WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Thursday thanked the president of Guatemala for supporting the US decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the White House said.

Trump and President Jimmy Morales met at the Washington Hilton hotel before they attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Journalists were not permitted to see the leaders meet.

The leaders discussed Venezuela and agreed to work on restoring democracy to the country, according to a White House statement issued after the meeting.

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Trump also raised the issue of stopping illegal immigration to the US from Guatemala, and addressing the Central American country’s security and economic challenges.

Morales announced on December 24 he had recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and intended to relocate Guatemala’s embassy to Jerusalem, making his country the first to follow the US after Trump made the same announcement on December 6.

In a Facebook post about the embassy move, Morales said that he had instructed his country’s chancellor “to initiate the respective coordination so that it may be.” The decision followed a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the time.

The announcement was made in front of an image of Guatemalan and Israeli flags fluttering side by side in the wind. The leaders, Morales said, spoke about “the excellent relations that we have had as nations since Guatemala supported the creation of the State of Israel” at the 1947 UN partition vote.

Days before, the UN General Assembly passed a nonbinding resolution rejecting any recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, in response to Trump’s pronouncement.

Guatemala was one of just nine nations that explicitly sided with the US in the vote.

Guatemala has had very friendly ties with Israel since its founding. In 1947, Guatemala’s ambassador to the UN, Jorge Garcia Granados, played a crucial role in convincing Latin American countries to vote in favor of General Assembly Resolution 181, which called for the partition of Mandatory Palestine into a Jewish state and an Arab state.

Guatemala was one of the first countries to recognize the nascent State of Israel in 1948, and the friendship has remained strong ever since.

Morales, who enjoys a large base of conservative Christian support, visited Israel in November 2016 to mark the 69th anniversary of the UN’s partition vote. Shortly after his election in 2015, Morales visited a synagogue in Guatemala City, met with members of the Jewish community, and declared his desire to visit Israel.

Guatemala is home to about 1,000 Jews out of a population of 15 million.</s>WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has met with the president of Guatemala.

Trump greeted President Jimmy Morales at the Washington Hilton hotel on Thursday before they both attended the National Prayer Breakfast.

Two issues that could have come up during their talks are U.S. aid to Guatemala and immigration policy.

Morales is an evangelical Christian and former comedian who has held the office for two years. He showed support for Trump recently when he announced that Guatemala would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, following the same announcement by the American president.

Guatemala is also one of nine nations that sided with the United States on a U.N. vote condemning the U.S. decision.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday thanked the president of Guatemala for supporting the U.S. decision to move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the White House said.

Trump and President Jimmy Morales met at the Washington Hilton hotel before they attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast. Journalists were not permitted to see the leaders meet.

The leaders discussed Venezuela and agreed to work on restoring democracy to the country, according to a White House statement issued after the meeting.

Trump also raised the issue of stopping illegal immigration to the U.S. from Guatemala, and addressing the Central American country’s security and economic challenges.

Morales recently showed his support for Trump when he announced that Guatemala would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, following the same announcement by Trump last December.

Guatemala is also one of nine nations that sided with the United States on a U.N. vote condemning the U.S. decision.</s>“At that time, they shall call Yerushalayim “Throne of Hashem,” and all nations shall assemble there, in the name of Hashem, at Yerushalayim. They shall no longer follow the willfulness of their evil hearts.” Jeremiah 3:17 (The Israel Bible™)

President Donald Trump thanked his Guatemalan counterpart, Jimmy Morales, for his announcement that he would move Guatemala’s embassy to Jerusalem.

“President Trump thanked President Morales for supporting the United States and Israel, and for his announced decision to move the Guatemalan embassy to Jerusalem,” a White House statement said.

In early December, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and announced that the United States would begin plans to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The two leaders met ahead of Trump’s appearance at the annual National Prayer Breakfast, held on Thursday morning. Since taking office in 2016, Morales, an Evangelical Christian, has been a strong supporter of Israel.

In late January, a delegation of American Jewish and Christian leaders visited with Morales in Guatemala, where they also affirmed their support for his “courageous act” regarding Jerusalem.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, who joined the delegation to Guatemala, told JNS at the time that the visit was an important way to show the Guatemalans “that we are there for them, and that we support them.”

