Cuba Renaissance on track with UK and A Different Gringo strategy?

Certainly a Cuban Renaissance with UK is underway with dynamic new Ambassador Stokes and the first UK Royal visit to the Communist nation by Prince Charles and Camilla earlier this year.

Charles lounging next to John Lennon on a Malecon bench, before leading British Classic Cars through the throng of USA sanctions 1950's classic cars. Those Chevy's and Cadillacs probably powered by old lawnmowers or offcuts of vintage John Deere tractors - Nothing runs like a Deere after all, or after 60 years of sanctions.

Although none of those vehicles capable of lobbing a nuke onto USA in some notional rerun of the 1962 Missile Crisis. While North Korean tractors towing its missiles in parades before returning to the fields, a testament to POTUS Trump in moving beyond Cold War frameworks and forbearance on USA military action as with Iran's nukes programme.

Prince Charles also pausing over a Duchy Original biscuit to view a Cuban organic farm - certainly a Communist - and Caribbean - economy powered by sugar and tobacco is unlikely to cause a seismic shift in its population's fortunes.

Prince Charles flying off from the rabidly successful Cuba visit, and around the Caribbean Commonwealth, rather than cruising away via East Kent Core Company Saga Cruise ships, although Camilla launching the latest ship - that in search of new ports or trade freeports - in Dover last week.

While Ambassador Stokes LVO (Licensed Victuallers Organisation) is best placed to consider the future of both Havana and Bacardi rum in UK supermarkets.

While Cuban culture is cooking on gas with Onel Hernandez the first Cuban player to join the UK Football League, at Delia Smith's Norwich City and Carlos Acosta showing a clean pair of Cuban heels to rival the Bolshoi at the London Ballet.


### A rum do for UK to miss Cuban Rail? ###


But Ambassador Stokes is surely building up a head of steam over the massive potential for UK-Cuban trade in the refurb of Cuba's miles of rusty railways. The former Vietnam Ambassador no doubt pondering the wisdom for Cuba and UK of the first 19 Chinese trains for Cuba and promises of another 200 sets next year.

Certainly the miles of rickety Vietnamese railways no great advertisement for such activity - especially as ASEAN now signs off the HiSpeed loop from the Bangkok hub into China. The BKK-PP link is now delivered from my 2015 MP manifesto and work for PP-HCMC and Kwai upgrades to Yangon confirmed which is positive for a UK Strategic Rail Group to secure UK transport exports.

China's pace in hispeed rail matched by its crashes, and abroad its investments stalling as in Ethiopia: a railway built without the necessary infrastructure is a pub without beer.

Britain taking no lessons in rail from anyone: inventing them with the Crab and Winkle line at Canterbury to the East Kent coast at Whitstable. The new LNER East Coast hispeed trains. And Kent's success with HS1 and Eurostar and Channel Tunnel, reducing shorthaul EU flights and securing the London 2012 Olympics and potential for HS2 and HS3.

And that UK success not just for UK with East Kent Hitachi and Balfour Beatty or East Yorkshire Davos 15 Siemens, but Bombardier and Dennis buses from the Midlands to Northern Powerhouse to Northern Ireland and Canada for the all-important Climate Change seamless public transport that can unblock many town centres.


### UK Big Ticket from Infrastructure to Movies ###


And UK Big Ticket Infrastructure from The Shard skyscraper to London 2012 Olympics. (An Havana bid building beyond the Senegal 2022 Youth Olympics? And apt for Isla Juventud and a memorial to Fidel's first imprisonment after Moncada Barracks Revolt), and Crossrail and SuperSewer.

Apt too with Fidel whiling away the days reading East Kent's the Dean of Canterbury and Julius Caesar (Caesar's recently discovered fort in Ramsgate, founding UK, surely another tourism fail by the County Barn?) and learning English via Vanity Fair and smoking JFK's favourite brand of H. Upmann cigars - some things beyond sanctions.

Churchill’s cigars also featured at his home in Chartwell West Kent.

But with Big Ticket Infrastructure of course UK leading the way on the first Metro/Tube/London Underground - the first of 200 around the world - again Havana no doubt considering how to preserve the Malecon for UNESCO status with transport links say to Varadero beach.

And if the first trial run of the Chinese trains is clunking through the 500 miles to Guantanamo then UK expertise as the safest railway in Europe is no doubt needed, much as Kent's level crossing are being upgraded.
The Castro handover from Fidel to Raoul to Miguel Diaz-Canel already seeing a developing internet and wifi, ripe for UK experience on Digital Rail and tube and bus.

In my politics work as MP and Mayor candidate I've urged A Different Gringo strategy for UK in Latin America. And that all the more relevant for Cuba and its Yankee Go Home philosophy (and much of Latin America) after the Bay of Pigs 1961 invasion, that also holed the Kennedy and successive USA administrations below the waterline until now.

