Trading with the enemy: Trump steps on his own toes

cuba-trump

Reports that Donald J. Trump did business with the hated communists in Cuba seems aimed directly at one of the last curiosities of this presidential campaign.

The Republican nominee for president has been winning over those staunch GOP conservatives who just can’t cotton to the idea of letting the Cuban commies off the hook for their repression.

Yet now come these reports that Trump’s business enterprises traded with the Cubans long before the Obama administration decided to lift the decades-old economic embargo against the government run by Fidel Castro.

How does that play with the staunchly anti-communist Cuban-American community in, say, Florida … where Trump and Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton are fighting furiously for the state’s 29 electoral votes?

One would think it wouldn’t play well at all.

One would think …

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/report-that-donald-trump-did-business-in-cuba-ups-the-ante-in-florida/ar-BBwSAK9?li=BBnb7Kz

According to the New York Times: “The question of whether Mr. Trump sought business opportunities in Fidel Castro’s Cuba is explosive not only because of how loathed the Castro government is among Cuban-Americans in the Miami area, but also because Mr. Trump has taken such a hard line against the Obama administration’s policy of normalizing relations with the island nation.

“As far back as 1999, in public at least, Mr. Trump called efforts to restore relations with Cuba ‘pure lunacy.’”

Pure lunacy? Reports suggest, though, that Trump spent $68,000 on a business trip to Cuba to explore business opportunities.

Trump, quite naturally, denies that the trip had anything to do with business development. Sure thing, dude. He’s also denied a lot of things despite being seen and heard — on the record — saying the very things he denies saying.“

Will this enrage Florida’s still-potent Cuban-American political community enough to turn them against Trump?

“This adds to the long list of actions and statements that raise doubts about his temperament and qualification to be president and commander in chief,” Clinton said Thursday.

If it’s lunacy to trade with the Cuban commies, then only a lunatic would do so. Is that a correct assumption, Donald Trump?