Bleacher Report– President Donald Trump and his administration have decided to cancel a December deal that would have allowed MLB teams to sign Cuban players, according to the Washington Post.

The White House argued that the Cuban Baseball Federation was part of the Cuban government, which caused the deal to be nullified because trade with Cuba is currently banned.

President Trump Cancelled Obama’s Cuban Baseball Deal | Victor Takacs

Gather ‘round kids, time for a little history lesson!

In 1902 Cuba gained independence from the United States of America and formed the Republic of Cuba.

In 1958 a revolution led by Fidel Castro was launched and succeeded on 01/08/1959 when Castro’s forces took control of the capital of Cuba.  Castro declared himself a Marxist and established a full-fledged communist regime in Cuba.

In 1960, President Eisenhower approved a plan created by the CIA to facilitate an attempted overthrow of the Castro regime by Cuban refugees. The USA trained these refugees and launched the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 under the reign of John F Kennedy. The invasion failed and the Castro regime was firmly in power.  By 1963, Castro was the conductor of a communist locomotive screaming down the tracks fueled by USSR steam. By this time, US sanctions were placed on Cuba and the United States would not have any relations or trade with Castro’s socialist ass.

In 2014 Barack Obama started a process to establish a diplomatic relationship with Cuba.  It was called, the good ole fashioned, Cuban Thaw. The thaw meant the loosening of US restrictions on Cuba.  In 2015 the US embassy in Cuba was re-established in an effort to reconstruct diplomatic ties with Cuba. In 2016 President Obama became the first US president to visit Cuba in 88 years.  In 2017 it was revealed that US diplomats housed at the embassy in Havana began experiencing health problems dating back to 2016. These diplomats were said to have been plagued with “Havana Syndrome”.  This syndrome included hearing loss, brain damage, memory loss, and nausea. Cuban scientists concluded that these problems were simply the result of the noise created by Jamaican field crickets. Uh-huh, sure.  American officials believe that the health problems experienced by US diplomats could be the result of a sonic attack waged by the Cuban government. There has been no concrete conclusion as to what caused the Havana syndrome.  Since President Trump has been in power he has tightened the Obama administration’s policies to re-establish a diplomatic relationship with COMMUNIST Cuba. After all, the Cuban government has perpetrated major human rights violations against its own citizens for DECADES.  The United States of America is not in the business of conducting free trade with a socialist government led by the communist party of Cuba. Citizens of Cuba are repressed and not allowed any basic rights. Cubans have been tortured, imprisoned, and executed by their government for many, many years.  Therefore, it might be a good idea for the USA to not have a diplomatic relationship with a government that has zero respect for its citizens.

Baseball

Baseball is the national sport of Cuba.  Cuban baseball is very rich in tradition and excellence.   Cuba is chalked full of very good baseball players, but the problem is that these baseball players are not able to use their talent for monetary gain.  The Cuban government believes that capitalism leads to the perversion of the sport of baseball. Therefore, Cuban baseball players can be no more than amateurs in their home country, but they are allowed to feel pride and nationalism while playing for the Cuban national team in international competition. These players receive stipends for playing in these competitions, but are not fairly compensated in relation to their outstanding talent.  In 2018 Major League Baseball reached a deal with the Cuban Baseball Federation to allow baseball players in Cuba to sign MLB contracts to play professional baseball in the United States of America. This is a great deal in theory; but herein lies the problem…Cuba is a socialist country.  The Cuban Baseball Federation is essentially the Cuban government. As part of the deal, any MLB team that signs a Cuban baseball player would have to pay the Cuban Baseball Federation (the Cuban government) 15-25% of the players contract upfront. Essentially this is the US agreeing to trade with the Cuban government.  The US would be paying the Cuban Government to sign a baseball player to play in Major League Baseball. President Trump does not believe that this is a good idea because our country is not in the business of participating in trade with a government that is guilty of human rights violations against its own people, therefore he cancelled the deal between the MLB and the Cuban Baseball Federation.  The Cuban government argues that the Cuban Baseball Federation is not part of the state; but by definition of the socialist philosophy, we know that this is a false claim.

You may be confused because you know that some of the most prominent players in Major League Baseball are from Cuba.  

Jose Abreu, Yasiel Puig, Yulieski Gurriel, Aroldis Chapman, Leonys Martin, Yoenis Cespedes, and so on and so forth.

You see, these players had to defect from Cuba.  They had to leave Cuba, denounce their citizenship, and embark on a grueling journey to the US to be compensated for their talents and fulfill a lifelong dream of playing professional baseball.  Fidel Castro put an end to professional baseball in Cuba some 60 years ago destroying the hopes and dreams of Cuban baseball players. Per MLB rules, if a Cuban player defects and establishes residency in the US, they must enter the MLB draft.  Therefore, most Cuban defectors leave Cuba, establish residency in another foreign country, and are then signed by an MLB team as a free agent. The defection and journey to the MLB can be absolutely horrifying as documented in this story about Yasiel Puig.  The argument for the MLB deal with the Cuban Baseball Federation is that it would do away with Cuban baseball players having to embark on the treacherous journey of defecting, but the Cuban government needs to realize that these players are human beings and not a commodity that can be traded to a foreign nation for their own monetary gain.  This deal would undermine the values of our democracy by symbolizing a diplomatic relationship with a ruthless government.