Trump recasts U.S. policies toward Cuba
Fulfilling promise to exiles, president to tighten travel rules
President Trump plans to tighten Cuban relations, reinstating travel restrictions and banning business dealings with the military.
MIAMI — In an overhaul of one of his predecessor’s signature legacies, President Donald Trump will redraw U.S. policy toward Cuba on Friday, tightening travel restrictions for Americans that had been loosened under President Barack Obama and banning U.S. business transactions with Cuba’s vast military conglomerate.
Trump’s changes, shared Thursday with the Miami Herald, are intended to sharply curtail cash flow to the Cuban government and pressure its communist leaders to let the island’s fledgling private sector grow. Diplomatic relations reestablished by Obama, including reopened embassies in Washington and Havana, will remain. Travel and money sent by CubanAmericans will be unaffected.
‘Better deal’ for exiles
Trump is expected to announce the presidential policy directive Friday, surrounded by Cuban-American supporters at Miami’s Manuel Artime Theater, a venue named after one of the late leaders of the Brigade 2506 Bay of Pigs veterans whose group offered Trump their endorsement last October after he promised exiles a “better deal.”
In his remarks, Trump plans to cite human-rights violations in Cuba as justification for the new U.S. approach. Dissidents say government repression has increased.
While not a full reversal of Obama’s historic Cuba rapprochement, Trump’s recast U.S. policy hews closer to the hard line espoused by Cuban-American Republicans who derided Obama’s 2014 policy as a capitulation. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio was instrumental in drafting Trump’s changes, with help from Miami Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart. Other Cuban-American lawmakers started getting briefed on the policy Thursday.
“If we’re going to have more economic engagement with Cuba, it will be with the Cuban people,” Rubio told the Miami Herald.
He called the new policy a strategic, long-term attempt to force aging Cuban military and intelligence officers to ease their grip on the island’s economy as a younger generation of leaders prepares to take over.
“All the pressure comes from American business interests that go to Cuba, see the opportunities and then come back here and lobby us to lift the embargo,” Rubio said. “I’m trying to reverse the dynamic: I’m trying to create a Cuban business sector that now goes to the Cuban government and pressures them to create changes. I’m also trying to create a burgeoning business class independent of the government.”
Trump’s policy will not reinstate wet foot, dry foot, the policy that allowed Cuban immigrants who reached U.S. soil to remain in the country. It will not alter the U.S. trade embargo, which can only be lifted by Congress. And it will not limit travel by or remittances from Cuban Americans, as former President George W. Bush did — though fewer Cuban government officials will be allowed to come to the U.S. and receive money than under Obama.
More scrutiny for travelers
Outright tourism to Cuba is prohibited by the embargo, but Obama had relaxed travel rules, allowing non-Cuban Americans to go under one of 12 legally authorized categories, such as family visits, professional research or educational activities. The Obama administration relied on what was effectively an honor system in which travelers selfreported their trip’s purpose.
Under Trump’s rules, which federal agencies have 90 days to implement, travelers will be subject to a Treasury Department audit of their trip to ensure they fall under one of the permitted categories. Educational trips and so-called “people-to-people” group exchanges will fall under greater scrutiny, with educational groups once again having to travel with a guide from a U.S. organization sponsoring the trip, a requirement the Obama policy had effectively eliminated.
Main target is GAESA
Commercial flights and cruise trips to Cuba will be allowed to continue, because paying landing fees at military-run airports and seaports will be exempt from the Trump ban. (So will paying bank fees at the military-run bank, to allow Americans to still send money and rent private properties like those offered on Airbnb.) But the audit threat could shrink demand for Cuban travel, and hurt private-run bed-and-breakfasts and restaurants favored by American travelers.
The main target of Trump’s policy is the Cuban military’s umbrella enterprise for staterun businesses, GAESA (short for Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A.), the sprawling conglomerate that experts estimate controls about 60 percent of the Cuban economy. Americans and U.S. companies will be barred from financial transactions with GAESA and any of its “affiliates, subsidiaries or successors.”
“That’s a huge deal — that’s pretty much everything,” DiazBalart told the Herald. “That’s the entire tourism industry.”