In response to President Donald Trump’s announcement Friday that he is reversing the Obama administration’s lifted restrictions with Cuba, the Castro government released a lengthy statement saying that the U.S. is in “no condition” to lecture them, especially given the sorry state of race relations in the U.S.
“We have deep concerns by the respect and the [guarantees] of the human rights in that country, where there is a large number of cases of murder, brutality and police abuse, particularly against the African Americans; the right to live is violated as a result of deaths by firearms,” the statement read, according to CNN.
On Friday, in the anti-Castro stronghold of Miami, Trump listed a litany of purported abuses administered by the Castro regime, including the harboring of Assata Shakur, saying: “The Castro regime has shipped arms to North Korea and fueled chaos in Venezuela. While imprisoning innocents, it has harbored cop killers, hijackers and terrorists. It has supported human trafficking, forced labor and exploitation all around the globe.”
CNN reports that the letter from the Castro government fired right back, listing a laundry list of U.S. not-so-niceness, including “racial discrimination, salary inequality between genders, the marginalization of immigrants and refugees from Islamic and other countries, Trump’s proposed wall on the southern border, his decision to pull out of the Paris climate accord, the imprisonment of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, the killing of U.S. and foreign citizens in drone attacks, the preface for and conduct of the wars in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, and estimates that the Republican health care bill would cause 23 million people to lose medical insurance.”
The missive (the whole of which I cannot find) continues, “The U.S. president, ill-advised once again, takes decisions that favor the political interests of an extremist minority of Cuban origin in the state of Florida, who, driven by petty motivation, do not desist from their objective to punish Cuba and its people for exercising the legitimate and sovereign right to be free and for having taken the reins of their own destiny.”
It would be good for the U.S.—especially under Trump—to remember: When you point the finger, there are three that are pointing right back atcha.
Read more at CNN.