In Cuba, Obama’s detente becomes history under Trump

Cuba has jettisoned rhetorical restraint towards the United States and is broadcasting footage of military defence exercises in the face of threats and new sanctions from the administration of President Donald Trump.The island nation had turned the other cheek over the last two years in the face of Trump’s efforts to end a detente initiated by former president Barack Obama.Local experts said Havana was eager to salvage what it could of improved relations and not be blamed for their deterioration.Not anymore, as the United States is increasingly blaming Cuba’s Communist government for the political crisis in its left-leaning ally Venezuela and piling new sanctions onto the decades-old trade embargo.Every day last week, the nightly newscast of Cuban state television showed footage of Soviet-era tanks rolling out from mountain caves, soldiers manning anti-aircraft missile batteries, spandex-clad women shooting rifles and factory workers taking up positions around their plants.Cuba has always insisted defence preparations are the best way to maintain the peace with the United States and state television described the images as training for “The War of the Whole People.”Relations between Washington and Havana have nosedived since National Security Adviser John Bolton said in November the United States would no longer appease what he called Latin America’s ‘troika of tyranny’ — Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua.Few international observers believe the United states has any intention of attacking the Caribbean island, with which it has tense relations since Fidel Castro’s 1959 Revolution.Most view Havana’s military exercises as a way to rally nationalist sentiment.“The message being sent is for the United States and Cuban population at home,” said Hal Klepak, a Canadian military historian who has written extensively on the Cuban armed forces.Klepak said, however, the Cuban armed forces take a US military threat against Venezuela very seriously and in worst case scenario planning can not discount a spill-over towards the island.“Preparations of a very limited kind are being made and the population brought up to speed, both to emphasise the seriousness of the moment and to stiffen popular resolve,” he said.An abrupt change in Cuban rhetoric came last month when President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who replaced Raul Castro a year ago, denounced a speech by Trump as “high-handed, cynical, immoral, threatening, offensive, interfering, hypocritical, warlike and dirty.”That has set the tone for official rhetoric since then.In his Florida speech, Trump had launched a broad attack on socialism and pledged to free the hemisphere from communism.He branded Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro a “Cuban puppet” and “a man controlled by the Cuban military and protected by a private army of Cuban soldiers.”Cuba has furnished tens of thousands of doctors, educators and other technical assistance including intelligence and military assistance to Venezuela’s socialist government since the time of Maduro’s predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez, who forged close ties with Fidel Castro.Venezuela in turn has provided Cuba with heavily subsidised crude oil.Since Trump’s speech, senior US officials have denounced Cuba’s role in Venezuela on an almost daily basis, stirring an angry response in Havana.