“It is a courageous act on their part,” he said, “and we don’t take them or it for granted.”</s>US President Donald Trump met briefly with his Guatemalan counterpart, Jimmy Morales, in Washington on Thursday and the pair agreed to work together to "restore democracy" in Venezuela.

The two leaders - who met for about 15 minutes at the Washington Hilton, where they were both attending the National Prayer Breakfast - also spoke about immigration and the similarity in their respective policies vis-a-vis Israel.</s>President Trump today met with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales at the Washington Hilton hotel today, before they attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast.

 Said Trump, “I love Guatemala, especially with chips and salsa,” according to Seth Meyers, on tonight’s Late Night.

“That’s the problem with Guatemala; there’s never enough,” Meyers joked.

 President Trump met Morales to thank him for supporting the U.S. move of its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, the Associated Press reported of the private hotel meeting at which the press was not in attendance.

 Morales announced Guatemala would move its own embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, following Trump’s news last December. Guatemala also was one of nine nations that sided with the United States on a U.N. vote condemning the country’s announcement it was moving its embassy.</s>US President Donald Trump on Thursday once again denounced the “repressive regimes” of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran and North Korea and said that his administration is on the side of all those people around the world suffering “persecution” because of their religious faith.

Trump delivered his remarks at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, an event that traditionally blends politics and religion, Efe reported.

Although Trump often cites Cuba and Venezuela among the world’s main violators of human rights, those two countries are not on the list of nations sanctioned by the US for allegedly inhibiting religious freedom, although Iran and North Korea are.

The most recent State Department report on religious freedom, released last August, said that the religious environment in Cuba had improved in recent years, and in the case of Venezuela, the report only expressed concern over alleged “anti-Semitic” commentary in the state-run media.

Trump also paid tribute in his remarks to North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, whom he invited to attend his State of the Union address to Congress last week, saying that on Ji’s flight from North Korea he had prayed for peace and freedom, and now he has become a “symbol of hope” for millions of people.

Trump also recalled the repression of religious minorities in Iraq and Syria by the Islamic State and claimed that the US-led international coalition had liberated “almost 100 percent” of the territory controlled by the IS in those countries.

The president emphasized the central role religion has played in US history, saying that “America is a nation of believers and together we are strengthened by the power of prayer.”

He added that the National Prayer Breakfast reminds people that “faith is central to America’s life and liberty. Our rights are not given to us by man … Our rights come from our Creator.”

This year’s prayer breakfast was attended by Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales, who met briefly with Trump prior to the US leader’s speech.

For all the latest World News, download Indian Express App</s>The Israel Allies Foundation (IAF) presented Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales with the foundation's most prestigious award in recognition of his recent decision to move his nation's embassy to Jerusalem.

"We are honored this evening to be presenting President Morales with our Israel Allies Award. The award itself is appropriately made from Jerusalem stone, a stone that is curried and found only in Israel," an IAF spokesperson said at the ceremony.

Guatemala was the first country to follow the United States in recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel last December.

Although the decision sparked outrage among the international community, Morales believes he did the right thing.

"Many judge my decision because of my convictions and my faith. But I am proving to them I didn't do it just for that, but I did it because it was the right thing to do," he said at the presentation. "From the bottom of my heart, I tell you, I don't feel deserving of an award. I'm just trying to do the right thing and allow my God, my people, and history to judge me."

The IAF honored Morales by praying a special Hebrew blessing over him during the ceremony.

Earlier this year, CBN News went to Guatemala and spoke to the nation's leaders about their historic decision. They said their faith inspired them to make such a bold move on the international stage.

Vice President Jafeth Cabrera said his country is fulfilling biblical prophecy.

"Yes, we do share that idea, that prophesy is coming to pass and we are pleased that Guatemala is contributing to having that happen and we hope that it will soon be a reality," Cabrera said.

The vice president also said the declaration couldn't happen without prayer.

