Axios last month there are “no escape valves” from his unprecedented pressure campaign against the island.

But not everybody is losing out. A growing cast of Washington and Florida insiders – from billionaire Trump cronies and Rubio-linked lobbyists to Cuban exiles – are jockeying for control of the communist-ruled island-nation’s key assets, charging top dollar to help clients navigate the ever-expanding web of sanctions, and positioning themselves for lucrative business opportunities in the case of regime collapse.

Since an executive order signed by Donald Trump on 1 May drove Canada’s Sherritt International from its nickel and cobalt mining joint venture with the Cuban state, two rival US bids to buy out its stake have been presented to US authorities.

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[–] 40 points 1 month ago (15 children)

It's crazy that so many Cuban Americans are trumpsters.

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  • [–] 17 points 1 month ago (8 children)

    They are generally the ones that benefited from the fascist Batista regime, such as plantation owning slavers. They fled from the Cuban revolution, especially once the Cuban government implemented land reform and gave land to the peasantry.

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  • [+] -6 points 1 month ago (7 children)

    What kind of fantasy bullshit are you talking about? You think every Cuban that floated to miami on some piece of garbage was some wealthy slave owner?

    Fucking sapingo over here.

    Fidel imprisoned and punished and persecuted all kinds of people, and the American sanctions made life hard. The dry foot policy made it an easy decision for many people looking for a better life.

    The main driver for their support for Trump isn’t some fear of “the revolution”, it’s that Cubans are socially conservative, so they will latch onto the Republican Party.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    I said "generally," not "every single Cuban in Miami is a slaver." There are people that left because of economic hardship, not necessarily because they oppose socialism, but the reason so many Miami Cubans are far-right is because a great many of them did have ties to those slavers, gangsters, and plantation owners.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (5 children)

    Generally doesn’t mean “every”, it means “most”. I grew up in a Cuban community and they were mostly, “generally”, economic refugees.

    It would be physically impossible for the people I interacted with to be “generally” slavers and plantation owners. Like there aren’t enough slaves and plantations for that to be true. There aren’t enough acres in Cuba for that to be true.

    Either you don’t understand the Cuban diaspora, or you hung out with a bunch of Cuban slavers and that warped your perception.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    Or I understand that Cubans are not genetically far-right, and that the wealthy Cubans that fled socialism have a dominating presence within the Cuban diaspora. Cubans in Cuba have a word for these people: gusanos.

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  • [–] -4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Gusanos is probably the only Spanish you know. Stop making up bullshit narratives.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    No? I took several years of Spanish. I'm by no means fluent, but the idea that I'm inventing the concept of Cuban exiles requires no Spanish, just simple googling.

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  • [–] -2 points 1 month ago (1 child)

    Yeah you might want to read your own Wikipedia article before you generalize Cuban refugees as slave owning “gusanos”.

    That article actually lines up with my lived experience as a Hispanic person growing up with Cubans.

    They were many waves of people fleeing for different reasons, but mostly poor people wanting a better life, and as that article points out, minorities being persecuted by socially conservative Cubans.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago

    Cuban exiles would come from various economic backgrounds, usually reflecting the emigration wave they were a part of. Many of the Cubans who would emigrate early were from the middle and upper class, but often brought very little with them when leaving Cuba.

    Right there. I never denied that various groups also left Cuba, but we have to understand, the driving factor for why so many Cubans are far-right is that the major force that left Cuba were the exiles that fled socialism.

    Or, are you saying that Cubans are genetically far-right, and that class has no impact? Why would Cuba itself remain socialist with popular support for the government then?

    Why are Miami Cubans generally far-right, in your own terms?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (3 children)

    Its crazy how many Americans are imperialists.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    It's more that the US (Canada too) has been at the imperialist stage of capitalism for a century. The fact that many Statesians support this system is because it benefits them materially. It's logical, and thus trying to view it as irrational behavior leads us to ineffective means of combatting it.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 month ago (12 children)

    We backed down on this shit? Fuck that why are we doing anything in fear of America at this point. They're going to do whatever they want anyway. Fuck trump, fuck the USA. Solidarity with cuba

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  • [+] -8 points 1 month ago (10 children)
  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (4 children)
  • [+] -4 points 1 month ago (3 children)
  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I mean sure if you want to save me half the cost of my vacation flights. did you think you made a point?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    I mean, the USA keeps proving them right on their drastic measures. Like imagine you're making a point right under an article of how they want to loot the land. Yeah, nationalizing property is probably a good idea when you have a neighbor looking to try to buy out the country via force. Political paranoia and limiting speech are a lot more reasonable when the neighboring country has a verifiable history of trying to instigate shit constantly over time, including literally now via a severe embargo.

