Marco Rubio, a danger for Cuba, Latin America and the U.S.

# Marco Rubio, a danger for Cuba, Latin America and the U.S.

By Magencio

In view of the actions, statements, initiatives and contacts of Senator Marco Rubio it is easy to foresee a strong anti-Cuban and anti-Latin element in his policies at the head of the State Department in the next Trump administration. This is a very dangerous and potentially destructive ting, not only for our peoples but for the United States itself.

What is Rubio cooking up against anything that smells of Cuba? On the island they call him a “monster”, and they even say he is worse than Luis Posada Carriles, why?

# Anticuban complex

To begin with, this son of Cuban immigrants who entered the United States before the triumph of the Revolution to work in the hotels of the Jewish mobster Meyer Lansky in Las Vegas, has a serious complex with his Cubanness, since this is partly his ticket into American politics, but at the same time his great source of frustration, since to many in the United States, especially Trump supporters, do not regard him as a “real American”. That is why deep down he hates all Cubans and everything Cuban on both sides of the Florida Straits.

During the Republican race to choose the presidential candidate, Trump attacked Rubio on X (former Twitter) by saying that he did not meet the requirements to be president. Trump later acknowledged that he did not know if that was true or not. Actually, there have bee presidents in United State's history who were children of immigrants, however, Rubio is not seen as "Yankee enough", specially by the standards of many of Trump's supporters.

Outwardly, Rubio promotes himself as an exemplary Catholic and a model family man, but inwardly, many in the United States know of his dissolute past in 1980s Miami when he frequented gay clubs in orgies of sex and foam-filled swimming pools. Another example is Rubio's relationship, which is neither casual nor merely filial, with his drug trafficker brother-in-law, Orlando Cicilia, in whose house he lived for a few months when it was one of the most important centers of drug trafficking in Miami, and whom in the early 2000s he helped to get a real estate license. At that time, Cicilia was just getting out of prison after serving only a fraction of the 35 years a judge had sentenced him to for drug trafficking in the early 1990s.

One of Rubio's objectives was to reintegrate Mauricio Claver-Carone, a man who practically plundered the Inter-American Development Bank between 2020 and 2022 and from whom he was removed after an external investigation revealed that he maintained an intimate relationship with his chief of staff, in violation of the organization's code of ethics. Rubio's ambition was for Carone - a fanatical enemy of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, and who had been Director of Hemispheric Affairs of the National Security Council in the previous administration - to be appointed Deputy Secretary of State, but Trump appointed former ambassador to Mexico Christopher Landau to that post and Carone was named special envoy of the State Department for Latin America instead.

Rubio's rise to the position of Secretary of State is somewhat reminiscent of the classic German play by Bertolt Brecht, “The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui,” a parody of Hitler's rise to power in Germany compared to the rise to power in the city of Chicago of a mafioso who controlled the local vegetable trade and who climbed the ranks thanks to his contacts with the political and bureaucratic elites. Ui, despite being a petty criminal, and thanks to his lack of scruples, corrupted everyone and in the end ended up controlling power. Needless to say, this kind of rise of a guy like Rubio could be fatal to U.S. interests.

# Rubio's anti-Cuban policies

## Abolish remittances through Western Union and official channels.

A centerpiece of Rubio's anti-Cuban policy has been remittances, vital not only to Cuba, but also to most Latin American countries. This attack on remittances, consistently repeated by the network of hate influencers that Rubio controls in South Florida and by operators such as Senator Maria Elvira Salazar, is justified with a big lie, which is the claim that these remittances would go to the Cuban government, when in fact they go entirely to Cubans inside the island, regardless of their political-ideological orientation. The remittance market in Cuba has long been abolished and 95% of remittances flow through private channels.

It is important to emphasize that one of the first to be affected by this measure would be Western Union itself, which would violate U.S. laws, since a member of the government would be affecting local U.S. companies.

## Ban all categories of travel to Cuba.

This would affect many religious, scientific and educational projects that still, despite all the restrictions, exist between the two countries.

Again, this policy would violate the U.S.'s own laws because it would restrict the freedom of movement of its own citizens. “What is a Batista from Miami doing telling U.S. citizens what they can and cannot do in violation of the Constitution?” more than one Donald Trump supporter may ask.

The right to free movement is held by both natural-born and naturalized citizens in the United States, but in addition, this ban would violate those of many historic institutions in the United States. For example, the collaboration between Cuban and U.S. scientific institutions is very old, and today includes institutions such as the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Center for Molecular Immunology of Cuba, which last year created the joint venture Innovative Immunotherapy Alliance SA (IIA).

