Trump conned Miami’s Cuban-American supporters while chasing business opportunities in Cuba | Opinion
Once again, the truth about what President Donald Trump really thinks about Cuba has come to light.
He may peddle the hard line to his Republican Cuban-American supporters in Miami, but when he looks south of the city, he only sees dollar signs.
He promises that he won’t do business until Cuba is free of the Castro brothers’ regime — and prohibits Americans from traveling to the island — but Trump and his team have been chasing business opportunities in Cuba for the past decade.
A new el Nuevo Herald report has unearthed more proof of how seriously Trump tried to gain a foothold in Cuba, despite the U.S. embargo that’s in place.
Documents show that the president applied to register his Trump trademark in Cuba in 2008 so he could conduct business and invest in real estate. His plans included not only erecting a Trump Tower in Havana and putting a golf course in Varadero and other possible sites, but building casinos as well.
To do so, Trump hired a Cuban lawyer on the island, Leticia Laura Bermúdez Benítez.
Trump registered his trademark in Cuba in 2008 to build hotels, casinos and golf courses
A screenshot of the Cuban Industrial Property Office website shows details of the Trump trademark application — which included beauty pageants.
Trump plays both sides
To truly gauge Trump’s cretinous hustler nature, you have to go back to 1999 when he was already courting Cuban Americans with anti-Fidel Castro rhetoric and hinting at a presidential run.
He was betting on an aging Castro dying soon. The way Trump saw it, the wealthy members of the Cuban American National Foundation were going to be the ones calling the shots on the island.
“So what Jorge is saying is that when Cuba is free, I get the first hotel? Is that true? Sounds like a good deal to me,” Trump quipped during a CANF speech, referring to Jorge Mas Santos, who had taken the reins of the influential organization after his father died in 1997.
It was a crass thing to say — and harmful to efforts to democratize Cuba, and not install a U.S. puppet government to service the likes of Trump — but Cuban Americans laughed and later applauded him.
That year, Trump also wrote an op-ed in the Miami Herald slamming Castro, which prompted the Brigade 2506, veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, to correspond with Trump and begin a relationship that would culminate with their endorsement in 2016 and again in 2020.
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But before all that wooing of Cuban Americans, Trump was trying to gain a foothold in Cuba.
Cuba trips continued
In 2016, Newsweek reported that Trump sent emissaries on a mission to secure business ventures in Cuba in 1997 that would allow him to skirt the ban imposed by the embargo. Interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings confirmed the dealings.
He only turned to Cuban Americans and blasting Castro in the Herald when that didn’t work out.
And still, Trump didn’t give up on being first in Cuba.
He only grew impatient.
Castro was far from dying and only began a gradual stepping down in 2006 when he passed the presidency to his brother Raúl and, two years later, other powers as well.
Trump’s closest associates continued to travel to Cuba in 2011, 2012 and 2013 on behalf of the Trump Organization to scout business opportunities in violation of the embargo. Those trips were documented in a 2016 Bloomberg Businessweek report.
And, in a slap to the people who helped elect him, right before Trump’s inauguration in 2017, Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, traveled to Cuba to meet with a Castro son, a meeting arranged by Trump’s property broker.
Who says so? A Senate Intelligence Committee report documents it.
And now, we learn of the trademark registration, too, more damning evidence of Trump’s true intent — to make money in Cuba any way he can: hotels, casinos and golf courses.
If Fidel or Raúl Castro had let him develop Cuba, Trump would be praising them like he does Vladimir Putin and other nefarious dictators.
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Playing both sides proves that Trump is a terrific huckster.
And it sure puts another spin on what Trump said during an early fundraiser at his Doral resort in 2016. “We’re tough on Cuba ‘cause they’re not doing the right thing for our people,” Trump said, and Cuban Americans applauded him.
A Freudian slip, perhaps?
They’ve been fooled so many times. The reason Trump talks tough — and has pursued sanctions in his first term — is because the Cuban government wouldn’t give him what he wanted, preferential treatment, and wouldn’t seal the deals.
When his incursions into Cuba failed, Trump turned around and pursued the other side and the presidency — and it worked.
The Cuban-American vote helped him win Florida. It could help him in 2020, too.
Trump’s Cuban American supporters are that gullible and party faithful. They stand by their man even if he’s worked hard to golf with the enemy.