    I'm not sure how the hell you don't connect the dots on how Cuba's state is literally a result of US actions. It's the equivalent of saying Palestinian citizens deserve what they've gotten because their government was antagonistic against Israel, after decades of Israel fucking them over and killing people.

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  • [–] 11 points 1 month ago (2 children)

    Sanctions aren't going to make people overthrow the Cuban government. They will only make the Cuban people defend their socialist project more, while they die of preventable causes due to a lack of critical medical supplies and energy. Thank goodness countries like China are helping Cuba develop sovereignty in the energy sector through solar!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago* (1 child)

    I'm afraid this may be overly optimistic. Last year the same was said about Venezuela, and look where it is now.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago*

    Venezuela hasn't been overthrown. The commune movement is still alive and well, and the reactionary elements still oppose the PSUV. It's still an incomplete revolution, one with its hands tied and had to make concessions it did not want to. The Cuban revolution already succeeded, and thus has far more political stability.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 month ago

    "I'm bored. Canada's boring. Oh, yeah! Cuba!"

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  • [–] 10 points 1 month ago

    Long live the cuban revolution

    glory to the people of cuba

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago

    Cuba has spent the past 50 years sending doctors all over the world, quietly, without looking for recognition or praise. Meanwhile the USA has spread only death and destruction during that time. These people make me sick.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (21 children)

    What is with Trump's obsession with Cuba?

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  • [–] 19 points 1 month ago (9 children)

    What's up America's obsession with Cuba? An embargo against a country who never harmed America for SIXTY YEARS?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    Maybe the Cuban missile crisis? I don't know and never understood it, however, Obama had pretty much ended all that, the the orange idiot showed up.

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  • [–] 13 points 1 month ago* (4 children)

    The Cuban Missile Crisis started because the USSR offered nukes to Cuba, and they accepted. Cuba accepted because the US invaded Cuba 1 year earlier in the Bay of Pigs operation. The reason the US hates Cuba so much is because Cuba used to be a US colony with open slavery, run by "gansterismo," literal Miami gangsters. Further, Obama did not end hostilities towards Cuba, at the same time he was thawing relations, the US was supporting right-wing groups within Cuba to destabilize the state. It was a two-pronged carrot and stick approach, vs. the genocidal blockade currently being carried out.

    Blowback season 2 goes over the history of the Cuban revolution and the October Crisis, which is what the Cubans call the Cuban Missile Crisis. It also goes over Operation Anadyr, the soviet mission to give Cuba nukes as detterence from further US invasion, and as a response to NATO missiles in Turkey pointed at Moscow, and encroachment into the GDR.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 month ago (6 children)

    He sees it as an easier way to gain a colony/neocolony. US imperialism is breaking down, so we are seeing a return to overt colonialism in an attempt to retain super profits for the imperial core.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (5 children)

    I guess, but Cuba is so small there's nor really anything to be gained by colonizing it.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 month ago (4 children)

    There actually is, Cuba used to be a tremendously popular sugar colony and gambling outpost for the US Empire.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (3 children)

    Sure, but is that really something we have a use for today?

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago (1 child)

    I guess, but Cuba is so small there's nor really anything to be gained by colonizing it.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

    I had to look up these numbers to put it in an American/tRump context.

    It's about the size of the USA states of Virginia or Tennessee. About 3.5x the size of Hawaii and 9x the size of Puerto Rico.

    It would be 36/57 of USA state, federal district, or territory by size.

    They're also butt hurt since their invasion failed at the Bay of Pigs.

    None of that justifies a USA takeover of a foreign country. The only people that can decide Cuba's future are the Cuban people.

    Edit: In a European context it would rank 17/50 in size between Iceland and Bulgaria. Bigger than either Hungary, Portugal, Austria, or Ireland to name a few.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    THROW TRUMP COINS INTO LAKE ONTARIO

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  • [–] 2 points 1 month ago

    Collapse of the us, not collapse of cuba, right?

    Aww who am I kidding they'll never take him

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  • [–] 1 point 1 month ago

    All the goddamn greedy coconuts wanting to be the next Fulgencio Batista.

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  • 2 comments in c/politics@sh.itjust.works view that post
    [–] [S] 6 points 1 month ago

    The corruption is just so bad, it's hard to understand how republicans can be anywhere near a political office. They're all on board with this because they're either part of it or not doing anything about it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 month ago

    Why is the rest of the world allowing things like this to happen? Ukraine, Palestine, Cuba, why are we not stopping theses atrocities.

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