The future is now

What did Trump mean when he stated "many things will happen in Cuba in the next two months perhaps" although he clarified that he does not believe "it will be like Venezuela"?

It is evident that we have been witnessing increasing measures against the regime in Cuba all year long, against its representatives, against the companies doing business in or with Cuba, against Cuban influence agents in the United States, against family members of the Cuban nomenclature and even against Raúl Castro, the regime's time has come.

It is unusual that the head of the CIA visited Havana without the presence of Cuba's “president”; that the head of Southern Command met with Cuban military at Guantanamo Naval Base and that the Secretary of War visited that base in a t-shirt and shorts. All of this comes after the lightning attack in Caracas that left 32 Cuban soldiers dead and Cuba designated as an imminent threat to the United States.

On September 7, a Republican Party convention will take place in Dallas, which is unusual since it is not a presidential election year. However, the Party wants to hold it to help re-elect a Republican Congress. Trump has two months to achieve victories in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and Ukraine to arrive at the convention with accomplishments.

In the same interview, Trump said that "Venezuela has enormous amounts of oil. We could do that [with Venezuela] with Cuba. Obviously, it wouldn't be hard for us to do it" and emphasized that Venezuela has "a lot of oil," "a lot of gold," and "probably the most valuable territory on Earth in terms of gold and rubies."

Donald Trump resembled Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck's wealthy uncle, especially with his obsession for rubies. Disney is going to feature him on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. The “leader of the free world” speaking in these terms is no longer surprising.

It seems to me that the situation in Cuba won't be like that of Venezuela in the sense that Cuba does not offer Trump a reason for the extraction of natural resources. In that regard, it won't be the same, but Cuba could indeed become a Venezuela 2.0, not only in terms of the extraction of Raúl Castro akin to Maduro but also due to the establishment of an American protectorate in Cuba.

His two favorite presidents are not Lincoln or Reagan; they are William McKinley, who ordered the invasion of Cuba in 1898, and Teddy Roosevelt, who actually carried it out. The latter was also responsible for taking Panama from Colombia to dig the Panama Canal. Trump began his second term by asking for the canal to be returned (though I’m not sure how one returns a canal). Roosevelt established what is now known as the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (now Donroe). This marked the beginning of the Era of Gunboat Diplomacy, during which the United States became the police force of the Caribbean, with Marines landing as gendarmes in the feeble array of countries in the region whenever Roosevelt deemed it necessary.

It is not surprising that he is Trump's hero. Both McKinley and Roosevelt were shot like Trump; the former was assassinated while the latter survived because he had a thick speech in his coat pocket. It would take Teddy Roosevelt's distant cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, to replace his cousin's policies with the Good Neighbor Diplomacy, which came to an end with Trump at bat for a second time. Now the good neighbor is Delcy Rodríguez and anyone who behaves well, according to Trump.

Recently, Trump said this about the Spanish-American War (referred to by Cubans as the War of Independence) declared by McKinley: “We got Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam, but Cuba slipped away from us, but it is returning to our orbit.” I'm afraid Trump wants the annexation of Cuba.

All of Trump's ultimatums to the Castro regime have not had the desired effect. Trump made them an offer they couldn't refuse, but it seems they are unyielding. So, the moment of truth has arrived, the moment of the gunboats.