Havana.- This Tuesday, in this same newspaper, a journalistic work with a shocking title caught my attention: “Trump vs. Rubio: the new soap opera of the Cuban regime”. Its author alludes to statements that the Castro-communist propagandist Rey Gómez, without the slightest serious objective foundation, formulates about supposed contradictions between the two prominent North American politicians.
The idea that Gómez tries to convey, in an unfounded and arbitrary manner, is that the Secretary of State intends to deceive the president so that he, supposedly, carries out policies contrary to the regime in Havana. I agree with the author of the article: only the panic that seizes the Castro-communists in the face of effective US policies can explain the risky approach of their star agitator.
Because, if there is something that only an orate would try to deny, it is the tremendous effectiveness of the policies that the current Washington Administration has applied to confront “21st century socialism.” There they are, to prove it, the admirable surgical operation that ended the dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife in New York prisons.
And also – it must be said – the conciliatory steps taken by the new “president in chargeDelcy Rodriguez“of Venezuela and his team, with a view to normalizing relations with the great northern country. Here we would have to include the Amnesty Law project and the rapid reform of the legislation on hydrocarbons, aimed at normalizing relations in that fundamental area with the government in Washington.
But everything indicates that, at least with lip service, the Castro regime does not want to be aware of the substantial changes taking place in Caracas, which are evident to anyone who is not blinded by fanaticism. But, well, it is also true that the regime in Havana faces measures that affect it in a much more direct way.
I am referring, of course, to Trump’s very effective warning to raise tariffs on those countries that from now on supply oil to Cuba. This measure, added to the virtual disappearance of shipments from Venezuela, has further closed the prospects of the prevailing regime on our Island.
The internal panorama of Cuba is bleak. Mass transportation no longer exists; Taxi fares have become prohibitive. Gasoline is constantly increasing in price and, even so, it is not easy to obtain. The only reasonable prospect is that, in the face of transportation difficulties, the prices of agricultural products, already very high, will grow even more.
But, at least for the moment, the Castro-communist leadership seems to have chosen to maintain traditional policies. Their bosses keep talking about “continuity”, “creative resistance”. They act as if all that insipid talk could solve the very serious concrete problems that ordinary citizens face…
At the moment there are no internal contradictions within the Castro-communist apparatus. Although that does not mean much: the fissures within Chavismo were not evident either when Maduro was still in office at the Miraflores Palace… Furthermore, it is evident that, within Trump’s rich arsenal, nothing prevents an operation similar to the one carried out in Venezuela against Maduro and his wife from being repeated in Cuba.
Meanwhile, it should be noted that the tools available to the current North American Administration are not only of a warlike nature. The Secretary of State himself, Marco Rubiojust a few days ago, at the Munich Conference, displayed admirable use of the tools of high diplomacy. His speech earned enthusiastic applause from the European allies represented there.
As commented by Uruguayan colleague Washington Abdala in Infobae, “Marco Rubio has just given perhaps the most impressive speech of the Trump era that we have ever witnessed.” And in the downspout: “Without stridency, with surgical frankness, he emerges as the pragmatic doctrinaire that the world needed to hear.”
So the perspectives are varied. Ultimately, the use of a surgical strike of great mastery and absolute effectiveness – such as the one directed against the dictator Maduro – or, on the contrary, of diplomatic tools – also worthy of the use of the adjective “surgical”, according to Abdala – will fundamentally depend on the path that the regime in Havana decides to take.
There should not be too much time left for the corresponding decisions to be made. Happily, after two-thirds of a century of Castro-communist totalitarian control, the people of Cuba, finally!, have elements to trust that they can begin to get out of the catastrophic situation in which they are stuck right now. Hopefully!
