US tightens Cuba travel rules
WASHINGTON — Tighter restrictions on US travelers to Cuba will go into effect yesterday, officials said, almost five months after President Donald Trump vowed to crack down.
The US Treasury said the measures are designed to steer American travelers away from Cuban firms tied to the military and towards the communist island's fledgling private sector.
Much of the halfcentury-old US economic embargo against Cuba remains entrenched in law, but under former president Barack Obama federal authorities began to loosen some rules.
Ties had begun to warm, and in 2015 the countries' exchanged ambassadors for the first time since 1961.
But in June Trump appeared in Miami before a cheering crowd of CubanAmericans, including veterans of the failed CIAbacked Bay of Pigs invasion, to vow to reverse Obama's measures.
That promise finally bore fruit on Wednesday, when Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin laid out the new or revived rules.
"We have strengthened our Cuba policies to channel economic activity away from the Cuban military and to encourage the government to move toward greater political and economic freedom for the Cuban people," he said.
Cuba criticized the move as marking a "resurgence" of the economic embargo.
"The measures confirm the serious setback that has taken place in bilateral relations as a result of the decisions taken by the government of President Donald Trump," Josefina Vidal, the head of North American affairs at Cuba's foreign ministry, told journalists.
Under the directives, Americans will be forbidden from doing business with entities on a State Department list headed by the Cuban defense and interior ministries.