Pod Save the World - ISIS in Sri Lanka, cruelty to Cuba, Ukrainian elections

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

First, Tommy and Ben discuss the horrific Easter Sunday terrorist attack in Sri Lanka, North Korea's weapons test, China's ascendance, Trump's UK state visit, elections in Ukraine, the foreign policy impact of the Mueller report and the Armenian genocide. Then, Cuba expert Marguerite Rose Jiménez joins to discuss Trump's cruel rollback of Cuba policy. 

Welcome to Potsave the world. This is Tommy Vitor on the line all the way from New Jersey. The exotic location of Princeton, New Jersey is Ben, how are you doing? Good, man. I just spoke here, Princeton. Saw a lot of worldos in the audience. That's fantastic. A lot of Obama loans. And for those of you in D.C., I'll be at both American University in Georgetown on Thursday. So come check that out. All right, check that out.

Later on in the show, I talked to Cuba expert Marguerite Jimenez. about all the ways Donald Trump has rolled back the historic changes to U.S. Cuba policy that you negotiated, Ben, and I want to ask you about that a little bit later. But first, I want to start with Sri Lanka, North Korea, testing more weapons, some news out of China, Trump finally getting his visit to the United Kingdom, the Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, a major election in Ukraine. So it's a packed one, as per usual. A lot going on.

All right. Let's start with Sri Lanka. So on Easter Sunday, there was a series of horrific bombings at churches, hotels, restaurants, in Sri Lanka, anywhere where there were Westerners. The bombers used high-grade explosives. They were coordinated and deadly attacks. The death toll, I believe, is at 321 people as of this recording. ISIS has taken credit for it. They said it was designed to target Christians, Westerners.

The reports that the Sri Lankan government had some intelligence warning them of the attack but actually didn't do anything to prevent the attacks. which is troubling and will likely lead to major changes. There are also reports that some of the attackers had traveled to Syria. Some have suggested it was a response to the New Zealand mosque shooting, which I don't know, maybe they said that, but that seems ridiculous to me. ISIS doesn't need a reason to kill innocent people. You know, the Sri Lankan government has taken some steps to impose a curfew and block social media networks. But Ben, I mean, I guess I'm trying to figure out what this tells us about ISIS.

There's a lot of talk recently about whether or not ISIS has been defeated. in Iraq, in Syria. But to me, this says we have a lot more work to do globally to stop the threat. Yeah, I mean, you know, first of all, it's just an awful tragedy. And in a country that, you know, had recently climbed out of like a brutal civil war. So kind of compounding that fresh wound in Sri Lanka. I think what it tells us, if it is ISIS, and the indications are that there's some role here, is that this is the direction that ISIS will move in. And, you know, we've talked about the fact that as they can no longer hold territory in Syria and Iraq, they'll probably morph into a more traditional terrorist organization, albeit a particularly lethal one, and that they will probably seek out,

what this tells you is that they may seek out places where they see vulnerabilities. So countries like Sri Lanka that may seem like easier targets, you know, than, say, a Western country with advanced CT capabilities. And that may be what we're looking at. an ISIS had morphed back into sponsoring these types of attacks that is opportunistic in picking places where they see vulnerability. Interestingly, the Sri Lankan government's been badly divided. The prime minister is, you know, a political adversary of the defense minister. And so one of the reasons why the information might not have been shared is that you have kind of rivalries in this government.

And so it looks like they found the soft target to go after. And again, it may seem that ISIS will shift to that. type of targeting and particularly targeting that seeks to pit, you know, Muslims against Christians or against people of different religions. And it's a reminder that, you know, ISIS may be defeat in terms of its territory, but it's probably going to be with us for some time as a terrorist group. Yeah. And as an ideology that's going to fester. And so, you know, when you hear Trump say, we need to loosen the rules of engagement for U.S. service members or quote unquote, bomb the shit out of them, those are temporary wins, right? Long.

term, we are fighting an ideology, we are filing a well-oiled propaganda machine. Unless we figure out how to better combat the ways that they're inspiring people and getting new adherence to their horrific ideology, this is going to be a forever war. And I think that people in Washington just don't seem to always get that. Yeah. No, and, you know, the boasting doesn't help, you know, the, obviously the religious frame, you know, ISIS seeks to prey upon the notion of there being a war against Islam or of Islam against others. We should be trying to isolate ISIS from the vast majority of the world's Muslims who reject

their points of view. We should be trying to strengthen countries like Sri Lanka that are emerging from conflicts. You know, these are the kind of hard work of many years that, you know, Trump is not putting that work in, you know, and so ISIS will seek these places out. I think It's also kind of interesting that you see the Sri Lankan government shutting down social media, seeing social media as a threat. I think you might see more of that, frankly, in some other countries as well. So that could be another new trend. Yeah, that was very interesting.

Go to North Korea for a minute. Last week, the North Koreans fired a new kind of tactical weapon. This was not a nuclear test. It didn't look like it was an intercontinental ballistic missile. But, you know, it was seen as inflammatory and largely as a war. warning to Trump and I imagine the South Korean government to say Kim Jong-un wants sanctions relief. And he feels like we're running out of time and he's running out of patience. North Korea had suspended weapons tests like this since about November of 2017.

