The long history of America's conflict with Cuba

With so much attention on Iran in recent weeks, you may have missed the news about the increasingly tense situation with another longtime adversary of the United States – one closer to home. On April 13, while making remarks about the war in Iran, President Trump said, " We may stop by Cuba after we're finished with this." The U.S. has blocked nearly all oil shipments into Cuba , pushing it to the brink of collapse. Meanwhile, high-level talks between the two countries are underway. Mr. Trump hasn't offered details, but has said this: "All my life I've been hearing about the United States and Cuba: when will the United States do it? I do believe I'll be the honor, having the honor of taking Cuba ." The island nation just 90 miles from Florida has indeed played an outsized role in our foreign policy for close to 70 years. But back in the 1950s, most Americans thought of Cuba as little more than a hedonistic paradise. It was "a playground where anything goes, where there are casinos, where there's prostitution … and to a great extent, that was true," said Jorge Malagon Marquez, a Cuban-American, and a professor of history at Miami Dade college. "You had celebrities like Frank Sinatra coming down. It's party time. "What Americans weren't seeing was the dissatisfaction amongst regular Cubans running just below the surface," he said. Many Cubans were subsisting, and working in industries outright owned by Americans. …