Trump to clamp down business with Cuba, curbing Obama detente

US President Donald Trump was to announce curbs on US firms doing business with the Cuban military and tighter rules on travel to the island on Friday during a visit to the spiritual home of the Cuban-American exile community.

Trump was to appear in Miami’s Little Havana at a theater named after an antiCommunist veteran of the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion to launch a move that will begin to roll back his predecessor Barack Obama’s outreach to Havana.

US officials told reporters that he will announce a prohibition on “financial transactions” with Cuba’s military-backed tourism conglomerate GAESA, a body which might otherwise have hoped for a windfall from long absent American visitors.

The firm is involved in joint ventures with several foreign firms that have driven a tourism boom on the island, including the Marriott hotel chain.

Under a new National Security Presidential Memorandum, Trump was expected to announce stricter enforcement of the rules under which Americans can travel to Cuba.

American citizens will still be able to take commercial flights to Cuba, but only for 12 specific reasons – ranging from journalism to educational activities – which will be more strictly enforced.

Cuban-Americans will still be able to travel to Cuba and send remittances, limiting the impact in Florida, where many Cuban émigrés settled and where many of them turned out last year to vote for Trump.

Trump’s measures stop well short of upending Obama-era policies, which sought to end decades of isolation that did little to dislodge Fidel and Raul Castro’s regime.

There are also expected to be exemptions for agricultural products as well as some air and sea operations.

But they signal a tougher stance that could slow the number of Americans who have begun to head to Cuba for Havana city breaks or on week-long beach holidays.