HAVANA (AP) – A week and a half ago, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a strongly worded announcement that the Trump administration was prohibiting business with Fincimex, a Cuban state corporation that works with foreign credit card and money transfer businesses, among others.
Many ordinary Cubans panicked.
Fincimex handles hundreds of millions of dollars in remittances sent to Cuba through Western Union by families in Cuban-American communities in South Florida and around the nation. Would a ban on business with the military-run company mean an end to the remittances that so many Cuban families need to put food on the table?
The State and Treasury departments wouldn’t say. Meanwhile, thousands of families rushed to send money before the ban went into effect on Friday.
What happened next offers a small window into the chaos behind the administration’s execution of one of its top foreign policy priorities – weakening the communist-run Cuban government and its longstanding alliance with President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.