Apparently, Donald Trump has been checking out business opportunities in Castrogonia for a few years, even before the Normalization Circus rolled into town.
The information comes from Bloomberg Businessweek, so its source is not exactly impartial.
Former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg hates Trump and gave a fiery anti-Trump speech at the Democratic Convention a couple of days ago.
This article is not about Trump being immoral for considering business deals with a murderous regime, however, but rather about Trump being hypocritical and doing something quasi-illegal.
Its aim is to make Trump seem even more fiendish to those who already hate him and –possibly– to change the minds of some Cuban-American voters in South Florida.
Yet, there is no denying the fact that Trump is always looking for “opportunities” that will increase his profits.
Chances are that he might indeed build apartheid golf courses in Castrogonia, and casinos too.
Aaaah….casinos! The missing link!
Reviving the gambling industry in Castrogonia would be the perfect frosting on the cake of Castronoid hypocrisy.
Thus far Cuba is now known around the world for its tourism apartheid, prostitution, poverty, corruption, and repression.
All it needs to revert to the full stereotype of the Batista years invented by the Castro regime is to add casinos and mobsters to the list.
Trump as the new Meyer Lansky. Imagine that. Godfather IV, instant box office smash, Oscar contender! New chapter in the history of Cuba for non-Cuban audiences.
Did Donald Trump’s Executives Violate the Cuban Embargo?
Golfing with the enemy.
On an afternoon late last year, the golfers teeing off included a group of U.S. executives from the Trump Organization, who have the enviable job of flying around the world to identify golf-related opportunities. The company operates 18 courses in four countries, including Scotland and the United Arab Emirates. It would like to add Cuba. Asked on CNN in March if he’d be interested in opening a hotel there, Donald Trump said yes: “I would, I would—at the right time, when we’re allowed to do it. Right now, we’re not.” On July 26 he told Miami’s CBS affiliate, WFOR-TV, that “Cuba would be a good opportunity [but] I think the timing is not right.”
That, however, hasn’t stopped some of his closest aides from traveling to Cuba for years and scouting potential sites and investments. The U.S. trade embargo, first established in 1962, prohibits U.S. citizens from traveling to the island. But over the years, the U.S. has carved out allowances for family visits, journalism, and other social causes. Most commercial activity is still forbidden, though, with a few exceptions, such as selling medical supplies or food. Golf isn’t on that list.
Trump Organization executives and advisers traveled to Havana in late 2012 or early 2013, according to two people familiar with the discussions that took place in Cuba and who spoke on condition of anonymity. Among the company’s more important visitors to Cuba have been Larry Glick, Trump’s executive vice president for strategic development, who oversees golf, and Edward Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant for golf. On later trips, they were joined by Jason Greenblatt, the Trump Organization’s chief legal officer, and Ron Lieberman, another Trump golf executive. Glick, Greenblatt, and Lieberman didn’t respond to requests for interviews. Melissa Nathan, a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization, declined to answer a list of detailed questions.
In a series of telephone interviews, Russo confirmed he’s traveled to Cuba about a dozen times since 2011. Although he’s spearheading the company’s Cuban golf efforts, according to three people familiar with his role, Russo says these trips haven’t been on behalf of the Trump Organization. He says he’s taken at least one with Glick to go bird-watching and “check out some habitats”—activities that could conceivably qualify for exemptions to the travel ban.
Edward Russo, Trump’s environmental consultant, enjoys feeling superior in Havana
Despite saying his trips with Trump executives were unrelated to the Trump Organization, Russo referred questions about those trips to Eric Trump, the 32-year-old son of the Republican presidential nominee and the company’s executive vice president for development and acquisitions, including golf. “In the last 12 months, many major competitors have sought opportunities in Cuba,” Trump said in an e-mailed statement. “While we are not sure whether Cuba represents an opportunity for us, it is important for us to understand the dynamics of the markets that our competitors are exploring.”
So which was it: a little birding? Keeping an eye on the competition? Maybe neither. According to Antonio Zamora, a well-known Cuban-American lawyer, who says he’s advised the Trump Organization on Cuba for about a decade, he and Russo visited a prospective golf site east of Havana in an area called Bello Monte several years ago.