North Korea interestingly also announced that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is not allowed to be part of future talks. They called him a bunch of funny propaganda words. Ben, what did you make of this test in the, attempt to ice out Pompeo? And what do you think the response should be? Well, look, there's no question that North Korea doesn't do something like this without a message behind it. I mean, they know how the testing of any weapon is going to look around the world. They wanted it registered by the United States and other countries that they're not happy with how things have gone and that they are still willing to push the envelope when it comes to, you know,

going against the will of the United States and in the West. And so again, I think this is a message that Trump's diplomacy has not yielded any results because there had been no rollback of the nuclear program, no rollback of the missile program. All there had been is a moratorium on these types of tests. And now we see them, you know, starting small, this isn't a nuclear test, but they're sending a message. Yeah. I think the Pompeo piece, they're form shopping. You know, they know they have in Trump, somebody who's eager to have this good relationship with Kim, someone who, kind of overrules his own team and kind of praising Kim and making concessions to Kim at times on issues like military exercises and with the South Koreans. And they're testing whether they can get

away with that, whether they could say, yeah, we don't like Pompeer and Bolton. We want to deal with some other people here. And, you know, Trump has invested so much in this idea that he has some special relationship with Kim Jong-un. And Kim is now showing that that won't constrain what he does in terms of his weapons programs. And frankly, that may lead him to feel like he's emboldened to choose his interlocutors on the American side. And so I think this exposes the failure of Trump's diplomacy today. Yeah, and let's be honest.

I mean, he probably will be able to jawbone Pompeo out of this process. And I'd note that Trump a couple days ago suggested he might be open to a step-by-step deal that, you know, baby steps through denuclearization, whereas earlier his top people had been insisting that North Korea had to fully dismantle its nuclear weapons and its programs first before they'd get to sanctions relief. Maybe he will get what he want here. I don't know. I mean, Trump's looking for a win. I suspect he doesn't really care how he gets there.

Yeah, but, and, you know, a foreign adversary or any negotiator is going to choose to hear the message they want to hear. So if, you know, you're North Korea, you're Kim, and you hear Pompeo talking about insisting on denuclearization, And then you hear Trump saying all kinds of stuff that is short of that, well, of course they're going to choose the softer message coming from Trump. And it just shows yet again the danger of having all these mixed messages coming out of your administration. They can't even get on the same sheet of music internally. How on earth are they can execute some complex negotiation with the North Koreans? And Trump clearly thinks that just the optics of him being in a diplomatic process with Kim is some kind of win,

even if he's not accomplishing anything. And frankly, he's found willing, betters for that approach from the Republican Party and some of the media when, in fact, there's just no results to show. And that's why you have Trump saying, you know, well, I averted the war that Obama was going to start because he has to move the goalpost off of dealing with the nuclear program to just making the fact of him having this relationship with Kim, the win. But as we're seeing, it's not really yielding anything. Yeah. Staying in Asia for a bit. So Xi Jinping is going to host, I think, like, 40 world leaders in Beijing this weekend for a conference on their Belt and Road initiative, which is this trillion-dollar-plus investment initiative in something like 70 countries. They're going to build ports, railroad lines, pipelines, all kinds of critical infrastructure in Asia, Europe, Africa, with the goal of building closer alliances with these countries creating new trading routes, et cetera.

So Putin is apparently the guest of honor. the U.S. is not sending a representative, but the U.K. is. So this isn't like a pariah state hangout. This is a major conference. So, Ben, I mean, the one thing you hear everybody talk about is that China's rise is a looming long-term challenge for the United States. But no one really talks about solutions. When you see a conference like this, does it make you worry? Do you think we should attend? And more broadly, if you were in government for the next eight years, how would you deal with major diplomatic flexes by China? So I think that this is the most important geopolitical development in the world.

everybody focuses on Russia. The people who are mopping up during the Trump years in terms of expanding their influence are the Chinese. And if you look at Bell Road, this Bell Road initiative, you know, it starts in East Asia and goes all the way down to Africa. It's this massive economic and infrastructure plan that they have, but make no mistake here, this is all on China's terms, right? So, yes, people are paying into an infrastructure fund, But the Chinese are financing these projects. In many cases, they're building them with Chinese workers. They're putting other countries into debt traps because countries have to go into debt to China in order to finance some of these programs.

You know, the terms of the deal are written in Beijing. And frankly, what we dealt with in government is a lot of these Southeast Asian countries or South Asian countries or African countries who are getting uncomfortable with the extent to which arrangements like this were kind of, of a backdoor for de facto Chinese dominance of their economy. Now, how would I deal with it? Well, the TPP was the vehicle to deal with it because essentially what we were saying in the Obama administration is we need our own club that essentially has a higher standard here for how you deal with trade and for how you review projects and for how you protect intellectual property. Can you remind us real quick what TPP was? Yeah, so the Trans-Pacific Partnership was a trade agreement,

between the United States and 12 other major economies in the Asia-Pacific region. So key players and allies of ours like Japan, Mexico and Canada were in that, but also countries like Vietnam and Malaysia and Singapore. We were essentially trying to build the counterweight to this growing Chinese influence and say the Chinese have the Belt Road initiative. We have TPP and TPP has higher standards. TPP will ensure that there is less corruption in how. trade goes down. TPP will provide protections for things like intellectual property. There'll be protections

