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.
'Won't Be Silent in Face of Communist Oppression'
"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’s revised approach calls for stricter enforcement of a longtime ban on Americans going to Cuba as tourists, and seeks to prevent US dollars from being used to fund what the Trump administration sees as a repressive military-dominated government.
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 US airlines and cruise lines serving the island.
We do not want U.S. dollars to prop up a military monopoly that exploits and abuses the citizens of Cuba.US President Donald Trump
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 US ally Trump visited last month that grants few political freedoms to its citizens.
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 US-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 US 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.
International human rights groups say, however, that renewed US 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.
(With inputs from Reuters.)
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