COMMENTARY President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio seem to have tuned out Venezuelan and Cuban exile leaders — and their own rhetoric about blocking China's influence in the Americas.
On Cuba, we’re staring at an unmistakable disconnect between Marco and Miami.
On Venezuela, between Donald and Doral.
Along the way, we may also be witnessing the Trump administration’s break with its quest to keep China, or at least its model, out of our hemisphere.
First Cuba.
How could Cuban-American Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Miami native, suggest in Munich last weekend (after urging Europe to remember Western civilization is a white Christian joint) that economic reform may be a good first step to political reform in communist Cuba?
I mean, he’s blatantly contradicting the sacred Cuban exile commandment that says:
Thou shalt never suggest, under pain of being branded a business shill for the regime, that economic liberalization could be a means of undermining said regime.
READ MORE: Havana and Miami have the same message for Cubans on the island: Accept even more pain
Rubio was effectively daring to acknowledge that a legitimate private sector can co-exist on the island with the regime — and help bring about the regime’s collapse.
But every duly ordained exile leader in Miami — starting with Republican U.S. Representatives Mario Diaz-Balart, Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez — calls that blasphemy, sacrilege and socialismo.
Private entrepreneurs in Cuba, as they again (and wrongly) insisted this week, are just regime agents clandestinely importing “Ferraris, jet skis and hot tubs” for Raúl Castro.
Who do we believe? Marco or Miami?
In Cuba but especially Venezuela, Trump looks oddly OK with indulging China’s m.o. —its hybrid system of capitalism and authoritarianism.
Ditto Venezuela.
How could Trump send U.S. special forces into Caracas last month to remove socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro, then give every impression he’s OK with leaving Maduro’s own brutal regime in power indefinitely as long as it helps him extract gushers of crude oil?
I mean, he’s blatantly contradicting the sacred Venezuelan exile commandment that says:
Thou shalt honor democratic opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, call elections as soon as possible and install her as Venezuela’s new president.
Machado sidelined
Trump has sidelined Machado, called Venezuela’s regime successor Delcy Rodríguez “terrific” and suggested it could be years, not months, before democratic elections are held.
But, at least sotto voce, every duly ordained exile leader in Doral, Fla. — the U.S.’s largest Venezuelan enclave — considers that blasphemy, sacrilege and socialismo.
To remove Venezuela’s dictator but leave its dictatorship intact for oil, they cry, is a betrayal of the opposition’s landslide victory over Maduro in the 2024 presidential election he stole.
Who do we believe? Donald or Doral?
But no matter who you side with in these two momentous scenarios, one other critical incongruity gets overlooked:
For all the Trump administration’s rhetoric about blocking China’s influence in the Americas, Trump looks oddly OK with indulging China’s m.o. — namely, its hybrid system of capitalism and authoritarianism.
Trump does have the Castro regime against the wall now after forging a de facto blockade of oil shipments to the island, on top of the U.S. economic embargo.
Still, Trump and Rubio seem to recognize the priority is easing Cuba’s humanitarian catastrophe — which could be worsened by a too immediate fall of the regime, no matter how repressive and incompetent it inarguably is.
So getting the regime to do the Beijing thing and concede capitalist economics in exchange for retaining, for now, communist governance may be the deal they’re striking in talks with Castro’s grandson, Raúl Rodríguez.
Cuba watchers like myself have long argued for promoting its private sector — and the regime’s bullheaded efforts to smother it have only supported our hunch that, whereas capitalism didn’t bring down China’s communist dictatorship, Castro and compañeros are scared to death that economic independence would eat away at their political control.
Who’s to say that won’t happen now if Trump and Rubio ignore the Miami exile doctrine?
Venezuela, though, is a different picture.
Delcy Rodríguez and the remnants of Maduro’s regime look just fine with burning their Marxist Macroeconomics degrees and letting Trump usher yanqui drilling rigs into Venezuela’s oil reserves, the world’s largest — as long as they get to stay in the Miraflores presidential palace.
They seem much more simpatico with the China paradigm than Cuba’s regime does.
Which is why Trump and Rubio should listen to the Doral exile doctrine.
Yes, Venezuela, like Cuba, needs stability before regime change happens.
But if Trump wants to keep China disconnected from the hemisphere, it does no good to keep China’s model connected to Venezuela.