for the environment and for workers' rights, which obviously is not part of the Chinese approach to how it looks at trade. And so you need some counterbalance to what China is doing, some alternatives. Otherwise, these countries, like a Vietnam or like a Malaysia, just kind of get rolled over by the size of China and the influence of China. I don't think we can or should try to stop something like the Belt Road Initiative. And frankly, I think it probably would make sense for us to be present at meetings like this and to accept and understand that there is going to be increased Chinese influence in certain parts of the world. But what Trump is doing is essentially completely seeding the field, not so much because they're not sending a representative conference, but because they've pulled out

of TPP and they've kind of pulled out of engagement with a lot of these countries in Asia. And the message that's being sent to these countries is, look, you better cut your deal with China because the Chinese are going to be there. The Americans aren't there. Tommy, I'll tell you one story I remember talking to a Vietnamese official about TP, and the Vietnamese said to me, look, we've had a rival with the Chinese for a thousand years. We have all kinds of problems with China. We would rather actually have a close relationship with you guys, but we know they're going to be there. They're right upstairs. They're right north of us, and their giant, TPP is the test of whether you guys will be there, whether or not there's an agreement that binds

our economy to yours. And when Trump cut those cords to these countries, they were left with no choice but to succumb to the Chinese terms for how trade is going to function. And that's why this is such an important initiative. It's the Chinese writing the rules for how the economy is going to operate across vast swaths of the globe. Man. I mean, it does put a whole different light on America first when you think that the Chinese government made a decision to do foreign investment on a scale that's like 7x what the Marshall Plan was for, you know, post-World War II Reconstruction of Europe. I mean, they obviously see that it's in their interests.

It is frustrating and unfortunate that, you know, not only the U.S. government doesn't necessarily agree, but I think a lot of the American people don't view foreign investment and infrastructure development as important or potentially beneficial to us because we demagogue in our politics. Well, and Tommy, it has other consequences. Like you, I know Carolina with the Rheinga issue, right? The massive displacement ethnic cleansing that's taken place in Rakhine State in Myanmar. Well, Belt Road Initiative goes right through the kind state.

There is a pipeline envisioned as a part of the Belt Road Initiative that goes right through Rakhine State, including areas where the Rahinga used to live. The Chinese are currently putting a million Uyghur Muslims in internment camps. So the idea that the government in Myanmar, that is increasingly dependent on China economically and depend on the Belt Road initiative would be less inclined to take human rights concerns into account is a ripple effect of this sorting out of how politics works, right? So the removal of the United States from the picture in a lot of these places and the

creeping Chinese dominance in a lot of these places has all kinds of consequences that go beyond even just the bottom line of the Chinese, again, dominating the trading commercial relationship. Yeah. Frustrating. All right. Let's move to Europe for a minute. So two years ago, Trump was promised a formal state visit to Britain.

It got delayed and delayed and delayed, but we learned today breaking news that he's finally going to get it. Is that because Brexit is solved and the people of London have stopped hating him? No, absolutely not. He's at about 70% disapproval. But he's heading over for three days in June. they'll hang with the queen. They'll probably stay in Buckingham Palace. Remember that not that long ago, Trump attacked the Muslim mayor of London. Just after a terrorist attack, he retweeted a gross inflammatory anti-Muslim video posted by a far-eyed activist. So question one is, how do you think that Theresa May, whoever is prime minister at this point, should handle him? And second, I mean, do you think there's a cost to the U.S. and are standing in the world when a president is so unpopular that you get protested on a foreign trip to a, ally as close as the UK? Yeah.

I mean, first of all, I remember well, Tommy, our state visit to the UK. It was a lot of fun. But I will say that it was a different reception, right? They ruled out the red carpet for Obama. He spoke to the parliament. You know, he had huge crowds lining the motorcade. And the message was that the U.S. and the UK are together and that this American president is uniquely respected around the world.

London is in many ways, you know, with New York, like the international city, right? So it has kind of a hold on the imagination of the world beyond even just the U.S. UK relationship. I would imagine that any U.K. Prime Minister is going to try to keep him at arm's length, that, you know, he probably will want to spend as little time in London as possible. You maybe go out to the Camp David version of what the prime minister's, you know, country residence is, a place called Checkers, get him as far away from places where there could be, protests. You know, the queen has to maintain her famous stiff up her lip and probably thinks she needs to do this to demonstrate that what Brexit's happening, that, you know, the U.S. and the U.S. and

UK saw this relationship. But the problem is going to be the whole purpose of a visit like this. Like, why does this happen? It happens because, you know, we seek to reaffirm the special relationship we have with the UK and these values we share and the things we stand for around the world. But everybody's going to see that that's fucking bullshit. Everybody's going to see that the people of London hate this guy, and that they're going to be protesting in huge numbers, and we're going to have whirled those out in the street in London against this. And Trump is a manifestation of the same brand of politics that has tied the UK in knots, right?

