CUBA/FOREIGN POLICY/NATIONAL SECURITY/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump is poised to promote an international finance official tied to Sen. Marco Rubio to lead Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council, making him the fourth member of an unofficial team of top pro-democracy Cuba hard-liners who are executing and advocating the administration’s Latin American policies. Mauricio Claver-Carone, an attorney who rose to prominence in conservative foreign policy circles as a writer for the Capitol Hill Cubans blog and as the executive director of the U.S. Cuba Democracy PAC, advised Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. He then joined Trump’s transition team for the U.S. Treasury Department, where he was instrumental in U.S. sanctions on Venezuela’s president, who was labeled a ‘dictator’ by the Trump administration. Now the acting U.S. executive director at the International Monetary Fund, Claver-Carone will work under National Security Advisor John Bolton and coordinate White House policy with the State, Treasury and other departments. Reached by phone, Claver-Carone said he couldn’t comment.”
–Marc Caputo, “Trump packs foreign policy team with Cuba hardliners from Florida,” Politico, August 31, 2018 1:12 pm