"This was key to us making the decision to express our Christ likeness and to express our faith. We did pray. It was something that we meditated on and that we later on shared with President Jimmy Morales," Cabrera said.</s>Likewise in the state media. While American pundits warned that conflict between the world’s top two economies would lead to meltdown, or speculated about China’s putatively enraged reaction to Trump’s phone call with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, Beijing’s state-sanctioned media outlets retained a strangely forbearing, at times vaguely optimistic, tone about the relationship. From the very beginning, the Communist Party seems to have understood that Trump’s threats were, for the most part, merely for show. By refusing to be rattled, China has enjoyed a series of rhetorical and strategic triumphs that have enhanced its global image and increased its international influence. China also appears to have assessed that Trump, the self-proclaimed master deal maker, would rather have a bad deal than no deal at all, and could be persuaded to compromise on almost anything in order to declare a “win.” Take the $250 billion in deals announced during Trump’s visit to China in November. Many of the agreements were nonbinding memorandums of understanding, and some had already been negotiated. And while they made a nice headline, they did nothing to address the fundamental problems that U.S. companies face in China: requirements to share technological trade secrets with Chinese partners in exchange for access to Chinese markets; restrictions on entering huge swathes of the economy; industrial policies that explicitly aim to oust foreign firms in fields ranging from information technology to electric vehicles.

Yet China won warm praise from Trump, who professed his “very deep respect” for the country and the “noble traditions of its people.” During an unprecedented “state visit–plus,” as China’s foreign ministry put it, which included a 21-gun salute, a military parade, and a dinner in the Forbidden City, Trump stunned observers by saying he no longer faulted China for its trade policies. “I don’t blame China,” he said during a joint appearance with President Xi Jinping, adding that he gives the country “great credit” for taking advantage of the U.S. on trade. Such remarks support the view of Shen Dingli, a professor of international relations at Fudan University. Trump, he told me, is “an especially easy president for China to handle.” Trump may make more sense in China than he does in Washington. Beijing seems to have concluded that the former casino mogul, like a high-rolling gambler, can be made to keep playing the house by showering him with VIP perks. On the diplomatic front, China’s tactic of acting as a foil to Trump has already paid off handsomely. From Europe to Africa to Latin America, China is enjoying more prestige and respect than it has in years. While Barack Obama vexed Beijing with his idealism, “pivot to Asia,” and China-excluding Trans-Pacific Partnership—a massive trade pact that would have fused the major economies of Asia with the United States—Trump has emphatically reversed course, tearing up the TPP and driving allies to consider China-backed plans instead.

This divergence was nowhere clearer than at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit held in Da Nang, Vietnam, after Trump’s visit in November. There, Xi Jinping outlined a vision of China at the center of the region’s diplomatic, development, and trade architecture, reiterating his country’s support for multilateral free-trade schemes. Trump, meanwhile, struck a pugnacious tone, saying that America had gotten stuck with the bad end of trade deals during previous administrations and warning that “those days are over.” Trump’s posture stands in marked contrast to China’s plans for engagement of various kinds with countries throughout Asia. The centerpiece of China’s efforts is the Belt and Road Initiative (also known as the New Silk Road), an ambitious strategy to fund infrastructure projects across Eurasia that would increase foreign trade with China’s inland provinces and bolster its geopolitical clout. Often likened to the Marshall Plan, the Belt and Road Initiative brought 29 heads of state to Beijing for a summit last May, where Xi declared it “the project of the century.” Among the attendees was a delegation sent by Trump, a gesture seen as offering a tacit endorsement of Xi’s vision. Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement further burnished China’s new image as the responsible global power. Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that Germany could no longer rely on its long-standing ally, and when China reiterated its pledge to limit greenhouse-gas emissions, she said, “China has become a more important and strategic partner.” (It’s worth noting that China’s promised carbon-emission target under the Paris Agreement won’t kick in until 2030, and that Beijing has a long history of finding ways to circumvent international promises.)

In all these ways, China has positioned itself to be seen as stepping into America’s vacuum. Shen Dingli emphasized this point to me, saying that Trump’s hostility to multilateral institutions such as the WTO and nato has given China “a huge opportunity.” With Trump in the White House, Xu Guoqi, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, told me, the Chinese are enjoying a “golden field for their propaganda.” At the same time, Trump’s election, and the wave of political disorder it has unleashed within and beyond the United States, has provided ample fodder for China to attack democracy and extol the one-party state. “American power is based on two legs, the hard power and soft power,” Xu explained. “In terms of soft power, Trump really undermined it substantially.” Trump’s election gave the People’s Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, the occasion to run a series of commentaries arguing that the “crisis in capitalist societies” was “proof of the truth of Marxism and the superiority of the socialist system.” Such messages continued to gain force during Trump’s first year in office, boosting not only Beijing’s standing internationally, but the Communist Party’s claim to legitimacy among the Chinese population. Xu describes Trump’s presidency as “a gift for the current regime in China. Because of Trump, Xi Jinping’s Chinese dream”—the resurgence of China’s dominance in world affairs—“could be achievable now.”

