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This week we’re looking at the intensification of the decades-old US blockade of Cuba. Trump has imposed an even harsher blockade, blocking fuel to the country, leading to an even more dire humanitarian crisis.
Just this week, a report showed that US sanctions are now reportedly killing children with cancer: “Amid worsening shortages, Cuba's rate of childhood cancer survival has fallen by 15% — from roughly 80% to 65% — according to data from Cuba’s Health Ministry.”
And this isn’t just collateral damage of US policy: kids with cancer are the targets of the murderous US sanctions, which are aimed to harm the most vulnerable in a society.
Joining us to talk about these sanctions and the history of US-Cuba relations is journalist José Luis Granados Ceja.
Useful Idiots: For DropSite News, you cowrote the article: Marco Rubio Is Deliberately Blocking Trump From Cuba Talks. Can you tell us what you discovered?
José Luis Granados Ceja: What we found was that these claims that Trump was making loudly to media outlets: that they are in talks with Cuba and that they’re thinking about a deal, don’t line up with what we were hearing from people both in the U.S. and in Cuba.
We were able to ascertain that these claims of secret negotiations happening in Mexico were also not true. And a source was able to confirm that the official in Mexico City from the Secretary of Foreign Relations was not actually involved at all.
So when you put all those pieces together, it very much looks like Marco Rubio is deliberately lying to Trump, that the State Department is not being forthcoming about what’s actually happening in terms of high-level negotiations between Cuba and the United States.
And our hypothesis here is that it’s about trying to lay the groundwork for more radical action.
Useful Idiots: Can you tell us how Marco Rubio’s history with Cuba might be driving this?
José Luis Granados Ceja: We have to remember, Marco Rubio is obsessed with overthrowing the Cuban revolution. Apparently in his own autobiography when he was positioning himself to be a candidate for president, he wrote that he used to dream about leading an army of exiles and installing himself as president of Cuba. He’s obsessed with this idea.
Obviously, he already had to concede when it comes to Venezuela. But I’m not sure that he’s willing to accept anything similar when it comes to Cuba. So he may be deliberately misleading Trump in order to say, ‘well, talks didn’t work, right? We were at the table. Nothing happened. Guess we’re going to have to invade or bomb or do something similar to what we did in Venezuela, or possibly more drastic.’
Subscribe for the full interview with José Luis where he reveals the new mafia state that Rubio wants to impose on Cuba (with himself as don), how a pan-American coalition could take on the US in Latin America, and whether recent US aggression in Cuba will push China to enter the conflict.
Plus, catch our weekly roundup in the Friday Free-For-All: What do John Fetterman and AI have in common? They both just threatened to kill people
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