United States President Donald Trump on Friday reversed parts of his predecessor Barack Obama’s diplomatic re-engagement with Cuba, tightening travel and trade rules with the island nation, reported The Guardian.
“Last year, I pledged to be a voice against oppression, and here I am like I promised. Now that I am your president ... We will stand with the Cuban people in the struggle for freedom,” Trump said at a rally in Miami. “Effective immediately, I am cancelling the last government’s one-sided deal with Cuba. We won’t lift sanctions on the Cuban regime until all political prisoners and freed ... until free and internationally recognised elections are held,” Trump added.
The Obama policy is likely to be revised rather than reversed entirely. Diplomatic relations will remain in tact and commercial air and sea links will be exempted from the new restrictions. However, individual travel to Cuba will be stopped by the new rules. Payments to many of the Cuban companies owned by the regime’s security forces will also be restricted.
Later in the day, the Cuban government criticised Donald Trump’s new restrictions, but said it was willing to hold “respectful dialogue” with Washington, reported Al-Jazeera.
“The government of Cuba denounces the new measures toughening the embargo,” according to a statement read on Cuban state television. The Cuban statement criticised the “hostile rhetoric that recalls the time of open confrontation,” and “return to the coercive methods of the past”. It also regretted “a reversal in relations between the two countries”.
“Any strategy to change the political, economic and social system in Cuba, whether through pressure ... or through more subtle methods, will be doomed to failure”.
The statement, however, added that Cuba “reiterates its willingness to continue the respectful dialogue and cooperation that have taken place with Washington since 2015 when the drive for restored ties began under Obama.”
Trump’s revised approach could see a stricter enforcement of a longtime ban on Americans travelling to Cuba as tourists, reported Al-Jazeera. Most US business deals with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group are also likely to be banned. GAESA, a conglomerate run by General Luis Alberto Rodriguez Lopez-Callejas, son-in-law of Cuban President Raul Castro, operates dozens of hotels, tour buses, restaurants and other facilities.
The Obama administration had restored diplomatic relations with its Cold War foe in December 2014. Parts of the pact are likely to remain in place, including the reopened US embassy in Cuba’s capital, Havana, and the restoration of relations between US and Cuba.
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