Cuba Is a Problem That Trump Is Making Worse
The administration’s new sanctions are likely to backfire.
A blast from the past with a lot of collateral damage.
Photographer: Joe Raedle/Getty Images North America
President Trump and his officials have taken steps lately to make things harder for Cuba, aiming to persuade its government to stop helping Venezuela’s embattled tyrant, Nicolas Maduro. That’s a worthy goal, and Cuba’s material support for Maduro is certainly objectionable, but this is the wrong way to get results.
The administration just announced that U.S. citizens will be able to sue foreigners for transactions involving property that Cuba’s government confiscated after the 1959 revolution. This legal recourse was made available by the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 — but was then frozen, for good reasons, by successive administrations. Tougher restrictions on travel and remittances will also come into force. These new moves follow previous bans on commerce with businesses owned by the Cuban military and security services; restrictions on individual travel to Cuba; a veto of Major League Baseball’s deal with Cuban authorities to hire Cuban players without obliging them to defect; and the shrinking of the embassy in Havana to a skeleton staff.