Exactly. And so I actually think it's a net negative for everybody involved in a way, because it's not going to make it look like the U.S. and U.S. and U.K. and the people of the United States and the United Kingdom stand shoulder to shoulder. It's going to make it look like we have this deeply, loathed president, even in what is supposed to be the capital of our closest ally. Right. And I can guarantee you that the Chinese leader won't be protested in the same numbers. He still thinks of himself as Mr. Brexit, the guy who called the election. I don't think he realizes

that years later, that the nationalist populist fervor that was Brexit has done more damage to the UK than maybe any other country on the planet besides ours. And people are so absolutely sick of it. And they probably don't want to deal with him either. Yeah, and he can't deliver what they want, right? So, like, part of what the Brexit people promised is we can leave Europe, but the United States is so important in the world that we can have a closer relationship with the United States that can make up for some of what we're losing with Europe. But Trump has been single-handedly diminishing U.S. credibility in the world, and U.S. standing in the world. And so the idea that they can make up what they're losing in Europe through the relationship with the United States is discredited by the person of the U.S. credibility in the world, and U.S. standing in the world. And so the idea that they can make up what they're losing in Europe through the relationship with the United States is discredited by the person of Donald Trump, never mind the idea that the notion that they're going to have some trade agreement rapidly agreed to with the United States that will make up for the European Union breaking off from the UK. That too, I think, has been proven to be a fallacy. Nothing can replace Europe in terms of the United Kingdom's trade relationship. So I think in general, this is only going to highlight the false promises made both Trump, that he would restore America's, you know, be respected again in the world,

and by the Brexit people who said that somehow you could have your cake and eat it too. You could leave the EU, but kind of, you know, have low consequences for that and have this close relationship with the U.S. The crowds in the streets protesting will be the evidence that that's not true. Yeah. Some maybe good news out of Ukraine. So a comic actor with no experience in government or the military will be the president of Ukraine. Volodymyr Zelensky won an astounding 73% of the vote.

He ran against corruption, poverty. He did not dive into some of the anti-immigrant nationalist sentiments that we've seen in so many elections around the world. You know, it was a genuinely interesting, surprising outcome. The election looks like it has been relatively free and fair so far. So I don't know. What do you think, Ben? Is this good news? It's difficult to tell.

He's a comedian who played a president on television. Right. So his television show was he's a man of the people kind of president. Look, he's preferable to some of the other choices, some of the other potentially Russian-backed people, some of the other more nativist people. I think we just kind of don't know what he will actually be like in office. He's backed by some pretty powerful people there, so I'm sure he has his own connections, but he has a certain kind of populist appeal that he's developed this,

relationship with the people who watch his show and who see him as a charismatic figure who might be uncorrupted. I think what it mainly tells me is how much the Ukrainian people are just completely sick and tired of corruption and a corrupt political establishment and Russian influence and also the influence of gun a billionaire oligarchs are just looking for anything that feels new and different and fresh, which is kind of a common thread in many countries around the world. I think we'll have to wait and see, you know, what approaches he takes to the deep-rooted challenges that Ukraine has. If he can remain kind of above the corruption that has ensnared just about anybody else who's held high-opposed in Ukraine, that would be a good starting point.

But, you know, I think the jury is still very much out. And let's be honest, in an ideal world, you would have political figures other than people like this who could fill that board. Right. So I think it's actually a sign that, you know, Ukraine's politics need to, to, you know, have further to go here that there's an alternative other than, you know, essentially, you know, a comedian who can take on this kind of role. Yeah, 41-year-old actor slash comedian. I mean, Petro Poroshenko, whom he beat, was was not great. But, yeah, they need to do a little bit of institution and party building and career development for politicians over in Ukraine. That should be the next on the agenda. Yeah, and keep in mind, the Russians has plowed a lot of money into their politics to corrupt people, right? So they've been kind of dealing, you know, with a deck that has been somewhat stacked by Russia. And, you know, I think the people are just searching for someone who is not going to be a Russian puppet and is not going to be lining their own pockets in office. And I think that, you know, one main takeaway is that everywhere around the world, this concept of corruption and the frustration people have with corruption,

at a boiling point. And frankly, you know, it should be in the United States too with the people we have in charge. Yeah. A few more quick things. So while we're close to Russia, obviously the Mueller report came out last week. It is being digested. It has been discussed on cable news ad nauseum. But I'm interested in if you think that there's a foreign policy angle. One, I mean, do you think that it says something about the American system or process for government that there was ultimately some transparency around what occurred? And do you think that could any way act as a deterrent? for future actor to try to interfere in our elections? Or I don't know. I mean, the more cynical take in my mind is that Putin succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. He installed the guy he wanted as president. And his actions are still ripping our political system apart to this day to include the Mueller report.

But what do I know? I'm just an American trying to live in this world. No, look, I think there are two really important points, right? the first is the reason, you know, one of the things that's been interesting in the response is that all of this stuff that happened, all these contacts with Russia, right? The fact that we know that the Trump people knew that Russia was intervening in the election and the Trump people sought to help Russia interfere in the election, the Trump people built campaign strategies around

the Russian interference that they knew was going to happen, the fact that not, the fact that none of that was criminal. I think what that points to is that nobody ever envisioned that something like that was possible. True. Very true. Nobody ever thought that there might be a scenario in which a major party nominee would choose to seek the help of a foreign adversary in swinging the election in their favor, right? So that actually points up just the extremity of what happened, because it should be criminal. It should be criminal to work with a foreign adversary to interfere and just facilitate their interfering in our election. And so, you know, the first point is just how much there was this vulnerability rooted in the system that nobody ever could have possibly anticipated.

Why would we even have to write a law saying that you shouldn't facilitate a massive intervention in our election by a foreign adversary? Because people just didn't imagine that that would happen. I think the second thing from a foreign policy standpoint, Tommy, is that we must look like a joke to the rest of the world. I know. Look, of course this happened. Of course the Russians played a critical role in this. Of course the Trump people went along with it. But there's no debate about whether Bill Barr's four-page letter exonerates Trump in foreign countries. They're looking at this and they're sizing up and they see exactly what happened, which is Putin got exactly what he was setting out to do. And the fact that you still have everybody from President Trump down through the entire Republican Party running interference for that, I think sends a message to the rest of the world that we're just not prepared to deal with this, and that we're not strong enough to stand up to this. And it's yet another reason why to bear into POTS of America territory,

it makes no sense to take impeachment out the table because it sends a message that the United States will not address this and will not enforce accountability for what took place, right? And I think that's a very worrying signal to any other foreign adversary who might ever want to duplicate what the Russians did, never mind Russia itself. A heated debate that will continue. Two more things. One, so April 24th, which is when this pod comes out, is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. It commemorates the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman government, starting in 1950 and went on for several years. For many years, Armenian activists, including a lot of folks here in L.A. have been pushing Congress and candidates and presidents to condemn the Armenian genocide, and specifically to call it a genocide. But the geopolitical complication. is that Turkey, modern day Turkey, flips out about this issue. They react with angry threats, you know, I believe to include threatening, kicking out, you know, the U.S. military or, you know, all kinds of things. So Obama promised to call the intermediate genocide during the campaign.

He failed to do so as president. I know you and I have talked about this before and Sima at the power too, and you feel like that was a mistake. What do you think candidate's, should do, you know, in the face of history like this that is so dark and so evil and yet, you know, pretty clear on the facts, but there is this overriding geopolitical consideration with Turkey. I mean, so we just call them out on their, on their lies and deal with the consequences? Yeah. And look, you know, we should have done this. We should have recognized the army and genocide the first year in office. You know, once we failed to do it then, in a weird way, it made it more difficult to do it going.

forward, which we still should have done going forward, because the Turks saw that we would back down and reconsider this decision. And in that way, it kind of raised the drama around it. I think, look, a genocide occurred. This is central to the experience of the Armenian people, which includes a massive diaspora here in the United States, and particularly obviously in California. And I just think as a matter of course, like we have a, there's a reason to call history for what it is, right? That's part of how you learn from history, and that's part of how you try to prevent history from repeating itself. And so I think candidates should say, like, this was a genocide, and frankly coming into the administration to avoid the kind of buildup,

just called like it is from the very beginning. You know, hey, it's a genocide. I don't know you don't like that turkey, but this is just a matter of history. And, you know, if there are consequences, their consequences, but the reality is, like, you have to stand for certain things in the world, and you have to be guided by facts, and this is a set of facts. There was a genocide. And so there's no reason to prolong this drama around it. Yeah, and look, particularly, one, a genocide occurred. The United States has a duty to call it out and call things for what they are, and you're right. I mean, you don't learn from history if you avoid it or pretend it didn't happen. Two, the, the, the,

What was promised at the time was a broader reproachment with Turkey working together closer as allies through NATO through various other means. In fact, the opposite has happened, right? I mean, Erdogan has gotten increasingly authoritarian. They've turned away from the West in many specific instances. So we got no real value that I can see out of hiding history and, you know, putting a political consideration ahead of our values screwed us in both cases. Yeah, I mean, and look, there are serious geopolitical concerns of Turkey, right? Like we, you know, they help prevent the flow of foreign fighters into Syria and they help manage the refugee flows into Europe when those were exploding. And they obviously had to show, we wanted them to show restraint with respect to the Kurds.

There will always be a reason to not stir the pile of Turkey. But you can't, you know, then if you're always looking for that reason, you'll find it. You know, and if you believe that this is the right thing to do, then do it. And, you know, frankly, some other countries have, and they've been able to prepare their relationships with Turkey. You know, there's a benefit to just being straight about facts when the facts come to history. And, you know, I used to hate every year when, you know, finding different formulations for discussing, you know, the tragic events of 1915 or, you know, what have you. everybody knows what happened. This was like one of the first instances. The word genocide was invented, in part to describe what had happened to the Armenians, you know, something Samantha writes in her book. And I just think that, you know, given the importance of this to the Armenian people and to the history of the phenomenon of genocide, even if there are risks involved, I think you do the right thing. Yeah, agreed. Last thing. So our whole interview coming up with Mark,

Gregory Jimenez is about U.S. Cuba policy and all the ways Trump has unwound, the historic changes that Obama made that you negotiated. So folks should stay tuned for those details. But I just, you know, I wanted to get your reflections on on how you feel about all this. I assume not great. But I mean, I don't know. How did you feel watching him turn back the clock on this policy? And what are you hearing from, you know, Cuban people who I'm sure you met along the way and still speak to about what will this do to them? Yeah, I mean, what's so devastating about these latest round of policies is they're cruel and mean-spirited. And I know Marjorie de get into details, but this is just hitting Cubans, right? This is just saying they're putting caps on remittances that Cuban Americans can send to their family, right? That doesn't hurt the Cuban government. It hurts the Cuban people directly. It's something vindictive about it. this idea that they're going to start limiting Americans' capacity to travel to Cuba.