For example, the rights of religious institutions such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the Global Ministries of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), which have projects with Cuba and are opposed to the blockade, are being violated. The same can be said of none other than the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).

Indirectly, the World Baseball and Softball Confederation, which organizes the WBSC Premier12, the international tournament for male baseball teams, is indirectly affected. Are they going to deny the US delegation's right to participate for playing against Cuba, one of the best ranked teams in the world?

## Toughen (even more, if possible) the application of extraterritorial clauses of the blockade.

Let's remember that Trump in his previous administration applied 243 unilateral coercive measures against Cuba, which Biden never lifted. In 2020 alone there were 55 measures.

Needless to say that this would be in total violation of international law and the only thing it would achieve would be to further isolate the United States itself, turning it into a questioning of the Trump administration's own agenda. However, with Rubio at the State Department, it can be done.

## To elevate to law the presence of Cuba on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism so that no future administration can modify it.

This bill was already drafted and introduced by Senator Maria Elvira Salazar in January 2021 and is in the process of approval. The implications for the international legitimacy of the United States would be catastrophic, because it would be marking a country as a terrorist forever and would be defining a political position that the U.S. voters themselves could not change with their vote.

## At the point of economic measures, blackmail and pressures to achieve, in the short term, another July 11.

On July 11, 2021, isolated protests took place in Cuba that were magnified from abroad in a failed attempt at a “color revolution” on the island. The idea is to force a worsening of the economy in Cuba in order to use it as a pretext for a regime change operation in Cuba.

This type of strategy, which includes all the provisions of the blockade, as well as the media siege and political financing against the Revolution, follows a logic that we could call hydraulic, according to which the “increase in pressure” (i.e., economic terrorism, sabotage, propaganda, etc.) would at some point provoke a “social explosion” on the island.

It must be said that so far such an outburst has not occurred, and rather what is noticeable is an increase in the unity of Cubans in defense of their country, as could be seen in the massive demonstration in Havana last Friday.

## Blocking all migration from the island

An important element of this strategy is the attempt to block all emigration from the island to the US in order to supposedly “increase pressure”.

It must be emphasized that the U.S. immigration policy is in itself a contradiction in terms, since on the one hand, with the blockade and related policies, it makes life difficult for the inhabitants of the island, and on the other hand, it rewards illegal emigration while restricting legal migration. Well, all this promises to get much worse as of next January 20.

The foreseeable measures imply a direct attack on all currently legal immigration processes in the U.S., seeking to destroy the ties between Cuban families in both countries, that is, attacking family reunification programs, family visits and everything that currently exists in terms of immigration.

With these measures, there would no longer be even the slightest rest of the migratory fig leaf left (for example, family reunification, sports or scientific exchanges, etc.) with which the Western countries seek to cover their despicable political intentions. Now, in the case of Cuba, it is revealed that this is a policy of harassment, blockade and, finally, destruction of the country.

It is important to note that this would affect all Cuban families, regardless of their faith, ideology or political allegiance. It is a truly genocidal policy.

Despite discussions between the Cuban and U.S. governments in early December, the truth is that the US Embassy in Havana has already reduced its staff, and the granting of visas of any kind has been suspended, according to sources on the island.

## Deportation of hundreds of thousands of Cubans to uncertain destinations

In case there was still any doubt about the above, the next item on Marco Rubio's agenda towards Cuba clears it up instantly: the mass deportation of Cubans in the United States to third countries.

The mass deportation of immigrants is something that the Trump administration has trumpeted to the four winds, and Marco Rubio himself, without flinching one bit, tells the media: “You have come from Latin America, from Africa, from anywhere else, it doesn't matter: you are going to have to leave. It's not about immigrants, it's about illegal immigration.”

The fact that Rubio's hand will not shake in expelling Cubans from the United States to any other destination is reaffirmed by the following quote from one of his media appearances: “At the end of the day, I am a United States senator, I have an obligation to this country where I live, where my family lives, where my grandchildren will live the day I have them (...) this country must be protected”.

According to U.S. media, more than 42,000 Cubans have final deportation orders in the United States that Cuba refuses to accept back and another 300,000 would be at risk of being deported while Rubio himself acknowledges that it would be impossible to send all of them back to the island.

