Trump violated Cuba embargo

[pete311]

Seems criminal
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/14/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059.html

[jimnyc]

Yup, it sure seems that way on the front. I didn't read your article, but read others today. What was it, $68k in total? I'm curious myself to get all of the facts. I'm not ready to say "violated" just yet though, no offense.

[Drummond]

Seems criminal
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/10/14/donald-trump-cuban-embargo-castro-violated-florida-504059.html

Seems propagandist, Pete.

See this ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-donald-trump-golf-cuba/

... which suggests that Trump may have taken an interest in Cuba. Even so .. I see no actual evidence of an embargo violation. From what I've read, Trump never went that far.


Cuba has only one 18-hole golf course: the government-run Varadero Golf Club, about two hours east of Havana. Built on the 1930s estate of chemicals magnate Irénée du Pont, it was refurbished in the 1990s when the government turned to tourism to bolster its economy after the fall of the Soviet Union. Du Pont’s former residence, Xanadú Mansion, serves as the clubhouse. On the third floor, a wood-and-marble bar offers sweeping views of the Florida Straits.

The course, expanded by Canadian architect Les Furber, is largely flat and littered with palm trees, and the greens fee runs $70. One reviewer described it as “inoffensive golf at its finest.” Yet lining up a putt on the 8th or 18th holes, both of which are right on the azure water, even a duffer can’t miss Cuba’s potential. With fertile soil, plentiful green coastline, and topography that spans plains, rolling hills, and rugged mountains, the island is a golf course architect’s Shangri-La.

On an afternoon late last year, the golfers teeing off included a group of U.S. executives from the Trump Organization, who have the enviable job of flying around the world to identify golf-related opportunities. The company operates 18 courses in four countries, including Scotland and the United Arab Emirates. It would like to add Cuba. Asked on CNN in March if he’d be interested in opening a hotel there, Donald Trump said yes: “I would, I would—at the right time, when we’re allowed to do it. Right now, we’re not.” On July 26 he told Miami’s CBS affiliate, WFOR-TV, that “Cuba would be a good opportunity [but] I think the timing is not right.”

[jimnyc]

Seems propagandist, Pete.

See this ...

http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-donald-trump-golf-cuba/

... which suggests that Trump may have taken an interest in Cuba. Even so .. I see no actual evidence of an embargo violation. From what I've read, Trump never went that far.

Give it some time for facts to come out. This is the time of the election where all sides are digging for dirt and releasing everything and anything. Hillary is out there claiming that she hates dirty campaigning today. Talking about how bad it is that Trump would somehow line his pockets, while she's done so her own life. None of this is to say he did or did not do so, but everything released prior to the election needs to be seriously scrutinized.

But golf, casinos.. Next thing we'll be told he brought in a few hundred thousand worth of the infamous Cuban cigars!!

[Drummond]

Give it some time for facts to come out. This is the time of the election where all sides are digging for dirt and releasing everything and anything. Hillary is out there claiming that she hates dirty campaigning today. Talking about how bad it is that Trump would somehow line his pockets, while she's done so her own life. None of this is to say he did or did not do so, but everything released prior to the election needs to be seriously scrutinized.

But golf, casinos.. Next thing we'll be told he brought in a few hundred thousand worth of the infamous Cuban cigars!!

Being fair-minded enough to wait for verified facts to emerge, is of course ideal. But do election campaigns win or lose according to dispassionate sifting of facts, OR, is it more likely that mere soundbytes may catch on ?

Obama made great strides with his 'hope and change' mantra-making. Few if any could define in any detail what he meant by it. But, it gained traction with the electorate, nonetheless.

The very same could be said for propaganda injected into the mix at just the right time. Such as, unsubstantiated damaging claims about disreputable conduct.

[jimnyc]

Hillary Confidante McAuliffe Made 2010 Cuba Trip ‘to Sell Virginia Wine and Apples’ — While Hillary Was Secretary of State

In 2010, Terry McAuliffe, now the Democratic governor of Virginia, made a trip to the Caribbean communist island Cuba to sell “Virginia wine and apples” according to a 2013 Washington Post story by Peter Wallsten and Carol Leonnig.

