By Randy Alonso Falcón on April 8, 2025
The special envoy for Latin America, Mauricio Claver-Carone (right), analyzed US policies towards the region with the president of the Miami Council on Global Affairs, Aaron Rosen. Photo: The Miami Herald
While Trump concentrates on handing out tariff increases, maneuvering with Ukraine and giving Israel bombs, and Elon Musk continues to apply scissors to the US government apparatus and external aid, the administration’s anti-Cuban team has launched an offensive to prepare the ground for the deployment of its punitive arsenal against Cuba.
A few days ago we commented on the statements made by Congressman Carlos Giménez, calling for greater pressure against Cuba to “starve the regime”
His anti-Cuban barrage has been followed in the days since by those of the administration’s special envoy for Latin America and those of the military chief in charge of imperial adventures in the Latin American region.
Mauricio Claver-Carone went to Miami, where better, to outline the White House’s policy towards Latin America, and especially against Venezuela and Cuba.
Expelled from the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (a position to which he was appointed by Trump) for corrupt practices, Claver-Carone is once again in charge of US policies towards Latin America, with a predilection for Cuba and Venezuela.
This character has made a living from the anti-Cuban industry, first as a lobbyist in Washington for the so-called US-Cuba Democracy PAC and then as an appointed official in the Trump administrations.
Mr. Carone’s new anti-Cuban strategy can be summed up as short-term pain, maximum pressure on maximum pressure and a comprehensive punitive approach, as if he had not already caused enough “pain” to every Cuban with the 243 measures implemented in Trump’s first term, of which he was one of the main strategists:
“In 2019, the policy was maximum pressure, but we never reached the point of maximum pressure, not even 50% of maximum pressure. There was a lot that could be done. But, in that sense, in that administration, there were disagreements. There was the DoS that did not agree with many of our ideas, the Treasury Department that thought sanctions should only be for the nuclear states, the Defense Department that was only concerned with the Middle East and was beginning the pivot towards China and was not concerned with the region. And the big difference with today’s scenario is that that no longer happens, this is the most coherent foreign policy team I have ever seen, the most focused on the Western Hemisphere. Clearly there are no disagreements in the DoS with our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; we have a Treasury Department that fully understands the threat; and we have a Department of Defense that understands that security in the region is first in order of importance. That in some way describes where we are today.
“So what’s the biggest mistake we can make? Going for small pieces, filling the policies we make with loopholes. And look, there are always going to be disagreements, there will always be commercial interests, I understand that, I’m an investor, and these interests have their priorities and their way of thinking. But it’s short-term pain for long-term gain, or literally long-term pain and no gain at all. So in the end, what may seem annoying, disruptive, etc. today, honestly, if you don’t do it, it’s not going to work, so we have to go all out. That’s my biggest lesson. I work with a secretary of state who thinks the same way, a president who understands these priorities, and the goal is to achieve it,” the aforementioned said in a dialogue at Miami Dade College.
For Claver-Carone, whom the Venezuelan evangelical pastor José Amesty christened as “Donald Trump’s obsessive bulldog”, the unambiguous rehearsal against Venezuela provides clues for intensifying the criminal economic war against Cuba:
“The tools that have been used against Cuba are very outdated. Even the actions themselves are based on old laws that sometimes have no secondary effects. With Venezuela the tools are much more specific, effective, they have side effects and they are more powerful”, he emphasized.
That same day, April 3, in Washington, the head of the Southern Command (based in Florida) made his own contribution to the scenario and categorized Cuba as a ‘very defiant’ threat to US national security.
With shameless cynicism and convenient amnesia about his government’s anti-Cuban policies, Admiral Alvin Holsey declared before the House Armed Services Committee that the Cuban government, “instead of addressing the economic disaster it created with its failed policies, is strengthening its ties with US adversaries”.
“Cuba’s malign actions weaken our relationships in the region, encourage irregular migration, and threaten the security of the United States,” the military chief said.
Holsey had met last January with the head of the US diplomatic mission in Havana, who is a seasoned articulator of subversive and manipulative campaigns against other nations.
It is no coincidence that, on the same day and in two different scenarios, senior Trump administration officials responsible for imperial policy in this region have made explicit statements about Cuba.
Nor do the military terms used by Claver-Carone in his anti-Cuban diatribe seem to be coincidental: “We are going to be more surgical, more effective”.
The ground is being prepared for the announcement of more punitive measures against Cuba. The previous 243 plus the 7 of the new mandate are still too few for the new petty dictators with power in the empire.
The level of cynicism, cruelty and contempt of the characters who drive US policy towards Cuba today is very similar, perhaps with a somewhat greater dose of hatred, to that of the sadly remembered Lester Mallory, who 65 years ago set out the path of starving and disease to kill the Cuban people for daring not to bow down to imperial domination.
Source: Cubadebate, translation Resumen Latinoamericano – English