Posted on 04/09/2019 5:27:53 AM PDT by bryan999
The Trump administration has canceled an Obama-era deal with the Cuban government which would have allowed Cuban players to play in Major League Baseball without having to defect from their oppressive island nation.
The deal with Cuban was tendered by the Obama Administration and solidified only last year. The agreement with Cuba’s Baseball Federation was part of the Obama administration’s attempt to thaw relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
But now the deal is being canceled. One official told NBC News, “that agreement will not be able to proceed in its current form.”
Another U.S. official added, “Major League Baseball has been informed of the dangers of dealing with Cuba.”
The deal had come under fire by opponents of Cuba’s brutal communist dictatorship, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
One sticking point over the deal was that the Obama administration arbitrarily ruled that the Cuban Baseball Federation was somehow an independent organization and not run by the Cuban government. But the Trump administration insisted that the Cuban sports organization is clearly “an entity of the Cuban government.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Boston has a player who’s loyalty is to the millions of Mexicans illegally invading our southern border.
Wonder if Bubba is still getting his cigars from Cuba?
I liked it more when Cuban athletes defected from that cesspool to America.
Wonder if Bubba is still getting his cigars from Cuba?
I wonder if Monica still gets her cigars from Cuba.
Makes you wonder why our Leftists don’t defect to Cuba, seeing how they seem to love it so much.
O’Vomit certainly doesn’t understand what a constitution is, but given his actions, I’d at least think he understood COMMUNISM!!
Man, what a simp he is.
I disagree with Trump on this and I was the original Trump Train conductors here on FR.
One of the only things Nobama did that found acceptable was to normalize relations with Cuba. Cuba is a better place than Pakistan and several other nations the US has diplomatic relations with. The Cuba embargo is a relic of the 1960’s and it was a good thing (Even if done for the wrong reasons) that
Nobama ended it.
Continuing a hard line on Cuba is all about winning Florida’s EV. It’s not much more complicated and that.
IMHO Al Gore did not become POTUS because Clinton sent Elian Gonzalez back and PO-ed the South Florida Cuban community, which either voted heavily for Bush or stayed home.
You’re correct that we have full diplomatic relations with many more dangerous countries. Cuba is a pipsqueak country, and more contact with Americans and American business might actually create internal pressure for change.
But Trump has to be cognizant of the EV in 2020.
“Cuba is a better place than Pakistan and several other nations the US has diplomatic relations with”
Including China. China is orders of magnitude worse than Cuba in the number of people that it inflicts misery on.
Let's see: China 1.2 Billion people, Cuba 10 Million people. So, yeah, I guess it stands to reason.
“Including China. China is orders of magnitude worse than Cuba in the number of people that it inflicts misery on.”
You will not receive an argument from me on that statement.
“Continuing a hard line on Cuba is all about winning Florida’s EV. It’s not much more complicated and that.”
There are a bunch of Batista cronies (or their descendants) in South Florida who think they are going to end up owning Cuba after the Castro/Communist dictatorship is over and they think that any easing of sanctions will end that possibility.
It is one thing to normalize relations, and another to sign a MLB player for millions when he may not be receiving the millions because he is under the thumb of an oppressive government that (possibly) confiscates most of it. That would make the player little more than a baseball slave.
Cuba is worse
Continuing a hard line on Cuba is all about winning Florida’s EV. It’s not much more complicated and that.
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Agree about the EV. But we’re not too happy with Cuba’s support for Venezuela so that may also be a factor in this decision.
The National Hockey League started cutting deals with the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries to get hockey players over here. If I remember correctly, the protocol was to pay the foreign state-run hockey federation a lump sum fee up front to let the player come over. The players were then free to defect if they wanted to, but most did not.
I've been to Cuba several times and help a ministry that gives new/used sports equipment to churches that run sports ministries in their neighborhoods. In the course of this I have met several Cuban professional players and some of the folks that run the National Series (Cuba's professional league).
First. The Cuban baseball federation is 100% the Cuban government.
This was a great deal for the Cuban government and for MLB, a terrible deal for the players.
The government gets to keep their best players for international competition in their early/mid prime. While these players could be making millions, Cuba will be paying them pennies on the dollar. Then Cuba gets to sell them to MLB for millions of dollars. While a separate deal from the contract between the player and the MLB club, the player will get less money as the club has to figure the cost of buying the player as part of the deal.
MLB benefits because there isn't much risk in signing an established 25 year old star compared to an 18 year old prospect who may or may not develop and reach the big leagues.
The Cuban players lose because until their MLB payday they'll be making maybe $100 per month and be stuck in a country with very little to spend it on and no political freedom. And of course that young player, who if he was Dominican, would get signed with a bonus, play a couple of years of minor league ball, and end up making more money in that period of time than he will the rest of his life, will never get signed at all.
Here's an idea for MLB; state loudly and often that it is immoral for the Cuban government to hold their baseball players as slaves by not allowing them the basic human right to own and sell their labor?
I am confident that a Federal Judge somewhere will rule against President Trump on this.
Why do we still have diplomatic relations with Cuba? Why have we not demanded the return of the American cop killers living in luxury in Cuba? Why are American tourists still able to spend dollars in Cuba? Disappointed that all these things continue Mr President.
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