Cuba - Legacy Item on Trump's Bingo Card Wishlist

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to James Hansen for LBC, plus Extras. 

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Transcript

James Hansen 0:00

Good morning. James Hansen here with you on LBC between now and seven. Now, first Venezuela, then Iran. Could Cuba be next on Donald Trump's hit list? The relationship between the US and Cuba, already strained for decades, has deteriorated even further in recent weeks. The Trump administration accuses the country of posing a national security threat and has now imposed an oil blockade, sanctions, and even indicted its former leader, Raul Castro, this week. And remember what Donald Trump said about Cuba a couple of months back.

Donald Trump 0:38

I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. A big honor. Taking Cuba. Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it. I can do anything I want with it.

James Hansen 0:55

I mean, that is a remarkable clip, isn't it? I'll have the honor of taking Cuba, and I can do whatever I want with it. Well, Jon Bonfiglio is a Latin America correspondent, journalist, and filmmaker. He joins us live now. Morning, to you, Jon. Is Donald Trump going to launch military action on Cuba then?

Jon Bonfiglio 1:12

I mean, it's increasingly likely. And what um really sort of tells us that that is what's likely next, or at least what's being threatened, is this indictment in the last few days of former President uh Raul Castro for the murder, uh uh the charges for the murder of four US civilians, uh Cuban dissidents in 1996 in aircraft that were in proximity to um uh to Cuba by Cuban jets. Um and what they're trying to do there is, as you said at the top of the uh the intro to the piece, they're trying to engineer a situation which is basically the same as uh what took place in in Venezuela, where there is some kind of legal framework by which they can then go in and in the context of Venezuela, take Nicolas Maduro and in the context of Cuba, um, sort of threaten Raul Castro, he still being the figurehead of the Cuban uh revolution and potentially take him out.

James Hansen 2:10

So we could see uh a Maduro style operation to seize Raul Castro, who's in his mid-90s now, isn't he?

Jon Bonfiglio 2:17

He is in his mid-90s. I mean, this is obviously the you know, I mean, actually, when this thing took place in 1996, it was a big incident. I mean, Bill Clinton at the time called it a flagrant violation of international law. National Security Archive um uh releases in the last few years do tell us now that the US knew that this was likely going to happen because this this group um of Cuban dissidents kept sort of I mean at one particular point, they they buzzed right over Havana in their jets, but they were continually going out into the Florida Straits and trying to offer assistance uh in very close proximity to Cuba, to individuals to Cubans who were sort of um uh leaving the island and trying to get to Florida. So it was uh it was an ongoing soar between between the two countries, but of course nothing was done about it for the last 30 years, and it's no accident that it's it's not happened now just because the legal process has come to some kind of end. It's happened now exactly because Donald Trump wants to sort of leverage a position by which he can his administration can justify some kind of military intervention.

James Hansen 3:17

Um and would it be Raul Castro they go for because he is obviously no longer the country's leader, or would they go after the current president?

Jon Bonfiglio 3:24

This is really interesting. I mean the the legal framework suggests that it would be Raul Castro that they uh that they go through go for, sorry. But what I think is uh is definitely a sort of a miss um uh a sort of an underestimation of Cuba is that, or a misunderstanding of the situation is that Cuba is not Venezuela. Um Venezuela was very top-heavy, it was all about Maduro, that administration, as we see now with this sort of the evolution towards uh Delcy Rodriguez as an interim president there was pretty straightforward to do. But the Cuban revolution, the Cuban infrastructure around the Communist Party is is very thick set, it is very embedded. I mean, Cuba now, I mean, the economy's been devastated for for a long time now. Of course, we've seen the biggest uh migration of Cubans to leave the island in the last uh in the last couple of years. Some estimates um suggest that up to a quarter of Cubans have left the island during that time. But what remains intact on the island is the apparatus, the machine of the Communist Party of of Cuba. And that's going to take some shifting. And just removing one person, he being the the icon of the of the revolution or not, is unlikely to bring about to see everybody else or the rest of the machine roll over in the way that we saw in Venezuela.

James Hansen 4:41

And why have things come to such a head now? Because obviously relations between the US and Cuba have been strained, well, for decades, ever since Fidel Castro rose to power and the uh you know the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc. So if something was going to happen, if the US was gonna launch some kind of military action on Cuba, wh why didn't it happen decades ago? Why why is Trump so determined to do it now?