The question is, which “third countries” would agree to receive those hundreds of thousands of Cubans? Latin American countries? Probably not. It is hard to imagine, for example, a Milei explaining to his constituents the “need” to receive thousands of Cubans when he campaigned for election complaining about the Bolivians in Argentina.

There is a real possibility that these Cubans will be sent to other distant regions of the world, either to the Middle East or Africa. Nice way to “unite the Cuban family” - and Rubio, despite his murky past, markets himself as a great champion of the family and an excellent Christian.

Already the senator's megaphones in South Florida are warming up public opinion in order to prepare it psychologically for deportation. The proverbial Alex Otaola, from his YouTube channel tells Cubans inside and outside the island: “Nobody is going to stay [in the US]. Anyone who gets caught [at the border] is going to go back.”

## End remittances

Otaola and other operators of hate, on social networks routinely attack all Cubans in the United States who travel to Cuba or send gifts or remittances to their relatives on the island, etcetera. For them all that is “cooperating with the regime”.

Another axis of attack articulated from Marco Rubio's networks, and which has been anticipated by his media operators in South Florida, is to eliminate the licensing of automobile exports from the United States, as well as charter flights and the sending of packages to the island.

Again: measures of this type do not affect the government, but all Cubans, regardless of their political-ideological affiliation.

## Put an end to the shipment of vehicles

For example, the shipment of high-end vehicles to Cuba is to private individuals and the Cuban State has not put any kind of obstacles in this regard, they belong to people in the United States who send them to relatives on the island, some of them owners of mypimes in Cuba. Anti-Cuban profiles such as Senator María Elvira Salazar lie when they affirm that these articles are for the political leadership and cadres of the Communist Party; in fact, almost all of these vehicles are in the hands of people who are not members of the party.

Basically, what this type of campaign seeks is to attack Cuba's MSMEs and those that trade with Cuba, both from the United States and from other countries, given the extraterritorial nature of the U.S. sanctions. The objective is to destroy the Cuban economy and all those who have to do with it.

## To finish off Venezuela is to finish off Cuba.

Inseparable from Rubio's anti-Cuban policy is his hatred of Venezuela, which does not stop at the commission of any kind of acts of violence since, in his aberrant logic, overthrowing the Venezuelan government would mean leaving Cuba on the ropes.

## Rubio is highly disruptive, even for Trumpism.

This kind of rise of a guy like Rubio can be fatal to U.S. interests. Already, one can feel in Washington the rispidness surfacing between Rubio and the heavy favorite to succeed Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance, who, in addition to his youth, enjoys genuine popularity among the Trumpist grassroots and is seen as “more American” than Rubio.

Another who may be interested in digging into Rubio's financial dealings with White House foreign policy funds is Elon Musk, in charge of the new Department of State Efficiency, which promises to end wasteful spending of public money.

## Rubio alienates all Cubans and Latinos in the U.S.

Rubio's anti-Cuban policy is also a policy against Latinos in the United States. For example, Otaola himself campaigned for mayor of Miami Dade with the promise to launch a McCarthyist program of persecution against all Latin Americans considered “friends of the Cuban regime.” Otaola's campaign was an echo of the positions long advocated by Senator Maria Elvira Salazar and Rubio himself.

This type of campaign does not win sympathy for the operators of hatred among Cubans, either those living on the island or those living in the United States, but rather generates rejection, however at the same time it prepares the ground for a demonization of all Cubans living in the United States.

## Rubio, a geopolitical risk

Even more worrisome from the point of view of the top U.S. power elite, is the risk that a hypothetical overthrow of the Cuban government would unleash a chain of destabilization in the region. If U.S. strategists are clear about anything, it is that they cannot lose Latin America because of its enormous resources and geopolitical significance, but on the other hand, they also know that it is an unmanageable region, and policies such as those promoted by Rubio, not only against Cuba, but against other countries, would make it even more unmanageable.

One danger that worries these elites is that drug trafficking, organized crime and the waves of migration to the U.S. could get completely out of control, flooding the south of that country with weapons and drugs. In this sense, it must be recognized that Cuba today, despite U.S. policies, is an element of stability to contain drug trafficking and illegal migration in a highly sensitive region such as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Many things point to the fact that Rubio's stay at the head of the State Department may not last long, given the risks he presents to many interested parties, although, as in the case of Hitler/Arturo Ui, luck and the vicissitudes of life may result in a real mafioso pulling the strings of power in Washington, a scenario to which we are sure both the Cuban people and the other peoples of Latin America will know how to respond, especially if they realize what is coming.