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14 tweets,
2 min read
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1/ One big problem with how foreign policy is filtered through the Washington political and media filter is that action is treated as a result and not as a means to an end. This is how one looks "tough" without accomplishing anything.
2/ The purpose of Trump's hardline Cuba policy is to change the Cuban regime. It will fail to do that, just as 60 years of an Embargo failed to change the Cuban regime.
3 / Instead, Trump's policy will only further entrench the Cuban Communist Party, which is perfectly comfortable being an antagonist to a right-wing American government.
4/ Meanwhile, the only real consequence of Trump's policy will be to hurt millions of Cubans - denying them resources, drying up remittances, choking off the foreign travel they depend upon to make a living. It's an immoral end achieved by Trump's actions.
5/ The same is true in Venezuela. Trump made a dramatic move recognizing the opposition - but that failed to dislodge Maduro. He made a dramatic move trying to use foreign aid as a means of achieving regime change - but that failed to dislodge Maduro.
6/ What Trump has achieved is exacerbating Venezuela's humanitarian crisis. By broadening sanctions, he has only hurt more Venezuelans, while also denying them Temporary Protected Status in the US. Again, he looks tough, but only hurts people.
7/ Even if Trump's policies somehow manage to dislodge Venezuela, he is making the country more broken, more polarized, and fueling more suffering which will make it harder to put back together.
8/ You could say the same about Iran, where Trump takes a bunch of actions - piling up sanctions - that have achieved nothing but further entrenching the Iranian hardliners and hurting the Iranian people.
9/ The common thread is domestic politics. Trump gets to look tough, and different from Obama, even though he is accomplishing nothing but hurting people. Americans need to understand how much this sets back our credibility and standing in the world.
10/ The Cuban people have suffered for decades because too many American politicians tried to look tough at their expense. It's an abomination, and one that doesn't make America look big - it makes us look small, and petty, and mean.
11/ And most of these politicians haven't even visited Cuba. Go for yourself and see the poverty that our policies exacerbate, and the extraordinarily kind, generous, and vibrant Cuban people and then look in the mirror.
12/ We should have a foreign policy that sees the dignity in other people; that doesn't count it as "tough" to hurt other people who've done nothing wrong.
13/ It's telling that the man who wrapped himself in the rhetoric of human rights to announce this policy - John Bolton - supported torture, rendition, and a war in Iraq that killed many tens of thousands of people. The hypocrisy doesn't go unnoticed abroad.
14/ Elections matter. And in the next one, we should elect someone who will reflect the best America - the one that uses our power to improve peoples' lives, that values human dignity, and that doesn't abuse our power for the petty political purpose of appearing tough.
