Cuba’s Raul Castro dismisses harsher US tone under Trump

Cuban President Raul Castro denounced US President Donald Trump’s tougher line on relations with Havana on Saturday, calling it a setback but promising to continue working to normalise ties between the former Cold War rivals.

Castro’s comments to Cuba’s National Assembly were his first on Trump’s June announcement of a partial rollback of the Cuba-US detente achieved by then-President Barack Obama.

They contained echoes of the harsh rhetoric of the past.

“Any strategy that seeks to destroy the revolution either through coercion or pressure or through more subtle methods will fail,” Castro said. He rejected any “lessons” on human rights from the US, saying his country “has a lot to be proud about”.

Surrounded by Cuban-American exiles and Cuban dissidents in Miami, Trump announced last month that he would impose new limits on US travellers and ban payments to the military-linked conglomerate that controls the island’s tourism industry.

He said the US would consider lifting those and other restrictions only after Cuba returned fugitives and made a series of other internal changes including freeing political prisoners, allowing freedom of assembly and holding free elections.

Trump’s policy retained elements of Obama’s reforms but tightened restrictions on travel and employed harsh rhetoric on human rights. AP