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Biden promises a new era with Latin America and the Caribbean. How much can he really do?
As president, Donald Trump focused much of U.S. policy in Latin America on curbing migration and clamping down on autocratic leaders in Venezuela, Cuba and, occasionally, Nicaragua — three countries coined the “troika of tyranny” by one of his former advisers. By all accounts, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a different approach. “Biden’s Latin America policy will be profoundly different than the Trump strategy, which mostly focused on inhibiting migration and turning the screws on Cuba and Venezuela to please South Florida voters,” said Benjamin Gedan, an Obama-era National Secu...
Miami Herald
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Commentary: Treaty seeks end to nuclear madness
On Jan. 22, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force. The treaty bans the development, production, possession, deployment, testing, use and just about anything else you can imagine related to nuclear weapons. Approved at the United Nations by 122 countries in 2017, and subsequently signed by 86 and ratified by 51 nations, the nuclear weapons ban will join the venerated status of international prohibitions already established against lesser weapons of mass destruction. These earlier agreements include the Geneva Gas Protocol, the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Bi...
Tribune News Service
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Biden promises a new era with Latin America and the Caribbean. How much can he really do?
As president, Donald Trump focused much of U.S. policy in Latin America on curbing migration and clamping down on autocratic leaders in Venezuela, Cuba and, occasionally, Nicaragua — three countries coined the “troika of tyranny” by one of his former advisers. By all accounts, President-elect Joe Biden is expected to take a different approach. “Biden’s Latin America policy will be profoundly different than the Trump strategy, which mostly focused on inhibiting migration and turning the screws on Cuba and Venezuela to please South Florida voters,” said Benjamin Gedan, an Obama-era National Secu...
Miami Herald
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Commentary: Will the world still look to America as a champion of democracy?
“What’s going on over there?” The question from a former NATO colleague in Europe was among the many texts and WhatsApp messages that lit up my phone Jan. 6 as I watched on live television the astonishing and frightening events unfolding at the U.S. Capitol. The level of incredulity and concern, followed by revulsion and anger, expressed by my friends and former colleagues overseas underscores the damage that was being done to our standing abroad by a rioting mob bent on overturning an election result they did not like. The world’s oldest and most successful democracy, which for more than two ...
Chicago Tribune
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Trump adds Cuba back to list of states sponsoring terrorism in final move against island
MIAMI — The United States added Cuba back to its list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism Monday in one of the Trump administration’s last foreign policy decisions, a move that caps four years of escalating economic and diplomatic pressure against the island. In a statement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo accused Cuba’s government of having “fed, housed, and provided medical care for murderers, bombmakers, and hijackers.” In particular, he mentioned Cuba’s refusal to extradite to Colombia members of the National Liberation Army guerrilla following a terrorist attack in Bogotá and a break...
Miami Herald
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Trump official: US will return Cuba to list of states sponsoring terrorism
MIAMI — The United States will add Cuba back to its list of states accused of sponsoring terrorism in one of the Trump administration’s last foreign policy decisions before leaving office, a senior administration official told McClatchy. President Donald Trump’s advisers have been weighing whether to return Cuba to the list for some time. In January 2019, a senior administration official told the Miami Herald that the issue was being considered because of Cuban security and intelligence support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. A year later, the State Department included Cuba in its list o...
Miami Herald
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Ex-Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney quits administration in protest of Trump’s incitement of Capitol riot
Former White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney resigned Thursday from a diplomatic post in protest of President Trump’s incitement of the rioters who stormed the Capitol. Mulvaney, a staunch Trump loyalist, quit his post as special envoy for Northern Ireland over the president’s shameful handling of the insurrection that took over Congress in a failed effort to block certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s win. “I can’t do it. I can’t stay,” Mulvaney told CNBC. The former Trump lieutenant said he might be the first of many senior administration officials to quit in Trump’s final days in ...
New York Daily News
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US and others tell Haiti to speed up election planning, but no mention of January date
Foreign diplomats in Haiti on Wednesday called on Haitian President Jovenel Moïse to step up preparations for elections in the Caribbean nation.Known as the Core Group, the diplomats say Haiti’s leaders and institutions need to urgently publish an electoral calendar and accelerate the distribution of national identification cards to finalize the elections as soon as possible. Haiti also needs to put together a reliable electoral list, publish an electoral law and a party law that guarantee the transparency of the elections, and ensure that there are sufficient security conditions to allow elec...
Miami Herald
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What does California have to lose if undocumented immigrants are excluded from the census?
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — If The U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of President Donald Trump’s memorandumThe Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments Nov. 30Eric McGhee, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, said the state is home to an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants. If they aren’t included in the census formula, the state could lose congressional representation.Due to the state’s slow population growth and people moving out of the state, California is already expected to lose one congressional seat.With the potential omission of undocumented immigrants, it ...
The Sacramento Bee