By some accounts, U.S.-Cuba policy during the first Trump administration developed from a directive to "make Rubio happy." Now he'll have the reins even more directly. Some thoughts. 🧵

nytimes.com/2024/11/11/us/… In some ways, I'm surprised by the appointment.

Rubio, like Nat'l Sec Advisor designate Rep. Waltz (also from FL), come from a more interventionist, neo-con, Bolton-esque foreign policy school than many rabidly isolationist factions in Trump world.

State Dept's annual Report on Terrorism just came out. In some sense, it reaffirms Cuba's designation as SSOT, notwithstanding pushes from activists & allies (& havana) to get it off list.

But are folks over-reading significance of report? I think maybe.

go.shr.lc/3J6vIZf This report is issued every year. Presumably, there's a cursory review every cycle for updates.

But Cuba's listing here seems to me less a calculated "re-inclusion" by Biden than a reflection of standing policy, & temporal delay in info that gets fed into the reports.

Interesting read in light of Biden border announcements and more active Cuba-US diplomatic contacts lately, largely in response to migration.

And yet..

oncubanews.com/cuba-ee-uu/joh… ...if interviewee wants to more effectively refute allegation that Cuba instrumentalizes migration to bring US to negotiating table or export discontent, seems important to address major grease in wheels over last year—

Durísimo golpe for Cubans and others already en route and who in many cases sold everything to make the trip. They are screwed. Tristemente algo así se venía venir after absolutely record numbers in last 12-18 months.

nytimes.com/2023/01/05/us/… And while Cubans who qualify for new 30,000/month parole program going forward will get quick path to residency thanks to CAA, this upends asylum processes as we know them & confirms Biden administration adopting much Trump policy (Title 42, "transit ban") as its own.

Going to quickly regret this, I'm sure, but re: US embargo and UN vote, let's try once more for the record.

(Since I was deemed a "pseudo-intellectual" in a prominent subtweet yesterday...)

🧵 Is unqualified condemnation of US sanctions on Cuba incompatible with equally sharp diagnoses of Cuba's internal challenges/faults/failures? Of course not.

But in practice, does it often prove to be? Yes, esp. in diplomatic discourse & much (not all) anti-embargo activism.