Based in Miami, Zamora took part in the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion but is now an outspoken critic of the U.S. sanctions. “An embargo that has been in place by a world power like the United States for 50 years and has not accomplished anything substantial is a disgrace,” Zamora writes in his 2013 book, What I Learned About Cuba By Going To Cuba. “This is not what great powers do.” He advises U.S. investors throughout Latin America. He’s circulated conceptual drawings of a Trump tower in Havana beside refurbished versions of the Hotel Neptuno-Triton, a dilapidated pair of 1970s buildings in the city’s business district, according to a person who saw them. (Zamora denies this.)
Zamora does say that he discussed with the Trump Organization the possibility of teaming up with a foreign company to give Trump a minority position in a venture. He says the deal failed to materialize. Zamora dismisses any legal concerns about this, saying he’s been to Cuba dozens of times for conferences, and that the U.S. Department of the Treasury doesn’t bother with these kinds of trips. “It’s a nonissue,” he says.
Antonio Zamora, pro-Castro legal advisor to TrumpThis is a low blow..hugely unacceptable
7 thoughts on “Surprise! Bloomberg accuses Trump of trying to do business with Castro Kingdom”
But Dr. Eire, remember, the hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds. Doing business with the USA is ONLY to be rejected, derided, denounced and trounced upon when said relations are with so-called “right-winged dictatorships like the former South Africa, the Shah’s Iran, Somoza’s Nicaragua or the king of all horrible rightwinged dictatorships, Batista’s aweful Cuba.
Doing business with castro’s Cuba [since it helps the regime] is wanted, desirable, benefitial and the right thing to do, in fact, it is so right that its up there next to saving puppies, feeding hungry children and housing homeless old ladies.
If Trump does business with Cuba, the left will support him in that one endeavor at least. We’re basically between the devil and the deep blue sea. Hillary is horrible and so is Trump. Our only hope was either Cruz or Rubio. I personally wanted Cruz! These are troubled times for all of us.
I’m extremely unhappy with Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, but that’s primarily if not entirely the fault of the contemptible Republican establishment, which makes Debbie Wasserman Schultz look like a genius, and which I hold responsible for Trump’s ascendancy. He is what he is, and at least relatively speaking, he’s far more honest about that than Hillary Clinton, even if that’s not saying much. I can certainly believe he’d be prepared to profit off Cuba, but then again, who isn’t, one way or another? For the zillionth time, if the titular Vicar of Christ won’t do any better by Cuba than he has, what the hell can we expect from anybody else, especially a known operator like Trump? We absolutely have to stop living in fantasy land and wake up and smell the coffee–it’s only been brewing over 50 years, for crying out loud.
“[E]ntirely the fault of the contemptible Republican establishment.”
They — and you know PRECISELY who I mean — betrayed every conservative voter that ever cast a ballot for them. They — and you know PRECISELY who I mean — consistently shit on our votes by doing the exact opposite of what they promised as conservatives they would do.
Is it any wonder then, that when a candidate comes along saying the things that people have been starving to hear, about the issues they care about, that candidate gets nominated? I’m not.
I’m not happy with TheDonald® as a candidate, and I’m not happy I have to vote for him. But the other choice is so horrible to contemplate that only Clive Barker and pre-dementia Stephen King could do her justice.
Dennis Prager told a caller that we have only two choices. One I KNOW will destroy the country and the world and the other MIGHT do it. He opts for the second.
To add insult to already considerable injury, the Republican establishment shows little or no sign of shame or contrition, as if it simply could not read the writing on the wall–which could hardly be clearer. It is impossible for me to respect such people or trust them again, since they are evidently too spoiled, complacent and indolent to reform themselves as circumstances require. I expect they will only resort to their customary MO: pretending, especially at election time, as if they could fool most of the people all of the time. They need to be replaced, as soon as possible, by a very different kind of politician–assuming, of course, there is one.
I’m reminded of Thomas Sowell’s famous quip when in the 2008 election season he was asked why he was voting for McCain over Obama:
“I’ve always preferred disaster over catastrophe.”
People like McCain, Boehner and now Ryan epitomize the problem. It is not that the Dems are brilliant, though they obviously have advantages the Republicans lack. They are simply unscrupulous hacks who, knowing themselves to be well protected, go all out to get what they want. When a party can produce no better candidates than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (!), not in Guam but in the USA, it is very seriously degenerate. However, can one really say any better about the Republican Party in 2016?
