HYPOCRISY. In Cuba, President Trump Finally Finds A Dictator He Doesn't Like

Cuba’s record on human rights is atrocious. Unfortunately, so is President Trump’s.

CHRISTOPHER DICKEY
06.16.17 7:38 PM ET

PARIS—With his speech in Miami on Friday about U.S. relations with Cuba, President Donald Trump showed once again he’s ready to make the world safe for hypocrisy.

That he framed his remarks as a defense of human rights on the island dominated by the Castro brothers and their cronies since 1959 is laudable. Their record is atrocious. But, unfortunately, so is Trump’s.

What we’ve seen since his inauguration is that respect for human rights—indeed, even the mention of human rights—is waived if you are a country that is big enough and rich enough. The ostensible “leader of the free world” is not going to criticize you for jailing, torturing, executing, and even outright murdering your critics; he’ll make excuses for you, defend you, and, above all, look to make deals with you, whether diplomatic or financial or both.

Thus, although Trump’s reign has been short, the list of autocrats and dictators he’s embraced is long. One could start it with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, move south to Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Egypt’s Abdel Fattah al Sisi, east to Saudi Arabia’s Prince Mohammed bin Salman, onward to China’s Xi Jinping, and even the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte.

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