Brian Winter on NewsNation about the Cuba Boat Shooting and Tensions with Havana
Brian Winter on NewsNation about the Cuba Boat Shooting and Tensions with Havana
"All sides right now are curious about the possibility of a deal," said the editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly to the cable news network.
Brian Winter, editor-in-chief of Americas Quarterly and vice president of policy at Americas Society/Council of the Americas, spoke with Laura Ingle of NewsNation about a shooting aboard a Florida-registered speed boat that entered Cuban waters this week and the subsequent tensions and speculation it generated.
Ingle started the interview saying that there were U.S. citizens on the speedboat. "So what questions come up for you about the incident?" she asked Winter.
"I think that this whole story is worth treating with utmost skepticism, because it's coming at a time when the tensions between the United States and Cuba have almost never been higher," said the expert.
"67 years since the Cuban Revolution, there have been ups and downs. There were periods of maximum tensions as well, going back all the way to the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, but also the Mariel Boatlift of the early 1980s and so on. But things right now are really tough. Everything that is occurring right now is in the shadow of the U.S. operation to capture Nicolás Maduro that we saw on January 3. Everybody is asking the same question: whether Cuba is next, maybe not for a military operation, but for being targeted by the Trump administration for some kind of regime change or other kind of dramatic transition."
Ingle also asked about parallels with the Cold War era.
"Well, it raises the question of whether the Cuban government is trying to recreate, at least the impression that there is a Bay of Pigs-type situation here," answered Winter, who also talked about media reports that mention the possibility of people in the boat being Cuban citizens who lived in South Florida and who were "enthusiastic" about the possibility of some kind of regime change in Cuba.
"We just don't know," he said.
Ingle and Winter talked about reports saying that U.S. officials close to Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Raul Castro's grandson on the sidelines of an annual meeting of Caribbean leaders.
"I think that all sides right now are curious about at least the possibility of a deal. The Cuban Government knows that the Trump administration is transactional. They also know that [President Trump] is willing to back up his threats," said Winter.
