How Trump’s GOP is lying to the Cubans again
Manuel Castro Rodríguez
November 5, 2018
More than a year and a half ago, on March 22, 2017, I said,
“President Trump, although you have signed almost two tens executive orders you have forgotten your promise to reverse the openings to Castro’s Cuba made by President Barack Obama.”
After almost two years of President Trump, ahead of elections in heavily-Latino Miami, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the Trump administration will take a hard line against Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Bolton’s stern words are widely seen as an attempt to mobilize conservative Latino voters in Florida, where elections are typically won by thin margins.
From its beginning, the United States has been a haven of refuge and asylum. Miami’s Freedom Tower, known as the ‘Ellis Island of the South’, was once a reception center for thousands of Cuban refugees in the 1960s and early 1970s. However, with the Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive stance on legal immigration, National Security Adviser, ironically, spoke from Freedom Tower.
Why does not the Trump administration take economic measures against military dictatorship headed by serial killer Raúl Castro? The president could undo many regulatory changes with the stroke of a pen. For example, why does not the Trump administration reinstate the program that allows Cuban medical professionals to apply for parole in the United States? Established by the Bush administration in 2006, the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) Program benefited more than 7,000 Cuban medical professionals, who were on Castro-regime directed assignments in over 60 countries, for parole. CMPP was ended by the Obama administration in January, 2017. It was one of his last gifts to the communist dictatorship.
Besides, the repeal of CMPP will harm the health care of the population living in the United States, because a research shows increasing physician shortages in both primary and specialty care. According to the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis,
“A total of 29 states had an estimated shortage of primary care physicians in 2013, with 2 states having shortages of more than 1,000 FTE physicians (Florida, Texas).”
Western cultures don’t approve of human trafficking, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as “organized criminal activity in which human beings are treated as possessions to be controlled and exploited.” However, in the region of the Americas there is the largest network of human trafficking: Cuban health workers (in Spanish).
To fight ebola, Cuba is sending its biggest export – doctors, “María Werlau, a former vice president at Manhattan Chase Bank and founder of the Free Society Project, a nonprofit, has researched the finances of Cuba’s health system and its services-export industry. The Cuban government, she says, did well for itself by sending doctors to West Africa.”
Cuban doctors fight Ebola in West Africa “voluntarily”,
“The world is full of praise for Cuba: No other country has sent as many doctors to West Africa. Critics of the communist regime, however, believe Havana’s using its doctors for political purposes - and at a hefty markup.”
The myth of Cuban health care has been debunked in article after article, for the last five decades. (Remember that the Castro brothers took power in 1959.) I invite you to see the reality of Cuban health care system. Let’s remember how thirty patients died of cold and hunger at Havana’s psychiatric hospital.
On October 24, 2014, I said,
“It is estimated that Cuba has sent more than 185,000 health workers abroad in the last 50 years. As a consequence of its medical diplomacy, Castro’s Cuba has accumulated considerable symbolic capital (goodwill, prestige, influence, credit, and power) and receives nearly eight billion dollars annually; it is the main source of income for Cuba. Besides, sending health workers abroad boosts the image of a country whose human rights record is criticized.”
Cuban health professionals serving abroad typically receive a miniscule fraction of the payment Cuba derives from the governments of countries where the health professionals render their services. Many cooperation agreements stipulate payment, a fact that is widely reported by local media and other sources in many recipient countries. Official Cuban sources indicate that “the host country provides accommodations and food, domestic transportation, a locale for work, and a monthly stipend (usually US$150–$200), while Cuban personnel receive their regular salaries, airfare and other logistical support from the Cuban health ministry.
According to 2016 Republican Party Platform,
“As an estimated 21 million people worldwide are trapped in modern day slavery, we are reminded to be vigilant against human trafficking in whatever form it appears.”
Then, why does not the Trump administration reinstate the Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) Program?
President Trump could suspend the re-established commercial flights between the two countries and stop American cruises from docking in Cuba.
The Cuban remittance market has been transformed rapidly in the last 10 years. At present, the use of remittances went beyond basic consumption needs to cover other needs of Cubans living on the island, such as: communications (paying for cell phones or covering the costs of an Internet account), financing vacations in hotels, investments for a business, purchase of houses, purchase of cars and other consumptions that are not essential to survival.
If the president prefers, could also tighten rules on sending remittances to Cubans, because the money received in Castro’s Cuba from the United States via remittances, packages and travel of Cubans, in 2016 amounting to some 7 billion dollars.
According to 2016 Republican Party Platform,
“We support the work of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and affirm the principles of the Cuban Adjustment Act of 1966, recognizing the rights of Cubans fleeing Communism.”
Then, why does not the Trump administration bring back the so-called ‘wet foot, dry foot’ policy towards the Cuban migrant?