The American people, they want to go to Cuba. Why does our government get to tell you that you can't travel to Cuba? You can travel just about any other place on Earth, but you can't go 90 miles from Florida to the Cuban people. And by the way, that American travel, that directly supports the Cuban people. Americans who are staying in Cuban Airbnbs. They're having a dialogue with the Cuban people. They're putting money directly in the hands of the Cuban people, not the government.

just like an American who eats at a Cuban-owned restaurant or rides in a Cuban-owned taxi, not government-owned. There's been this growing private sector in Cuba that we are now devastating by these policy changes. And so it's hurtful in that level and that it's just so mean-spirited. And it will have devastating consequences for individual Cubans. Beyond that, Tommy, like what really sucks for me, you know, people say, like, how do you feel? it's not the scorecard that, you know, we had an achievement that he's unwinding. It's that these are human beings.

And we got their expectations up, you know. 97% of the Cuban people and public opinion polls supported the opening United States. They thought that after decades, their lives were finally going to get better. That maybe this stupid conflict of the United States that this wall was finally going to be listed. And that Americans had traveled down there. and they'd be more connected to America, and the Cuban baseball players could play in the United States, and that their lives would improve.

And frankly, I believe that that kind of opening would do more than anything to promote positive change in Cuba because if Cubans are more connected to the outside world, then they won't live in this kind of mummified environment that they're living in. Like, they don't drive those classic cars because they love 1950 fucking Studebakers. They drive them because of this crazy embargo that we imposed on that.

And so to me, It's so painful to see all these people who I saw their expectations raised at the end of the Obama administration, now having their hopes dashed again by the United States by thugs like John Bolton and political hacks like Marker Wubio, who are just doing this to appeal to some narrow set of the electorate in South Florida. That's a disgusting way to make policy that impacts people's lives like this. And I hope Americans, including Cuban Americans, like pay more attention to just. just the base cynicism and cruelty behind this approach that is punishing people who've already suffered enough and who have enormous talent and things to offer. And the last thing I say, Tommy, is in Cuba, this only helps the worst actors, right? Like whoever the hardliners are in Cuba who hate the opening of the United States,

they're the only people who are happy about this because they get to say, see, I told you so, you were wrong to ever trust the Americans. And we need to be more ideological and we need to be more all in with Maduro. Like, we are guaranteeing that we're pushing those Cuban hardliners and the Maduro people into a corner, and they know how to play that game, and they know how to try to wait us out. And we're letting everybody else down. So it's also stupid as a matter of foreign policy. It's not going to promote change in Cuba. It's going to prevent change in Cuba.

So, as you can see, I don't get worked up about it. But it just sucks to see people, you know, who've already suffered for decades under a stupid American farm. foreign policy, watch them compounding this mistake. Yeah. Cruel is exactly the right word. And it is just so, so frustrating. I should, one thing I'd have to tell me, though, if it's not inevitable, like, this can change back quick. Like the work that we did to break the logjam, you know, if a Democrat wins, they will be starting further down the field and opening up and engaging Cuba. And that is the inevitable direction of things, I think. It's open. Yeah. Another reason to organize our butts off in

2020. Ben, great talking to you, buddy. Travel safe, and everybody in D.C. should go see Ben later this week. Yep. Back and see your next week, man. And when we come back, my interview with Marguerite Jimenez. On the line from Washington, D.C. is Marguerite Jimenez. She directs the Cuba program at the Washington office on Latin America. And before that was the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of Commerce, where she worked on Cuba issues. Marguerite, this has been a bummer of a week for people who care about U.S.-Cuba relations. But thank you for joining. Yeah, my pleasure.

So Trump imposed these new restrictions on Cuba. They limit non-family travel to the island. They limit how much money Cuban Americans can send relatives back home in Cuba. And it also allows exiles to sue the Cuban government if their property was seized in the past. And so in making this announcement, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor, again, referred to Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua as, quote, the Troika. of tyranny, which is just such a terrible phrase, and it sounds like the axis of evil,

but they're into it, I guess. So my first question for you, I mean, President Obama and our friend Ben Rhodes undertook this historic engagement and dethying of relations with Cuba. What is left of that work? How much has Trump unwound at this point? So, I mean, a lot of the stuff that has been unwound, kind of the more public things like the opening to travel, the ability to send remittances. Some of the things that remain, there is still a bilateral process whereby things like security cooperation, counter-narcotics, migration accords, those things are still discussed bilaterally between the two countries.

But, you know, it's anyone's guess how long those things survive. And I would just note the fact that we don't have a fully staffed embassy. in Havana is having a serious negative effect on those bilateral agreements. A quick question on that embassy issue. Is that because of some of the health issues that people were facing where they thought there might have been a sonic attack that was leading to hearing loss or concussion-like symptoms for people? Or is this a policy choice by the Trump administration?