Especially visible among Trump’s Chinese fans are those who pride themselves on being well versed in American politics. Take the online platform Zhihu, a Quora-like forum, where the topic “Donald J. Trump” has garnered some 75,000 followers, nearly half the total following for “America.” One survey suggests that a number of pro-Trump Zhihu users attended college in the U.S. The survey was small, but my own reporting has tended to corroborate this. Those I spoke with said they formed negative impressions of liberalism that helped push them toward Trump. Like many of Trump’s American supporters, they appreciated his hatred of the pieties and shibboleths of the educated American left. Zhihu users vigorously debate questions that would fit in well on any right-wing platform in the U.S. One page viewed 3.2 million times asks: “Why do many Chinese look down on Western baizuo who consider themselves well-educated?” (The slur literally means “white left,” but is likened to “libtard” on Zhihu.) Forums feature pictures of Pepe the Frog, a symbol of the alt-right, and of a “Liberal Jack-Ass” captioned “Everything I don’t like, must be banned. Everything I do like is a human right and must be paid for by others.” Contempt for America’s current brand of political correctness is a recurring fixation, as are illegal immigration, Islamist terrorism, affirmative action, transgender activism, and Hillary Clinton. One Zhihu user I spoke with said he supported Trump not because he particularly liked him, but because the style of today’s Democratic Party “reminds us a lot of the Cultural Revolution.” “In the history of mankind, only two people have proposed that the masses must overthrow the social establishment, one is Mao Zedong, the other is Trump.” Many Westerners living in China are surprised to learn that while public discourse is heavily policed, with taboo views on democracy or Mao Zedong harshly punished, Chinese people can be startlingly frank in private conversation, voicing opinions that many Americans would be afraid to express to one another for fear of giving offense. People remark casually and candidly on everything from a person’s weight gain or disability to the supposed collective merits or deficiencies of certain ethnic groups.

This custom makes Trump’s attacks on political correctness appealing to some Chinese, according to Yan Gu, a University of Washington doctoral candidate studying authoritarianism who has researched Chinese online opinion about Trump. Chinese netizens “dislike political correctness and neo-liberal rhetoric,” she told me, noting that “a large portion of Chinese online response” to Obama was “quite racist”; one common slur referred to him as “O-Black.” Sentiment about LGBT issues is rather conservative in much of China, where electroshock therapy is sometimes used as a “cure” for homosexuality. Trump’s nationalist rhetoric and “strongman style” resonate in China’s political culture, Yan noted. The country’s founding emperor, Qin Shi Huang, is revered for uniting the nation, despite his infamy for burning books and burying scholars alive. Mao, who styled himself as a new emperor, squashed dissent and spurred traumatic and violent campaigns against intellectuals, teachers, and writers, but was idolized by many Chinese and remains, in some quarters, a legend. Xi Jinping has, despite his stolid exterior, proved to be China’s most hard-line leader in decades, and his campaigns to curb foreign influence and vault Chinese companies to dominance in the industries of the future have contributed to his popular appeal. This helps explain why a portion of pro-Trump sentiment in China comes from a surprising point on the political spectrum: the nationalist extreme left, an odd ally for the capitalist billionaire. Trump’s populist rhetoric and imprecations of the global elite have crossover appeal for Mao nostalgists such as Zhang Hongliang, a firebrand writer known as the “Red Tank Driver.” As he wrote on his Weibo social-media account, “In the history of mankind, only two people have proposed that the masses must overthrow the social establishment, one is Mao Zedong, the other is Trump.”

