Miami - President Donald Trump on Friday
ordered tighter restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and
a clampdown on US business dealings with the Caribbean
island’s military, saying he was canceling former President
Barack Obama's "terrible and misguided deal" with Havana.
Laying out his new Cuba policy in a speech in Miami, Trump
signed a presidential directive rolling back parts of Obama’s
historic opening to the Communist-ruled country after a 2014
diplomatic breakthrough between the two former Cold War foes.
But Trump left in place many of Obama’s changes, including
the reopened US embassy in Havana, even as he sought to show
he was making good on a campaign promise to take a tougher line
against Cuba, especially over its human rights record.
"We will not be silent in the face of communist oppression
any longer," Trump told a cheering crowd in Miami’s
Cuban-American enclave of Little Havana, including Republican
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, who helped forge the new
restrictions on Cuba.
"Effective immediately, I am canceling the last
administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba," Trump
declared as he made a full-throated assault on the government of
Cuban President Raul Castro.
Cuba later denounced the move as a setback in U.S.-Cuban
relations, saying Trump had been badly advised and was resorting
to "coercive methods of the past" that were doomed to fail. The
government remained willing to engage in "respectful dialogue,"
it said in a statement.
Trump’s revised approach calls for stricter enforcement of a
longtime ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists, and seeks
to prevent U.S. dollars from being used to fund what the Trump
administration sees as a repressive military-dominated
government. (http://tmsnrt.rs/2rBfMTI)
But, facing pressure from US businesses and even some
fellow Republicans to avoid turning back the clock completely in
relations with Cuba, the president chose to leave intact some of
his Democratic predecessor's steps toward normalization.
The new policy bans most US business transactions with the
Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group, a Cuban conglomerate
involved in all sectors of the economy. But it makes some
exceptions, including for air and sea travel, according to US officials. This will essentially shield U.S. airlines and cruise
lines serving the island.
"We do not want US dollars to prop up a military monopoly
that exploits and abuses the citizens of Cuba," Trump said,
pledging that U.S. sanctions would not be lifted until Cuba
frees political prisoners and holds free elections.
While the changes are far-reaching, they appear to be less
sweeping than many US pro-engagement advocates had feared.
Trump based his partial reversal of Obama’s Cuba measures
largely on human rights grounds.
His critics, however, have questioned why his administration
is now singling out Cuba for human rights abuses but downplaying
the issue in other parts of the world, including Saudi Arabia, a
close U.S. ally Trump visited last month where political parties
and protests are banned.
Some Obama policies left in place
Trump, however, stopped short of breaking diplomatic
relations restored in 2015 after more than five decades of
hostilities. He also will not cut off recently resumed direct
U.S.-Cuba commercial flights or cruise-ship travel, though his
more restrictive policy seems certain to dampen new economic
ties overall.
The administration, according to one White House official,
has no intention of “disrupting” existing business ventures such
as one struck under Obama by Starwood Hotels Inc, which is owned
by Marriott International Inc, to manage a historic
Havana hotel.
Nor does Trump plan to reinstate limits that Obama lifted on
the amount of the island’s coveted rum and cigars that Americans
can bring home for personal use.
Still, it will be the latest attempt by Trump to overturn
parts of Obama's presidential legacy. He has already pulled the
United States out of a major international climate treaty and is
trying to scrap his predecessor's landmark healthcare program.
When Obama announced the detente in 2014, he said that
decades of U.S. efforts to achieve change in Cuba by isolating
the island had failed and it was time to try a new approach.
Critics of the rapprochement said Obama was giving too much
away without extracting concessions from the Cuban government.
Castro's government has clearly stated it does not intend to
change its one-party political system.
Trump aides say Obama’s efforts amounted to "appeasement"
and have done nothing to advance political freedoms in Cuba,
while benefiting the Cuban government financially.
"It's hard to think of a policy that makes less sense than
the prior administration's terrible and misguided deal with the
Castro regime," Trump said in Miami.
International human rights groups say, however, that renewed
U.S. efforts to isolate the island could worsen the situation by
empowering Cuban hard-liners.
The Cuban government, which has made clear it will not be
pressured into reforms, had no immediate comment.
But ordinary Cubans said they were crestfallen to be
returning to an era of frostier relations with the United States
with potential economic fallout for them.
"It's like we are returning to the Cold War," said Cuban
designer Idania del Rio, who joined a group of friends in a
hotel in Old Havana to watch the speech in English on CNN.
Trump announced his new approach at the Manuel Artime
Theater in the heart of the United States' largest
Cuban-American and Cuban exile community, whose support aides
believe helped him win Florida in the election.
The venue is named after a leader of the failed U.S.-backed
Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 against Fidel Castro’s
revolutionary government.
“I have trust in Trump to do the right thing when it comes
to Cuba,” said Jorge Saurez, 66, a retired physician in Little
Havana.
Trump’s vow to keep the broader decades-old U.S. economic
embargo on Cuba firmly in place drew criticism from some U.S.
farmers, especially growers of corn, soybeans and rice. Obama’s
détente has already lifted exports and raised hopes for more
gains, which they said were now in doubt.
Mexico’s foreign ministry urged the United States and Cuba
to resolve their differences "via dialogue."
But Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose leftist
government is Cuba's main regional ally, slammed Trump's
tightening of restrictions as an "offence" against Latin
America.
"His speech was aggressive and threatening, ... revealing
his contempt and ignorance," President Nicolas Maduro said in a
speech. "We reject Donald Trump's declarations against our
brother Cuba. It is an offence against Latin America."
The biggest change in travel policy will be that Americans
making educational people-to-people trips, one of the most
popular authorized categories, can no longer go to the island on
their own but only on group tours. Trump's aides said the aim
was to close off a path for Americans seeking beach vacations in
a country where U.S. tourism is still officially banned.
US Senator Jeff Flake, one of the Republican Party's most
vocal advocates for easing rules on U.S. dealings with Cuba,
called for a vote on legislation lifting restrictions on
American travel there. But the Republican leadership in Congress
has long blocked such a move, and it appears unlikely to budge.
Under Trump’s order, the Treasury and Commerce departments
will be given 30 days to begin writing new regulations, which
will not take effect until they are complete.
In contentious deliberations leading up to the new policy,
some aides argued that Trump, a former real estate magnate who
won the presidency vowing to unleash US business, would have a
hard time defending any moves that close off the Cuban market.
But other advisers have contended that it is important to
make good on a campaign promise to Cuban-Americans.