I would say it's something that has gotten slightly politicized in the current environment. But yeah, absolutely. It's because of the health incidents, because of the lack of certainty. But the dramatic reduction of staffing at the embassy, which has been in place for, which has been in place for more than the past year, makes it almost impossible to do things like process visas or just hold normal kind of diplomatic relations or any of the bilateral talks, whether that's migration or counter narcotics. Those are all affected because there just aren't enough people. there to do this work. Got it. So a question for you about the specific actions President Trump took most recently. How do you think that decision to limit travel to limit remittances will impact people on the ground in Cuba and Cuban small businesses? Yeah, all of this stuff, the thing that's so frustrating is that the administration and folks

like Marco Rubio have consistently said, you know, we're doing these things to benefit the Cuban people. when in fact all of the things that they've done recently, whether it's eliminating the baseball deal, whether it's cutting remittances, it's cutting travel, all of that directly negatively affects the Cuban people. The fact that you're no longer going to have remittances,

which are really the lifeblood of the Cuban private sector, the fact that those are going to go from being unlimited, which was pouring $3 to $4 billion into the Cuban private sector primarily since 2015, now that you're going to have those reduced to basically $4,000 a year is just, is just punitive beyond belief and punitive towards the Cuban people. Yeah. Okay. So just if people listening don't know and remittances are, I mean, basically it's just, you know,

I moved to the United States. I live in Miami. I'm making money to the point where I can send a couple hundred bucks back a week. I mean, that's critical revenue for people living back in Havana, right, or on the island. Yeah, it's critical not just for, not just for people kind of living their daily lives. It's also a critical source of kind of investment for Cuban small businesses, right? So exactly like you said, your family member moves to, moves to the United States. They're making some money.

And maybe they're able to send you, you know, the capital that you need to start your own restaurant or something like that. All of a sudden, it's not just that that person has opened a restaurant. All of a sudden, that person has money to employ other people. and those people then are patronizing other, you know, other small businesses. So there's this really great trickle-down effect that we've seen in the Cuban economy recently. And that's really going to get strangled because of this. You know, the other thing that I imagine will impact the Cuban economies, you've seen all these American businesses pop up or just expand operations in Cuba.

I know that Airbnb, for example, made a huge push into Cuba. There's a lot of travel to Cuba. There's U.S. companies that started tourism business that are just designed for U.S. travelers. who want to go to Cuba, what happens to those businesses, do you think? Nothing good is a short answer. You know, it depends. We haven't seen the extent of the travel regulations at this point. Those should be coming from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which is in Treasury,

in the next couple of months. But limiting the rights of U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba is going to have an impact on, you know, the airlines that have opened new routes to Cuba. there's talk of it even affecting or limiting or eliminating the ability of people to travel on cruises to Cuba. So those businesses take a huge hit. So this doesn't just affect U.S. or Cuban businesses. It also affects U.S. businesses. So some of the reports have emphasized the fact that the Trump administration made this decision to allow lawsuits to go forward.

People are going to essentially sue for land they lost, you know, even 20 years ago. could you explain why that's such a big deal? And I guess this happened against opposition from European and Canadian allies. What is the significance of that decision? Yeah. So basically, so when people who are then Cuban citizens in the late 1950s, so post-1959, post-Cuban revolution, and had property nationalized, right? So this could be someone who owned a large tract of land where now the airport, the Jose Marti Airport now is in Havana, or people who owned large plantations

where now, like a sole melia, the hotel chain, exists. And so in 1996, when Helmsburton, which is this kind of huge, very punitive law towards Cuba was passed, there was this part that's called Title III within that, that basically said, okay, if you had your property nationalized,

it doesn't matter if you were a U.S. citizen when your property was nationalized, you could now sue, you could now sue the Spanish company, you could sue the Canadian mining company, you could sue the Cuban government. And every president, Republican and Democrat alike,

since 1996 when the original law was passed, has basically said, this is so messy in terms of a legal sense, right? This would create such a mess in U.S. courts and would create so much bad blood with our allies. Every single president has waived Title III. So Title III has never gone into effect. There were challenges in the WTO.

In fact, EU countries and Canada and several others even passed their own laws, basically saying if Title III went into effect, their companies could not, basically couldn't abide by it. And so now President Trump, in spite of massive, massive pushback from, you know, the European countries from, you know, the U.S.-Cuba Business Council, the Council of the America, so all of these pro-business groups in the United States. and even Republican members of Congress have come out very strongly against this. The Trump administration has decided for the first time since 1996 to let Title III go into effect, which basically is going to open the door to there's a huge range of estimates, but some have estimated as many as like 6,000 lawsuits for tens of billions of dollars of property claims or damage claims. Jeez, that is a big. That's a big deal. It basically says that, you know, so if the person who, the family who owned the property where the Melia, the Malia Hotel, the Spanish hotel chain now owns property, that family could sue a Spanish company in a U.S. court for damages.

Wow. That is going to be a mess. Yeah. So Trump obviously was able to unwind so much of what Obama did through executive actions and decisions. could the next president unwind all the damage Trump did and go back to the original Obama policies? Like how would this work going forward if we get a better president next time? Yeah. Oh, halla, as the chickens would say.