A scholar who is politically moderate confided privately that he “likes Trump very much,” in part because of his similarities to Xi. “China’s proposed ‘national rejuvenation’ and Trump’s ‘Make America great again’ are the same,” he said. In fact, one could make the case that the slogan Xi embraced as the core of his Chinese dream anticipated Trump’s. Though its official translation is “The great revival of the Chinese nation,” an equally accurate rendition would be “Make China great again.” And so while the outward differences between Trump and Xi are stark, there may be a reason the two leaders professed to feel personal warmth at their meeting last spring at Mar-a-Lago, in Florida, and again at their summit in Beijing, where Trump boasted of their chemistry. Both are revanchist leaders, denouncing the supposedly venal elite from which they sprang, and claiming to stand between their country and certain disaster. “Trump’s Republican Party,” Shen told me, “ought to change its name to the Communists.” This is where these two very different images of Trump—as someone the Chinese feel they can manipulate and as someone who genuinely appeals to them—converge. Whether eliciting respect or scorn, Trump makes a certain intuitive sense in China. In fact, he might make more sense to the Chinese than he does to much of Washington: His unabashed nationalism; rough-hewn arriviste manners; and unapologetic mingling of family, business, and politics make him akin to some newly minted provincial tycoon. In this respect he is less shocking or threatening than commonplace: He’s simply what Chinese call a tuhao, another bumptious billionaire.

While Trump’s continued promotion of his business empire and elevation of his daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, to political power have raised alarm in the United States, such blurring of lines is the norm in China. Even Xi, whom many Chinese seem to regard as corruption-free, has relatives who allegedly amassed huge fortunes while he rose through the ranks. Likewise, family members of Wen Jiabao, known as the “people’s premier” during his decade in power starting in the early 2000s, reportedly piled up several billion dollars during his tenure. Indeed, Trump’s ferocious loyalty to his clan contributes to his appeal, as it resonates with traditional Chinese values of good leadership, Yan Gu, the University of Washington researcher, told me: “It is a Confucian belief that a great person must ‘improve himself, order his home, govern the country, and bring peace.’ A happy, united family is an indicator of a talented politician.” Online, she noted, Chinese have praised Trump for raising successful sons and daughters, while Hillary Clinton is mocked for her husband’s affair. Trump’s obsession with “winning” also comports with the winner-take-all attitude of the elite in today’s China, which is less communist than ruthlessly Darwinian. Many successful Chinese believe that “their own success is the result of their own efforts and natural abilities, and those who fail in competition did so because of laziness or other defects,” a commentator named Zhao Lingmin wrote just before the 2016 U.S. presidential election in the Chinese edition of the Financial Times. Winners may be cruel, opportunistic, or corrupt, but they are winners, and therefore they deserve respect. Even Trump’s initial inheritance from his father doesn’t detract from his success, in this view. Rather, it demonstrates his stewardship of the family name and his skill in transforming it into a global brand. As Swallow X. Yan, a politically active entrepreneur who has advised Chinese financiers on Trump, told me, “Chinese people admire success. They look down on losers. If you choose the wrong guy, that is stupid. You are losing face.”

Finally, however overheated Trump’s early China-bashing may have been, the Chinese seem to have long identified him as someone they could do business with, much as they have done business with other strongmen, such as Vladimir Putin and Rodrigo Duterte, despite pursuing divergent or conflicting interests. Unlike previous U.S. presidents, Trump is relatively unconcerned with staking out a moral high ground, or criticizing other countries’ corruption or failings regarding human rights and democracy. Instead, Trump is transactional. Hoping for cooperation on North Korea, he gave Beijing a better deal on trade. When Beijing didn’t seem to be cooperating enough, he agreed to sell arms to Taiwan. This brand of pragmatic diplomacy, in which relationships hinge on calibrated, concrete bargains that can be altered as conditions change, mirrors Beijing’s way of operating. Although such a contingent approach to relationships entails risks—bilateral cooperation could always collapse as soon as one side feels cheated—it’s a game that China is comfortable playing. With Hillary Clinton, who was, rightly or wrongly, believed to be fundamentally inhospitable to Beijing, things could have been very different. “If Hillary was president of the United States, I can guarantee relations with China would be much worse,” said Xu, the University of Hong Kong professor. In other words, the “America first” president is in some respects not only amenable to the People’s Republic of China; one could go so far as to argue that he is the first American president with (to borrow a favorite Chinese Communist Party phrase) “Chinese characteristics.” Whether they consider him a global blunderer or a strong leader, a businessman or a family man, Chinese look at Donald Trump and see someone they recognize—and believe they can do business with. This article appears in the March 2018 print edition with the headline “Why China Loves Trump.”</s>Cuba Is Making the Crisis in Venezuela Worse

With President Donald Trump singling out “the communist and socialist dictatorships in Cuba and Venezuela” in his State of the Union address and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson using his first trip to Latin America to rally regional support for tougher measures against Venezuela, the Trump administration is clearly signaling its intention to escalate diplomatic and economic pressure on the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.