Jon Bonfiglio 5:03

Well, I mean, in short, because of international law, um, which this administration plays, yeah, I don't think it's controversial to say, plays fast and loose with. Uh, the Trump administration sees Cuba, and actually the Trump administration has seen the fact that the US has not been able to deal with this sort of niggly upstart um island um just over the over the water from uh from Florida for generations. It's been a direct ideological antagonist to uh to the US. But this administration uh has decided that it wants uh it wants Cuba as a legacy item in its sort of um in its uh in its bingo card collection, and so it's it's gonna go for it. And it does see it as a pretty uh as a pretty easy uh as a pretty easy win. Interestingly, a couple of things here. I think the fact that it has struggled with Iran in the last few months has has emboldened it further because it sort of feels the Trump administration now feels it needs a kind of a win. And the other thing which I'd I'd say I'd emphasize at this point is that of course there are some sort of ideological components to being able to hold the head of the revolution up in public in the United States, if you like, and say, look, we we uh we did it, uh Donald Trump did it, but actually what motivates the administration, specifically Donald Trump, more than anything else, which is actually exactly what we've seen in in Venezuela as well, is mercantile access to what is, to all extents and purposes, a virgin market, which has not been touched because of the USA, because of the embargo for the for the last um uh for the last three generations, since since 1959. It's no accident that if you look on sort of business forums across the United States at the moment, that some of the greatest movement that is is taking place is on US Cuban consultancy firms that are setting up and promising investors great return should they um should they plan for um a sort of an economic movement into the island right about now.

James Hansen 7:05

That's really interesting. Um just finally, John, on the ideology point, how significant is the role of Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State? Because this is pretty personal for him because it his parents fled Cuba, didn't they?

Jon Bonfiglio 7:16

Yeah, I mean his parents fled Cuba. Actually, the way they tell the story, or the way he tells the story, is slightly incorrect because they actually fled Cuba before the Castros entered, so before the revolution. So it's not entirely accurate, but the way that it's presented is that they fled uh communist Cuba and it is entirely, as you say, entirely uh personal. In that sense, I think there is there is some distance between Rubio and Trump as regards what they want from uh from Cuba, but undoubtedly for Marco Rubio, seeing Cuba or being at the head of um of sort of a task force that changes the administration, whatever that means, because again, if we look at Venezuela, we didn't exactly see a change in, I mean, what's changed there really beyond Maduro not being there anymore? I mean, not so much. So that that's open to question uh at the at the moment, but that is certainly gonna be that that's been a sort of um, I guess, a career-long aim for Marco Rubo to see change uh emanate on the island of Cuba.

James Hansen 8:13

Jon, thank you so much. Jon Bonfiglio, there, Latin America correspondent, journalist and filmmaker. Is Cuba gonna be next on Donald Trump's hit list? Watch this space.

Jon Bonfiglio 8:25

Just uh wanted to add a couple of extra thoughts to that um interview with James Hansen on LBC in in in London. Specifically, he asked at one point why the US hadn't done this before, to which I answered international law. And that is accurate, but it's not um solely the case. The of course um this administration is a completely different um administration to anything that we've that we've seen before. And um, although of course the US has, let's say, a questionable history of interventions, it definitely at least paid lip service to um to the legalese around those interventions in in the past, which is now really barely the um barely the case. Um it also I think in the past the world was a very different place. Um of course um you know Cuba was perhaps not as weak as as it is now. Its alliances with Russia and China were perhaps um uh stronger. Um but in particular, I think what um I'd like to add to that is that uh it's also not as though the US didn't try to bring an end to the Cuban um administration, the Cuban regime, the Cuban experiment. It just did it in a in a variety of different sort of more um subtle back channel ways. Um of course, you know, you can look at the direct interventions in which there was the sort of training and support given for soldiers, Cuban dissidents to invade during the Bay of Pigs um in the 60s. Um a little commented fact, as well as Operation Mongoose, which maintained thousands of operatives in the 60s on Cuba, uh, who operated a sort of an ongoing campaign of destruction on factories, bridges, roads, blew up various uh trains as well. And of course, infamously the multiple assassination attempts on Fidel Castro. To some extent, also that sort of um um these were proxy wars or proxy attempts as well. So to some extent, that sort of does come back to the international law component. There was no direct um threat in the way that we're that we're seeing now, and of course, Marco Rubio's insistent, uh, as the entire Trump administration are insistent that Cuba is a threat to the USA, which of course is palpably nonsense when you can legit, I mean, just simply if you compare aggressions since 19 uh 59 from Cuba to the US, there's been basically nil. Of course, there was the Cuban Missile Crisis, but that was sort of an escalation um of of course of the took place on on Cuba, but it wasn't a direct intervention into the US. And then uh if you compare the other side, US to sort of threats to to Cuba and incursions to Cuba, of course I've just listed that uh that whole uh extensive list. There is pretty clearly one aggressor in this relationship and it's not Cuba.