We Shall Fight in the María Isabel Sheraton!

Hey, Cuba: buy yourself some U.S. debt. There's tons to be had, and we'll stop pestering you. Hell, if you owned some of our debt, we'd happily ignore the fact that U.S. companies are complicit in stuff to which we supposedly object. Sure, people (or "students") who get their noses into everything might make some noise; but we're sure as hell not going to have Treasury officials telling our multinationals how to behave when you own our sorry asses! Don't you get it, Cuba?

Also, please return the towels.

The expulsion of Cuban officials from a U.S.-owned hotel in Mexico City at the behest of the U.S. Treasury Department is an incident straight out of the Three Stooges school of diplomacy. A friendly nation has been insulted, U.S. businesses in Mexico are alarmed, and Cuba can once again paint itself as the aggrieved party in its dispute with the United States.

With an arrogance that undoubtedly surprises no one in Mexico, U.S. Treasury officials demanded that managers of the María Isabel Sheraton expel a delegation of Cubans who were there to discuss oil drilling in Cuban waters with U.S. oilmen. The hotel acquiesced, fearing punishment under laws related to the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

[ . . .]

U.S. diplomatic statements on Latin America consistently use words such as ''partnership,'' ''mutual respect'' and ''non-intervention.'' Such precepts are the foundations of our hemispheric policy, but try telling that to anyone in Mexico or any other country in the region familiar with the María Isabel incident.

If U.S. officials cannot bring themselves to apologize for this blunder, the least they can do is reassure U.S. companies and regional governments that there will not be a repetition of this grievous mistake.