But yeah, a new president could come in and could undo a lot of these actions because so much of it, like you said, is done by executive order or issues, regulations issued by executive state. can't give agencies. But the problem here that I think, that I think is really key is that it takes a long time to change perceptions. So, for example, when travel regulations change, it creates an enormous amount of uncertainty both for individual travelers and the travel industry so that a lot of what has to happen then is educating people. Yes, it's legal to travel to Cuba. Here's the new rules. Or when business practices change, right? If you're a business, if you're a company and you're

facing just this kind of constant, constant garage of new regulations and new uncertainty injected into the market. Like, why would you do business in Cuba, right? Yeah. And so a new president could absolutely undo the regulations that the Trump administration has put into effect, but it would take, it would take a significant amount of time, which I think the Obama administration people experience, it would take a significant amount of time to undo the actual damage. So whenever they talk about Cuba, they lump in this Troika tyranny branding that includes Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua. What do you think ties those countries together? Is it ideology or political orientation within the countries? Is this all Southern Florida politics for Marco Rubio and Trump's reelect? How do you see this? I think on the domestic side, absolutely, the Venezuela and Cuba thing, I think is definitely driven by domestic.

politics. I mean, you can take just for example, the location and the date of Bolton speech, right? This was on the anniversary of the Bay of Pigs done in Miami in front of a hardline community that, you know, feels like they still need to complete their mission in the Bay of Pigs. So, yeah, absolutely. This is pandering to a very hardline community in Florida that may in fact backfire, right, because that community is very, very small, relatively speaking, although still powerful. In terms of a Venezuela-Cuba relationship, you know, it's evolved a lot over the years, and it's part ideology, it's part economics, right?

So there's been obviously a friendship between the two countries, but there's also just been a real kind of practical, on the Cuban end, real practical kind of business relationship whereby Cuba sent what it had a surplus of, which was doctors and other, and, and and other medical professionals to Venezuela in exchange for something that it didn't have, which was oil. And so that's really been a key part of this relationship. You know, not with the goal of spreading socialism throughout the Western Hemisphere or any of the other kind of Cold War saber rattling that the Trump administration has been doing. You mentioned this Bay of Pigs Memorial event, because that is something we all want to remember

and celebrate the Bay of Pigs because that went so well. Right. And I believe Bolton actually said, now it was time to finish the job, which is preposterous. He is the fucking worst. But, you know, so like, right, those are obviously like grandpas and great-grandpas, probably who are, you know, carrying arms in the Bay of Pings. I mean, do the children and grandchildren of that hard line group that you're talking about still feel the same way about U.S. relations towards Cuba? Or do you think, will the, are the politics evolving with generational change? Or is, that too sanguine on my part? No, absolutely. They're absolutely evolving. And, you know, if your real court was involved in the Bay of Pigs or, you know, was held in prison after the failed attempt to invade Cuba, I mean, sure, you're going to have, you're going to have some emotional attachment to this issue, right? But that's a small minority. And so by and large, Cuban Americans have favored the Obama opening, right? They've favored normalization because they have family still in

Cuba, right? Like, ask Marco Rubio how much of his family is still in Cuba or, you know, whether or not he's spending remittances to anyone. The people who are really, who are really coming out kind of against this policy and who I think are going to, are going to push back against this. Our, our in part going to be Cuban Americans because it affects, it affects them most directly. It affects their families. And they've kind of seen how this policy has not, you know, it hasn't brought kind of the changes that that it had promised to the island. And it certainly hasn't made the lives of their family members were still there any easier.

Yeah. Can you talk just a little bit about how some of these policy changes might impact Major League Baseball if they've reacted at all? I can only speak really limited, in a limited way to that. So the deal that was done that would have allowed Cuban baseball players to play in the United States, essentially without defecting, which was... Which was a really positive thing, right?

This was done out of a concern to eliminate human trafficking, right? We saw there were all sorts of just horrendous stories of Cuban baseball players who, because of U.S. laws, were forced to defect to other countries before they were able to come to the United States to play baseball. And the agreement that was signed, you know, just a couple months ago would have really would have really gone a long way to addressing kind of those. concerns about human rights. And what the deal, the cancellation of the deal means is that now Cuban players are in limbo again, and now we're going to face these really gross conditions to try and get, to try and get to the United States or to be able to play.

And it also just, you know, it's just, it's toying with the Cuban people, right? It's giving, it's giving a whole new generation of Cuban ball players hope that they might be able to both, you know, play for their country and play for the United States, like we allow, you know, ballplayers from all over the world to do. And now, and now those hopes are just being, are just being dashed again. Yeah. I mean, you know, look, I don't like Donald Trump's foreign policy pretty much at all anywhere. But I guess I would say the thing I do like about what his approach, at least, is he tells the conventional wisdom and the usual suspects in Washington that he doesn't care.

what they think. And he's more than willing to go meet with Kim Jong-un and try diplomacy and shake things up a bit. And obviously it has not, it hasn't borne fruit. It hasn't been effective per se. But, you know, I like that. I like telling the blob, you know, to go away. This is the counter example, right? I mean, this is returning to a policy that has failed for decades and decades and decades. And it's just so frustrating. It's so ideological and stupid. Yeah, I think that's a great way to summarize it. Ideological, stupid, the John Bolton approach. I would even go so far as to say cruel. You know, in terms of the people who are going to be punished by this, it's certainly not the Cuban government that's going to bear the brunt of this. Yeah, we're going to harm Cuban people. We're going to harm Cuban businesses and U.S. businesses that are just trying to create jobs. So great job, everybody.

Marguerite, thank you so much for taking some time. I really appreciate it. Yeah, my pleasure. Thanks for your time. I really, I get it better now, and I'm even more bummed out, so there we are. Yeah, don't you want my job. Yeah, me too. Thank you so much.

I appreciate it. All right. Thanks for listening to Positive the World. Appreciate you guys tuning in next week. We'll be back. Ben will be in studio. Excited to talk with you guys, so have a great week.