22 May, 2017
With Saturday marking 115 years since Cuba's victory against Spanish colonial and US military rule, Trump offered his timeworn criticism against the country, saying, "The Cuban people deserve a government that peacefully defends democratic values, economic freedoms, religious freedoms and human rights".
In a tribute issued by the United States president on Cuban Independence Day, he said that "cruel despotism can not extinguish the flame of freedom in the hearts of Cubans, and... unjust persecution can not tamper Cubans' dreams for their children to live free from oppression". "He reminds us that cruel despotism can not extinguish the flame of freedom in the hearts of Cubans, and that unjust persecution can not tamper Cubans' dreams for their children to live free from oppression".
The government's statement described Trump as "the ill-advised USA president" and called the message "controversial and ridiculous".
Havana suggested that "even the U.S. government itself is aware of the contradictory and clumsy pronouncements made by the billionaire tycoon-turned-president on both foreign and domestic policy".
The broadcast did not say whether the Cuban statement constituted an official response, nor did it directly address Trump's criticisms.
The one-party communist island of Cuba has been ruled by Raul Castro for 12 years after he took over from his ailing revolutionary leader brother Fidel, who died in November having defied the United States during a half-century of iron-fisted rule.
Since the arrival of Trump to the White House, Havana has maintained a diplomatic silence on his actions in office and his earlier campaign threats to reverse the policy of rapprochement promoted by Barack Obama. It was anticipated that an announcement about these changes would come by Saturday, but it was postponed because of the president's trip to the Middle East and because the Cuba policy review has not been completed, a White House spokeswoman told el Nuevo Herald.
Castro, 85, has said that he will step aside in February 2018.
Trump sent Cuban Americans his "warmest wishes" Saturday on the occasion of the old Cuban Independence Day, marking the day - May 20, 1902, when the country stopped being a Spanish colony after the Spanish-American War.
