A Lot of Heat and No Fire

A Lot of Heat and No Fire / Fernando Dámaso

Fernando Damaso, 18 June 2017 — The policy toward Cuba, announced by
United States President Donald Trump, in an event in Miami that was more
buffoonish than serious, as well as the Declaration of the Revolutionary
Government responding to it, constitute "a lot of heat and no fire."

First of all, Trump's speech was full of rhetoric and repetition of set
phrases, with the objective of satisfying the small group of
Cuban-Americans and Cubans who still remain frozen in the years of the
Cold War, dreaming of a triumphal entry into Havana on the shoulders of
Uncle Sam, something that neither Trump nor any other American president
will provide them, rather than concrete measures against the Cuban
government.

If we look behind the curtain, aside from repealing the previous
presidential directive and signing the new one (nothing but a play on
words), the only elements are: eliminating the people-to-people
individual travel and blocking American companies from doing business
with Cuban companies linked to the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the
intelligence and security services. All the rest, established by Obama,
remains in place.

And in the Cuban case, as well, there is an abundance of revolutionary
rhetoric that has been repeated for over half a century and that,
carefully, "reiterates the will to continue respectful dialog and
cooperation on issued of mutual interest, as well as the unfinished
bilateral negotiations with the government of the United States." All
the rest of the long document can be forgotten about.

It seems as if both presidents have agreed to reassure their supporters,
while "silently" continuing the conversations and exchanges of the Obama
era. Trump is not as crazy as he seems, nor are there, in Cuba, new
conditions of "historic confrontations."

Let's let things take their course.

Source: A Lot of Heat and No Fire / Fernando Dámaso – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/a-lot-of-heat-and-no-fire-fernando-dmaso/