Maybe it’s ultimately not a political problem but a social one, and Lord knows our society is showing very serious signs of decay, not to say corruption. Still, the Republican establishment has precious little excuse, because we’re not even talking about an honorable failure, but about people who evidently feel their job consists of getting into the game and playing it indefinitely without having to deliver wins, only promise them. Do Republicans even know what it means to go all out to get what their constituents want? If they do, they sure haven’t put that into practice for FAR too long. It’s time to put up or leave.
But Dr. Eire, remember, the hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds. Doing business with the USA is ONLY to be rejected, derided, denounced and trounced upon when said relations are with so-called “right-winged dictatorships like the former South Africa, the Shah’s Iran, Somoza’s Nicaragua or the king of all horrible rightwinged dictatorships, Batista’s aweful Cuba.
Doing business with castro’s Cuba [since it helps the regime] is wanted, desirable, benefitial and the right thing to do, in fact, it is so right that its up there next to saving puppies, feeding hungry children and housing homeless old ladies.
If Trump does business with Cuba, the left will support him in that one endeavor at least. We’re basically between the devil and the deep blue sea. Hillary is horrible and so is Trump. Our only hope was either Cruz or Rubio. I personally wanted Cruz! These are troubled times for all of us.
I’m extremely unhappy with Trump as the Republican presidential candidate, but that’s primarily if not entirely the fault of the contemptible Republican establishment, which makes Debbie Wasserman Schultz look like a genius, and which I hold responsible for Trump’s ascendancy. He is what he is, and at least relatively speaking, he’s far more honest about that than Hillary Clinton, even if that’s not saying much. I can certainly believe he’d be prepared to profit off Cuba, but then again, who isn’t, one way or another? For the zillionth time, if the titular Vicar of Christ won’t do any better by Cuba than he has, what the hell can we expect from anybody else, especially a known operator like Trump? We absolutely have to stop living in fantasy land and wake up and smell the coffee–it’s only been brewing over 50 years, for crying out loud.
“[E]ntirely the fault of the contemptible Republican establishment.”
They — and you know PRECISELY who I mean — betrayed every conservative voter that ever cast a ballot for them. They — and you know PRECISELY who I mean — consistently shit on our votes by doing the exact opposite of what they promised as conservatives they would do.
Is it any wonder then, that when a candidate comes along saying the things that people have been starving to hear, about the issues they care about, that candidate gets nominated? I’m not.
I’m not happy with TheDonald® as a candidate, and I’m not happy I have to vote for him. But the other choice is so horrible to contemplate that only Clive Barker and pre-dementia Stephen King could do her justice.
Dennis Prager told a caller that we have only two choices. One I KNOW will destroy the country and the world and the other MIGHT do it. He opts for the second.
To add insult to already considerable injury, the Republican establishment shows little or no sign of shame or contrition, as if it simply could not read the writing on the wall–which could hardly be clearer. It is impossible for me to respect such people or trust them again, since they are evidently too spoiled, complacent and indolent to reform themselves as circumstances require. I expect they will only resort to their customary MO: pretending, especially at election time, as if they could fool most of the people all of the time. They need to be replaced, as soon as possible, by a very different kind of politician–assuming, of course, there is one.
I’m reminded of Thomas Sowell’s famous quip when in the 2008 election season he was asked why he was voting for McCain over Obama:
“I’ve always preferred disaster over catastrophe.”
People like McCain, Boehner and now Ryan epitomize the problem. It is not that the Dems are brilliant, though they obviously have advantages the Republicans lack. They are simply unscrupulous hacks who, knowing themselves to be well protected, go all out to get what they want. When a party can produce no better candidates than Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (!), not in Guam but in the USA, it is very seriously degenerate. However, can one really say any better about the Republican Party in 2016?
Maybe it’s ultimately not a political problem but a social one, and Lord knows our society is showing very serious signs of decay, not to say corruption. Still, the Republican establishment has precious little excuse, because we’re not even talking about an honorable failure, but about people who evidently feel their job consists of getting into the game and playing it indefinitely without having to deliver wins, only promise them. Do Republicans even know what it means to go all out to get what their constituents want? If they do, they sure haven’t put that into practice for FAR too long. It’s time to put up or leave.