Spain PM visits Cuba, uses hotel banned to US visitors
Source: Associated Press
Andrea Rodriguez, Associated Press
Updated 5:30 pm CST, Thursday, November 22, 2018
HAVANA (AP) — A Spanish prime minister began visiting Cuba for the first time in three decades on Thursday, a historic trip that suggests a warming of relations between Cuba and the former colonial power.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was scheduled to meet with Cuban officials and intellectuals during the two-day trip. He also was scheduled to host business meetings in a hotel that the Trump administration recently put on a list of places banned to U.S. visitors. He was not expected to meet with dissidents.
Spanish-Cuban relations have seen years of ups and downs, reaching their lowest points when Madrid conditioned its ties and cooperation on a more open political model.
Accompanying Sanchez was Josep Borrell, Spain's external affairs minister, and Reyes Maroto, minister of industry, trade and tourism, along with nearly two dozen businesspeople.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/world/article/Spain-PM-visits-Cuba-uses-hotel-banned-to-US-13415012.php
(Short article, no more at link.)
Sanchez (centre) and his wife Maria (right) walk with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (second left) and others in Old Havana.PHOTO: AFP
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Always thought that the constant mention of if foreign leaders visit Cuban dissidents and prisoners or not, and interpreting some kind of reading on what that means politically, to be a laughable hypocrisy.
if they don't honor the U.S. "will" to isolate Cuba until the U.S. says they don't have to, just like the extraterritorial provisions (internationally illegal, as they all protested years ago) which exact punishment on countries which sell Cuba any products with parts in them with US patents, or allow Cubans to stay in hotels which are partially owned by US interests in their countries, or unload ships in Cuba, and wait for 6 months or more before trading in the U.S. again, etc., etc., etc.
They give them the choice to either trade with Cuba or trade with the U.S. That should impress Cubans with the superiority of capitalism, wouldn't you think?
Countries gave up protesting so long ago, when faced with the choice of trading with a tiny country or a huge one, just as if Trump had been making the rules even then!
"Laughable hypocrisy" would surely apply.
Senator racist Jesse Helms, Rep. Dan Burton
authors of the filthy provisions of the Helms-Burton Act
Helms-Burton Act: Resurrecting the Iron Curtain
June 10, 2011
http://www.coha.org/helms-burton-act-resurrecting-the-iron-curtain/
