It’s going to get a lot harder for Cuban baseball players to compete in the U.S.
The Trump administration just revoked an Obama-era deal that allowed professional baseball players from Cuba to join MLB teams without having to defect from their home country. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Monday framed the decision as a way of playing hardball with Cuba, but the withdrawal is just a pointless maneuver.
Pompeo and President Trump don’t want to give Cuba a pass for its support of Venezuela. But this direction of their discontent toward baseball is not the key to successful foreign policy.
Trade with Cuba has been banned for 60 years, but the Obama administration saw Cuban baseball players as separate from the country’s government. His deal allowed them to play for the U.S. without swimming to Miami or hiring human traffickers to move them. If the Trump administration wants to pressure Havana, breaking the MLB-Cuban Baseball Federation deal will not move the needle.
“This is an indefensible, cruel and pointless decision that they’ve made that will be ending the lives of Cuban baseball players and achieve nothing beyond appeasing hard-line factions in Florida,” Ben Rhodes, the Obama-era deputy national security adviser, told the Washington Post.
In order to show its support for Venezuela’s interim President Juan Guaidó, the U.S. should sanction Cuba, but there’s no reason to keep good players from competing in America’s pastime.
