Europeans love their colonial history and will celebrate it any time they think they can get away with it.

I think it was Macron who, just a year or so ago, was talking about how countries in North Africa should be thanking France that they got colonized by them!

FWIW I don’t think Rubio buys any of this “western civilization greatness” business. I think he is fixated on Cuba, it’s his white whale. He has dreamed of reverting Cuba back to being a colonial holding of the US, toppling the socialist project there and installing Miami gusanos in control of all economic and political aspect of the island his whole life. I think he’s just playing along with whatever Trump wants vis-a-vis the rest of the world in order to get what he wants.

Thankfully, as brutal and criminal as US actions against Cuba have been, it appears that the Cuban people are holding the line and I believe at the end of the day Rubio will be very disappointed.

Edit: want to point out that Rubio was confirmed as SoS by a vote of I think 99-0 in the Senate.

Sanctions and blockades have always been sold as an attack against the government and not the people. That’s of course a complete lie - sanctions are meant to make the people suffer enough that they rise up against their government (or so the aggressor hopes).

But this is much more blatant. The ghouls in the Trump admin are openly stating they want to harm the people. They want to create a humanitarian crisis, create suffering, and kill people, all so the Cuban government sees this suffering and decides that capitulating is better than seeing their people die. Truly evil stuff.

Unclear what he means at this point, my hunch is it means allowing for a larger US military presence in Greenland but no transfer of ownership, watching a live interview with Trump now and he’s definitely avoiding any implication that Greenland will be “owned” by the US.

There really are little to no economic concessions Cuba can make, given the status of the blockade on the country. If the “deal” was just to let Trump build his own hotels on the island or something, Cuba might even accept that. Given this and who is in Trump’s cabinet, I think it’s reasonable to assume the only “deal” on the table is to accept being governed as US colony with Rubio as the viceroy.

As brutal as cutting off oil from Venezuela will be, the Cuban people got through the Special Period, I think they will survive Trump.

For countries like Spain, Portugal, Ireland, et al… what’s the motivation to remain in NATO in the first place? I know it’s a joke to call it a purely “defensive” alliance but those countries do not face a credible military threat from anyone. Meanwhile they are rules falling into place that will require members to really pay up and increase military budgets at the expense of social programs.