Ambassador Woody in USA bathing in the luxury of a Special Relationship developing to an Extra Special Relationship with UK and USA and Treble Club of tripled exports. He might well be lighting an Upmann cigar with $100 bills after the success of the USA Year of Sports and NFL and baseball so far in UK.

And how different USA and Cuba would have been if Castro had taken up baseball with the New York Giants in 1948. Fidel preferring to swim with the sharks of Communist revolution rather than USA sports. Harvey Mackay a Baron von Football before Ambo Woody in developing NFL in Cuba, also cites Fidel's love of USA ten-pin bowling with his own rink in the basement of parliament.

Perhaps a Crazy Golf course down there too: the pyramid with the hole on top etc. To rival the new course in Rochester Cathedral?

Certainly that USA Year of Sports extending into media reforms of the Monroe Doctrine in UK and USA beyond just VOA broadcasts. The Cricket World Cup (no Cuban team?) in UK highlighting the slow death of a sport relying only on satellite monies rather than free to view broadcasts.

The quietly dynamic Lord Hall of BBC raising the issue of just 4% of UK sports on BBCTV yet 40% viewing suggests an overdue dedicated BBC Sports channel (and BBC Three resurrected?), if not greater cooperation with Channel Four's public remit as in the quick broadcast of the Cricket Word Cup Final with an advertising share.

Ambo Woody no doubt gnashing his teeth over the years lost in UK and EU with Channel Four ending its NFL coverage and innovative sports such as Sumo and Kabaddi. Much as Northern Ireland after 50 years of Troubles is now celebrating the Golf Open's return.

But regardless of the Brexit mess or an FTA chimera it must be a bureaucratic beanfeast yielding thin gruel compared to say Perdue Product range from the open range of Heartland USA to UK supermarket shelves whether Idaho potatos, Virginia craft beer or Illinois cornflakes.

Cuban sanctions a potential POTUS Trump foreign policy success, beyond NFL or World Series (baseball not soccer) transfers, before 2020 after the moves to United Koreas and Eritrea-Ethiopia successes?

Those voters in Little Havana in Miami, and warmer relations with their families 90 miles away from Key West, might be key than chads to both Republicans and democrats in the 2020 election.


### Cubans in East Kent Airfix and Hornby ###


A reduction of USA sanctions is certainly less of an upheaval than a Brigade 2506 action - but the Bay of Pigs a US-led Caribbean D-Day far beyond the usual US Marines policing and meddling missions through the Caribbean since the Platt Amendment or the Maine, even the invasion of the Commonwealth's Grenada.

An East Kent Core Company Airfix kit of Cuban soldiers and militia resisting the Americans, or Cuban troops in Africa may be irrelevant in the 21st century, although certainly UK and Cuban medicare links are viable.

And why not Cuba in the Caribbean Commonwealth eventually, perhaps even with Virginia Commonwealth and the other 3 USA Commonwealths as affiliates initially and ultimately hands across the Caribbean and Atlantic oceans.
Certainly Guantanamo is looking pointless as a military prison with just 40 Taliban prisoners and, as with Vieques, less relevant as a US Navy base.

Fidel long refusing to cash the USA cheques (a great potential display for the British Museum, or even Cleveland's dynamic Museum, beyond Ethiopian loot stored in the basement out of sight?) for supposed rental of the occupied site.

And Cuba exercising restraint in not occupying the base or water plant or withdrawing fire brigade support.

The American taxpayer - whether in Little Havana Miami or Del Mar Lago may well consider the affront to Cuban pride of an imposed US navy base at Gitmo (and Bahia Honda long relinquished) and the cost, compared to Cuban and USA Coastguard support for drugs trafficking crackdowns between Mexico and Colombia.


### Cuba Libre or Riggsed democracy ###


While UK tax havens such as British Virgin Islands and Caymans no doubt costing the USA and UK taxpayer in money-laundering via Riggs Bank and Equatorial Guinea again (a modern day Haiti National City Bank?) perhaps more, than refloating Puerto Rico after the hurricanes and cleaning up Vieques from years of US navy target practice.

Certainly Ben Wallace UK Security Minister is on the right track for a crackdown of UK white collar criminals and enablers such as Lord Grabiner's One Essex Court corrupt barristers and Palmer Biggs lawyer fraud.

Kent's NYC spitfire AOC no doubt shaking off Communist accusations (NHS medical care and top-slice taxation strangely centrist to UK eyes) in the feverish atmosphere of the latest POTUS Trump tweets. And AOC no doubt pausing over a Cuba Libre to consider the value of Nyorican and Haitian and Jamaican caucuses galvanised and welded together in NYC.

Certainly they are more positive voices than Russian (is it even Communist any more?) tomfoolery, (beyond Crimea and Syria’s Latakia warm water port to rival Gwadar in sight of Oman and Hormuz), from the KGB playbook of Putin to prop up Venezuela and the tsunami of refugees breaking over Trump's Wall.

While Trump particularly short-sighted in trimming USA aid to Central America and the Caribbean with a Syrian-style exodus underway as affected Europe recently from Venezuela and Honduras and Nicaragua.

