President Trump has turned his attention to Cuba, declaring a national emergency over Cuba's dealings with America's enemies, and signing an Executive Order authorizing punitive tariffs for Cuba's friends. But in what's becoming a familiar pattern, Trump also notes that he hopes Cuba will embrace a deal. In the Golden Trump era of simultaneous carrot-and-stick foreign diplomacy, Venezuela has already found out what the stick is like. Option A is highly recommended. But Trump will prevail either way, and this workflow will only become more efficient as the Donroe Doctrine works its way through our hemisphere.
In the aftermath of Operation Absolute Resolve, the befuddled exclamation of "can a country just do that?" that you heard here and there indicated two points of CNN-fed ignorance: yes, you can have a foreign policy, and it's particularly justified if you gave the other guy clear options first. In fact, a visibly dangled carrot followed promptly by the big stick is perhaps the kindest and most enduring Pavlovian approach to foreign policy. It's what was missing from the muddled combined Obama-Biden era of fake red lines and porridge-mouthed confusion. It's why President Trump, by contrast, has blossomed so beautifully from Dealmaker into Peacemaker: a neighbor who forfeits an opportunity for peaceful mutual sovereignty deserves what they get.
Countries can execute foreign policies consistent with their own thriving. Rome, Britain, and France took it to extremes through imperial conquest. But the artificial, gravity-defying – not to mention perverse – notion of post-war "rules-based international order" successfully convinced many an undiscerning mind that whatever boundaries were on the map after about 1948 are infallible; and whoever is in charge of the domain within a country's borders at any given time must be revered and enjoyed unquestioningly.
Even if that country fell to communists and is operating under new management, even if you caught that country cheating you quietly over time, the money's gone. Even if a country's leaders conspire with other world leaders to suck you dry like fleas and leave your country for dead in ways that none of our intellectual superiors' attorneys will ever bother to litigate in "rules-based order" court. An arrangement that demands that any country not protect its interests is logically incoherent and counter to sovereignty.
With a wise understanding that this has always been the way and in anticipation of similar instances in the future, James Monroe established the Monroe Doctrine. Not all countries are profitable, fair, or honest. So we should have the moral authority to deal with those closest to us. Cuba has been under "new management" unsuccessfully for three-quarters of a century, a hapless thorn in our side. The eternal defection of Cuban refugees to South Florida is a humanitarian crisis both on our shores and over the uniquely perilous journey here. Like Venezuela, Cuba props up its failing economy by working with an impressive menagerie of our worst enemies: China, Hamas, Hezbollah, and so on. Like North Korea, Cuba's communist government savagely censors free speech and silences opposition. There's plenty to repulse Americans of both political parties.
Why would we continue to let it go on – what's the alternative, look aside while an illegitimate government abuses its people and empowers our more prominent enemies because that feels nicer? Is this the picture of success that our intellectual superiors would prefer through their rules-based order?
No. In the Golden Era, corrective action is kinder than permissive inaction. Which brings us to the most effective international language of foreign policy: offering a better deal first. What many casual news consumers didn't realize last month was that Maduro had other options and many warnings. Having been indicted in the US in 2020, he must have known that he'd be headed for a Manhattan courtroom eventually one way or the other. The Biden administration had placed a $50M bounty on his head – an enjoyable example for the "can you just do that" discussion. President Trump spoke with Maduro. The US blew up so many drug ships. Maduro could have turned himself in at any time. Some enterprising privateer could've bagged Maduro in the meantime and charged the taxpayers a big bill on Biden's behalf. But Maduro did us the excellent service of giving us the totally legitimate opportunity to show off our Big Stick for free.
It's Cuba's turn now. Cuba could take a deal, the terms of which, of course, have not been disclosed. Or Cuba could let the Sword of Damocles (Don-ocles?) fall and set in motion a set of tariffs that will punish both Cuba and our more prominent enemies, such as China. And it would be Cuba's fault, not ours. The beauty of President Trump's Big Carrot/Big Stick diplomacy is that it gives the failing leaders within our sphere the power to benefit themselves and us, or punish themselves and our enemies. It's an increasingly efficient win-win/win-win.