There is no other course. The Maduro regime’s intransigence, its systematic destruction of democracy, and its epic economic malpractice are creating not only a humanitarian nightmare within Venezuela, but a migration crisis that threatens the stability of it neighbors, including Colombia and nearby Caribbean islands.

Pressing forward on a strategy of increased sanctions and multilateral pressure is right, but at the same time the Trump administration cannot delink Venezuela and Cuba, for there will be no resolution in Venezuela without addressing the pernicious influence of the Castro regime in fortifying Maduro’s grip on power and rooting out any internal opposition to the breakdown of democratic order.

Today, the penetration of Venezuela by thousands of Cuban operatives is complete. While it remains difficult to quantify the exact numbers, according to a Brookings Institution report, Cuban intelligence operatives and military advisors in Venezuela range from hundreds to thousands. Organization of American States Secretary General Luis Almagro puts the number at 15,000, likening them to “an occupation army from Cuba in Venezuela.”

Certainly, there is nothing new to the incestuous Venezuela-Cuba relationship. What is new is the Maduro regime’s increasing brazenness in pursuing an uncompromising survival strategy straight out of the Castro playbook: ever-more reliance on repression to maintain control, while driving the discontented out of the country. Cuba’s fingerprints are all over this human tragedy.

So what more can the Trump administration do to hold Cuba accountable? The United States already maintains an embargo on most commercial activity with Cuba and the U.S. embassy there is running on a skeleton staff due to the health attacks on U.S. diplomats. Yet, there are options that would raise the costs to the Castro regime for its destructive role in Venezuela, for which it has paid no price to date.

Here are some recommendations:
• Suspend the working groups between the U.S. and Cuba established by the Obama administration, especially the U.S.-Cuba Law Enforcement Dialogues, which involves intelligence-sharing on counterterrorism, counternarcotics, and other criminal activity. Cuban President Raúl Castro desperately craves legitimacy through these meetings, even as common sense screams out about their utter incongruity.
• Expand U.S. drug investigations in Venezuela to Cuban officials based there. Venezuela is a full-blown narco-state, with numerous high-ranking officials implicated in facilitating drug shipments from Colombia through Venezuela and on to the United States and Europe. Given Cuba’s intimate standing in Venezuela, it defies belief that some Cuban officials are not likewise complicit.
• Oppose Cuba’s participation in the eighth Summit of the Americas, to be held April 13 and 14 in Lima, Peru. Although there has been no word on Cuba’s participation, it attended the 2015 summit with the acquiescence of the Obama administration. Cuba’s ongoing, destructive role in Venezuela merits vociferous opposition on the part of the United States this time around.
• Target Cubans operating in Venezuela with sanctions. In its first year, the Trump administration sanctioned more than two dozen Venezuelan officials for narcotrafficking, assaults against democracy, and human right abuses. It should extend those sanctions to Cuban officials in Venezuela. While they are not likely to have assets in the United States to be frozen or visas to be withdrawn, sanctions would target their dealings with entities that come into contact with the U.S. financial system. Secondly, the stigma of U.S. sanctions is a powerful psychological tool, especially when targets are named and shamed before the Venezuelan people.
• To raise the economic costs to Cuba, reactivate Title IV of the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act, which denies U.S. visas to foreign persons profiting from confiscated property in Cuba claimed by U.S. nationals. In 22 years, the provision has only been invoked a handful of times. Reintroducing this threat will have a chilling effect on the Castro regime’s effort to lure foreign investment in its tourism industry, the Cuban military’s cash cow.
• Return Cuba to the official list of state sponsors of terrorism. The Obama administration removed Cuba for purely political purposes to facilitate its normalization process, despite there being no evidence the Castro regime had mended its ways (in fact, the evidence points to the contrary).

There is very little to be optimistic about regarding Venezuela. Some liken it to an out-of-control bus that needs to crash before anything can be done. But that is an abdication of responsibility by those in a position to prevent such a tragedy and a disservice to the Venezuelan people. Moreover, there will be those who claim the United States has no moral authority to act in preventing the destruction of Venezuela. It’s very likely, however, that not many of them live there.
U.S. President Donald Trump meets with Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales. Trump thanks Morales for having supported the decision of the United States to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital. They discuss various issues about the crisis in Venezuela, drug trafficking and the UN anti-corruption commission.