Excerpt from The Union – June 28, 2018
I believe President Trump will soon normalize relations with Cuba. While watching Trump’s historic meeting with North Korea’s Kim, I mentioned this theory to friends as a joke. I now realize that a deal is probably in the works.
One of Trump’s major goals has been to eliminate the legacy of President Obama. Trump has tried to reverse all of Obama’s executive actions, regardless of merit. It would be the ultimate insult to Obama if Trump ended the embargo while claiming, “Obama screwed-up normalization, so I negotiated it successfully!”
Trump is unpredictable; he likes to appear erratic to keep his adversaries confused. Trump has been interested in Cuba for decades. In 1998 he sent representatives there to explore business opportunities. They even prepared sketches of what Trump Tower Havana would look like. This research could have been considered illegal by the U.S. Treasury Department.
Trump may decide he should finally promote a cause that is clearly supported by most Americans — an end to the embargo. This is also advocated by a majority of Cuban-Americans in Miami. Many of them invested with relatives in Cuban real estate and businesses following Obama’s 2014 opening. This was followed by a sharp decrease in values after Trump’s speech last year, which discouraged — but did not prohibit — Americans from traveling to Cuba. This action artificially produced bargain prices for properties and business that will eventually be worth many times today’s values. This sounds like a chapter out of Trump’s best seller: “The Art of the Deal.” Read More