The president-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, has chosen Benjamín León, an 80-year-old Cuban-American businessman, as the next US ambassador to Spain. So Trump announced it on his social network Truthwhere he described León as a “very successful businessman, lover of horse riding and philanthropist.”
León, born in 1944 in Cuba, came to the United States at age 16 “with only five dollars in his pocket” – according to Trump’s publication – and “proceeded to build his company, Leon Medical Centers,” until it became a “ incredible company,” says the president. Benjamín León emigrated alone from Cuba in 1961, and that same year his parents and brother joined him in the United States.
As advertised on its own website, Leon Medical Centers is “Miami’s leading healthcare services provider serving Medicare patients since 1996.” Created in 1996, the Leon Medical Centers followed up on the project already created by Benjamín León Sr. with the name of the Cuban Association Clinic, the first prepaid medicine center in Miami designed to facilitate access to healthcare for the numerous Cuban immigrants, who at that time They had difficulties due to language barriers. Today, Leon Medical Centers has “more than 2,300 dedicated healthcare professionals, serving more than 42,000 Medicare beneficiaries,” says their website.
Trump also highlights in his message that the future US ambassador to Spain has contributed “to supporting many noble causes, such as the League Against Cancer, and important medical research at Johns Hopkins and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.”
A millionaire ‘hobby’: thoroughbreds
Benjamín León’s passion for horse riding is counted in the millions. In 2011 he paid $8.5 million for his mare Royal Delta, and that same year he bought nine other horses for $22.4 million. “The recession opened a world of opportunities, because it was the time of buying and not selling,” he said in an interview published by ESPN in 2012. “The same has happened with the real estate company, airplanes and many other industries. Thoroughbred prices reduced by 40% […]and I think I made a pretty solid investment. “I have a lot of money invested because I am very serious about business,” León said in that interview.
Beyond private healthcare and horses, Benjamín León has other types of ‘investments’. León is a donor to the Republican Party headed today by Donald Trump, and specifically to what will be his most direct boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also of Cuban origin.
The appointment of Benjamín León as ambassador to Spain must be put to a vote in the US Senate, where he is expected to have no problems obtaining approval. Thus, León will occupy the position that the previous ambassador, Julissa Reynoso, left vacant last July.
#Trump #appoints #Benjamín #León #private #healthcare #businessman #born #Cuba #ambassador #Spain
