That’s the reaction an administration like Donald Trump’s, whose trademark is its cruelty toward immigrants, unabashed racism and shameless lying naturally provokes in every decent person. The president’s bullying the nation for approval of his absurd border wall, a monument to racism, waste and stupidity, speaks volumes about the character of the man with the finger on the nuclear trigger. Can there be a more terrifying reality?

Trump’s ignorance of history and his disrespect for other cultures makes him a dangerous player in the international arena. His Latin America policy, if it exists at all, is nothing but a string of threats and outmoded rhetoric intended to intimidate into submission the nations not willing to blindly obey Washington’s orders. Few think it will succeed.

At the same time, Trump and his advisors on Latin America - namely the insanely hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton and Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio, mainly notable for his opportunism and his embrace of every measure intended to make the lives of his parents’ compatriots in Cuba as difficult as humanly possible - have only praise for the regimes of the proto-fascist Brazilian president Jae Bolsonaro and Colombia’s Iván Duque, where murdering human rights activists has become part of the country’s landscape. Not surprisingly, Trump’s insulting and clueless America first policy has not won the U.S. many allies in the rest of the world.

“We live in a difficult world and we must prevent new conflicts from adding to the many we already have. Building walls is useless, they can only make the situation worse, the real strength lies in dialogue and cooperation,” said Federica Mogherini, the highest European Union diplomat during a recent official visit to Cuba. The “only” alternative to the current “international disorder is a world order more cooperative, more just and more supportive based on multilateralism,” the diplomat said in a clear rebuke of Trump’s policies.

Mogherini did not mince any words condemning the U.S. trade embargo she called “obsolete and illegal,” and declared that the EU would work to end it.

“The blockade is not the solution, we have said it many times to our American friends and we have affirmed it repeatedly in the United Nations. The only effect of the blockade is to worsen the quality of life of Cuban women, men and children,” Mogherini said in Havana.

According to the website Cubadebate, the EU representative also criticized the measures adopted by the Trump administration against the island and the setback in relations between Washington and Havana. “I know very well that at present there are those who try to isolate Cuba, we Europeans want you to know that we are closer than ever to you, that Cuba and the Cubans have not been left alone,” she said.

At a dark time when chaos and recklessness seem to be the order of the day, Mogherini brought to Havana a rare and welcome sense of decency and civilized behavior.