25 June, 2017
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Friday will announce plans to tighten restrictions on Americans traveling to Cuba and clamp down on us business dealings with the island's military, rolling back parts of former President Barack Obama's historic opening to Havana.
Another official told the Associated Press the United States embassy in Havana will remain open but trade with any Cuban entity linked to the military will be banned.
Trump's changes, shared Thursday with the Miami Herald, are meant to sharply curtail cash flow to the Cuban government and pressure its communist leaders to let the island's fledgling private sector grow. USA firms may no longer do deals with Cuban businesses controlled by the military or security services, considered repressive institutions.
In addition, the US President is also expected to restrict permission for Americans to visit the island, The Guardian says. Dozens of US businesses and agricultural interests are operating in Cuba or want to, potentially worth billions of dollars a year.
Some business leaders have also tried to convince Trump not to roll back Obama's Cuba policy.
"You can't put the genie back in the bottle 100 percent", a top White House official said, pushing back against the questions about whether the changes amount to a "half measure" and not a full reversal of Obama's Cuba policies.
Former President Barack Obama had adopted an appeasement policy towards Cuba, stated the Trump administration.
Trump's new policy will ban transactions with the Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A., a business controlled by the Cuban military. Details will depend on regulations to be written in coming months by the U.S. Commerce and Treasury Departments, which will be tasked with turning the presidential memorandum into policy.
That brings us to the second facet of Trump's rollback of former President Obama's engagement with communist Cuba. The embassies opened during the Obama administration will not be closed, and diplomatic relations won't be changed significantly under the new policy. That seems odd given that the Trump administration is not particularly fond of pursuing that agenda in its foreign policy: there was no mention of human rights and political freedom during his visit to Saudi Arabia, for example. Cuba will also not be reclassified as a state sponsor of terrorism under the new policy.
This policy is not only a betrayal of President Trump's "America First" agenda and of his campaign promise to remove job-killing regulations, but will be a huge blow to the Cuban people who will suffer as a result.
GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, where many Cuban Americans still despise the Castro regime, applauded the move even though it could cost airlines and other tourism businesses money.
"The president's one-sided deal for Cuba and with Cuba benefits only the Castro regime", Trump said during a campaign rally in Miami on Sep.