Walls and helicopter gunships go so far and so much less than consistent aid to refloat broken nations. A few more years of Brexit twaddle or Boris silliness and Kent refugees may be voting with their feet through the Channel Tunnel to Belgium.

And the largest ever cocaine haul in Philadelphia and latest cocaine submarine that infects American cities, whether Sanctuaries or not shows the value of more coherent USA and UK strategy in the Caribbean.

The wider Blue Economy no doubt of more value to the Caribbean and OAS than drugs subs - and Ambassador Stokes must be pondering beyond the chimera of USA sanctions the united front in Canadian and Spanish and UK tourism and investment in Cuba already.

The Canadian Commonwealth and the Six Companies no doubt keen to participate in hispeed rail beyond both Vancouver and Vieques. And develop Panama and the trade lifeline of its canal.


### Cajun Navy and US Coastguard? ###


While Louisiana again and no doubt Texas keen for UK and Canadian navy cooperation under USCG and the Cajun Navy for the next hurricanes, as well as hospital ships as USNS Comfort and even Virginia’s Operation Smile.
Perhaps hospital ships needed for Puerto Rice not just for Hurricane Maria but now massive Ricky Resign protests over the Governor.

And UK coastal MP's such as Johnny Mercer in Plymouth and Penny Mordaunt in Portsmouth (towns rusting in the sun on the Channel as here in East Kent) must be taking a fresh view on Royal Navy ship and staffing given two Admirals per warship bloat and rise of roboships and a UK Shipbuilding Masterplan for hospital ships and supply ships beyond vanity aircraft carriers too expensive to risk being sunk.

State Dept head Mike Pompeo perhaps holding off changing his name to Pompey in solidarity with Fritten Park, rather than Corbyn as a left wing regime, in the UK-USA Year of Sports.

And calmer voices needed not just on POTUS Trump race trash talk but on such issues as the horrifying fact of the Caribbean’s 38M people with the second highest HIV levels after sub-Saharan Africa. Perhaps nothing could be more vital for UK-USA and the ripple effect for Caribbean in closer links with universities, the NOASS hurricane systems and Atlanta pandemic disease centre.

While Ambo Woody must be pondering the potential with USAid of extra Durex condom and Always tampon factories for both public health and prosperity – even before considering HIV and Ebola vaccines.

The Mooch, hardly a Communist or Democrat, distinctly uncomfortable on BBC News at such rants. And Ambassador Woody no doubt laying aside the soft soap to translate UK concerns at such views and Darrochian and Khan petulance - compared to the mega-potential of the Treble Club and Rust Belt Revitalisation for UK and USA before the 2020 election.

Especially as Airbus in Bristol and Toulouse and Boeing in Sheffield must be considering the overhaul of Cuba's air fleet and helicopters with increased tourism. And coffee exports for the Starbucks of the UK High Street - Santiago or Saint-Marc or San Juan could rival Hua Hin for pineapples on UK and EU supermarket shelves.

While former Eire Ambassador to UK Bobby McDonagh writing in the New European of Irish concerns of Boris as PM for the Ulster and Eire, and UK, economies even beyond the Scots-Irish Bridge and The Six Companies and Brexit backstops. Boris’s warm words on Brexit or confusion on the Garden Bridge, Channel Bridge or Boris Airport or Heathrow Bulldozers (JCB or CAT?) or even Boris Bikes suggest he can put no Kerrygold butter on UK or Eire parsnips.
The UK and Eire economies linked in to deliver on funding the expansion of both Eire and UK embassies and trade offices


### Munro Doctrine to Monroe Doctrine ###


The UK's 19 warships (when the engines work) 10 subs and 45 other ships increasingly leaky and redundant since being launched in the mid-1980's.

And no shots fired in anger since WW2 except briefly in the Falklands - that Imperial leftover not worth the bones of one grenadier and increasingly a ludicrous MOD cost with warmer relations with Argentina and a wider Munro Media Doctrine alongside the USA Monroe Doctrine.

Those Saga cruise ships along the Argentine and Chilean coasts and Antarctica far more relevant to Port Stanley and UK ports than warships now.

Cuba too must be looking at the potential of Jamaica not just for its new nurse training programmes and language schools with UK, but also with its beginnings as a forward-positioned aid base. Native Spanish speakers all the more relevant too for UK schools and universities with the growth of Hispanic USA beyond the Scots-Irish past?

And Cuba must be kickstarting its music and movies industry beyond the Buena Vista Social Club - East Kent's James Bond long citing Cuba in movies such as Octopussy and Halle Berry hi-jinx but in Pinewood not on location in Isle of Pines. Cuba rivalling Jamaica and Bahamas as the spiritual home of James Bond beyond East Kent?
The Jamaican economy boosted again with the new Bond25 movie.

BBC interest in Cuba and Shepperton Studios alongside EKFOS East Kent Film Office and Studio could change all that for the better.

Just as Cuba and Latin America is changing.

Time for Change
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