The trip turned out to be bust for McAuliffe, but in more ways than one. Cuban officials scoffed at McAuliffe’s sales pitch and he faced heat once he returned from Cuba.

“The Cubans scoffed at his propositions during the April 2010 visit, unmoved by the full-frontal style of persuasion that has long powered McAuliffe’s success as an investor and political rainmaker,” Wallsten and Leonnig wrote. “Cuban officials not only rejected McAuliffe, but in meeting after meeting lectured him about the supposed ill effects of the U.S. trade embargo on the island nation.”

Those revelations were brought up in the heat of the 2013 gubernatorial election contest McAuliffe was facing against Republican Ken Cuccinelli, but they have resurfaced as both Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump candidates are trying to make inroads with Cuban-Americans in Florida to win the swing state’s coveted 29 electoral votes this November.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/29/hillary-confidante-mcauliffe-made-2010-cuba-trip-sell-virginia-wine-apples-hillary-secretary-state/

[gabosaurus]

Once again, Trump's campaign manager attempts to make mountains out of molehills. Even the conservative media seems to think so.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/204944/terry-mcauliffe-victim-cuban-dirty-tricks-humberto-fontova

[Elessar]

Dem's grasping at any straw they can find. That was hardly an embargo violation.

[gabosaurus]

Even if there was no embargo violation, Trump has stated numerous times that he had been offered business opportunities in Cuba but had turned them down.
Not that Trump doesn't lie regularly.


Citing “interviews with former Trump executives, internal company records and court filings”, Newsweek reported that in 1998 a company controlled by Trump “secretly conducted business in communist Cuba during Fidel Castro’s presidency despite strict American trade bans that made such undertakings illegal”.
The expenditure, Newsweek said, was indirect, involving the payment of expenses incurred on a visit by consultants from a US firm.

[jimnyc]

The saga will grow for now, Trump denies that he 'secretly conducted business' in Cuba.

-----

Trump Debunks Report: 'Never Did Business With Cuba'

Donald Trump flatly denied a new report his business violated the U.S. embargo with Cuba.

In an interview with WMUR in New Bedford, N.H., on Thursday, the GOP nominee pushed back against a Newsweek report that alleged he reimbursed a consulting firm called Seven Arrows $68,000 to explore business opportunities in Cuba in 1998 for Trump Hotels & Casinos Inc. Seven Arrows advised Trump Hotels to mask the consulting bill as a charitable expense, according to the report.

"I never went to Cuba. I've never been to Cuba. I never did business with Cuba," he declared. "There's nothing else to say. I never did business in Cuba. I'd tell you very openly if I did. I was not involved in doing business in Cuba."

U.S. corporate expenditures were prohibited in Fidel Castro's Cuba in 1998.

In another interview with NH1 News, Trump questioned the integrity of reporter Kurt Eichenwald.

"There's this guy who has a very bad reputation as a reporter," Trump told the local outlet. "You see what his record is. He wrote something about me in Cuba. No, I never did anything in Cuba. I never did a deal in Cuba."

Hillary Clinton's campaign grabbed onto the issue as well.

"Trump’s business with Cuba appears to have broken the law, flouted U.S. foreign policy, and is in complete contradiction to Trump's own repeated, public statements that he had been offered opportunities to invest in Cuba but passed them up," Clinton adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement.

http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Donald-Trump-Cuba-business-trade/2016/09/29/id/750972/

[jimnyc]

Lets see how long it takes for the MSM to fairly report on Trump's comments, or will the let it go as long as possible to make it appear he did violate the embargo. Thus far, I just checked some MSM sites and I see nothing about his denials while in NH.

[Noir]

Good! Now let's get Clinton and Trump in jail and start over.

[jimnyc]

Good! Now let's get Clinton and Trump in jail and start over.

Even though I'm obviously in the Trump camp - I wouldn't argue against that - but Obama still needs to be out of office on time.

[fj1200]

Laws are for the little people. :poke: