Trump versus Castro

Obama's policy propped up the regime, increased repression, and encouraged Raúl Castro to set in place a succession plan which leaves his family in control, and set to become a Dinasty similar to North Korea's. 

Obama smiling at Raúl Castro, a huge foreign policy blunder

Raul is so ambitious in this respect, that even Fidel's children and grandchildren are given secondary roles. The top security posts, the key to preserving the dictatorship, will be held by his eldest son Alejandro and his grandson Raúlito. The nominal head is married to his grandaughter, and the guy who runs the commercial empire was married to his daughter. 

The sanctions are a message we have to build upon, and work hard to have the dictatorship weakened and overthrown within four years. Because if we don't, the American left, together with corporate interests, will doom Cuba to a horrible future. You see, the Castro dictatorship runs a hybrid system, the Castro dictatorship is nominally communist, it set up the military owned Gaesa conglomerate to partner in joint ventures with foreign investors.

They don't sign deals with other nations, they do it with corporations such as Meliá or Kempinski Hotel chains. These corporations use Cuban labor hired out by the regime, which is essentially slave labor getting less than 10 % of what the joint venture is charged. 

The opportunities were always there for multinational corporations from Europe, Canada, Latinamerica, Japan, etc. so nothing changed, other than they'll see fewer American tourists. 

What hurts the regime is that Trump highlighted Gaesa, forbid doing business with that outfit, and that hit the oligarchy. They are like narcos, so they'll do a work around and I'm sure there's going to be greedy lawyers, banks and corporations willing to help. After all many of them were quite happy to deal with Hitler, the Chinese, and the Burmese military junta. 

What will make investors shy away is the mere fact that the Castro Mafia runs a repressive dictatorship and it chokes the economy with its policies. What makes Cubans dirt poor is the Castro Mafia corruption, the sheer stupidity of their economic system, the way they kill initiative, the way the smart and educated leave...

As for "commerce", Mr Trump still allows USA food and medicines to be sold to the Castro dictatorship. Plus of course the dictatorship is free to buy Chinese, Brazilian, Canadian, Mexican, and other nations' goods. They don't buy them because their exports are slave labor, nickel, oil they steal from Venezuela, and small amounts of other products. 

Cuban agriculture was ruined by Castro, and remains in ruins today. They import food because the system stinks, and quite a few Cubans go hungry because the regime is too stupid to allow private farms like China does.

We also have to remember obama's policy towards Raúl encouraged Nicolás Maduro to ignore election results in December 2015, and go all out towards cementing in place a dictatorship. A regime which happens to be propped up by thousands of Cuban agents and military located in Venezuela, and thousands located in Cuba, who monitor Venezuela's Internet and telephony via the fiber optic cable installed several years ago. 

Maduro's boss and mentor is Raúl Castro 

What Trump did is but a small step in what is turning out to be a war to oppose the cancer represented by the Castro dictatorship, which has spread to Venezuela, Nicaragua and Bolivia, and may actually be the USA's most virulent enemy.