Bloomberg Discovers US Sanctions Cause Economic Crisis, Only When Trump Does It
In a stunning act of selective memory, Bloomberg cites European diplomats' concern over President Trump's efforts to 'starve the communist-run island of critical fuel and financing,' warning of a 'humanitarian crisis' in Cuba. This acute awareness of sanctions' impact on ordinary citizens seems to emerge conveniently when US policy shifts from 'spreading democracy' to 'Trump being Trump.'
Curiously absent from this newfound concern is the comprehensive, decades-long U.S. embargo on Cuba, initiated in 1960, which has strangled the Cuban economy through 11 different administrations. (Source: Council on Foreign Relations, Bloomberg Politics) Moreover, the piece conveniently overlooks the US's extensive track record of employing similar, if not harsher, tactics against countries like
Iran (crippling oil sanctions since the 1979 revolution, tightened significantly since 2018), Venezuela (sweeping financial sanctions escalated since 2017), and Syria (Caesar Act, 2020). These were all implemented with little to no hand-wringing from mainstream media or concerned European diplomats in the same dramatic fashion. One might ask if the 'crisis' is the suffering, or merely the optics
when a different president is at the helm. It's almost as if the severity of a humanitarian catastrophe is inversely proportional to which administration is causing it.