San Francisco Chronicle

Sanctions: President Trump restores some travel and economic restrictio­ns on Cuba.

- By Darlene Superville and Michael Weissenste­in Darlene Super ville and Michael Weissenste­in are Associated Press writers.

MIAMI — President Trump declared Friday he was restoring some travel and economic restrictio­ns on Cuba that were lifted as part of the Obama administra­tion’s historic easing. He challenged the communist government of Raul Castro to negotiate a better deal for Cubans and Cuban-Americans.

Announcing the rollback of President Barack Obama’s diplomatic opening during a speech in Miami, Trump said Cuba had secured far too many concession­s from the U.S. in the “misguided” deal but “now those days are over.” He said penalties on Cuba would remain in place until its government releases political prisoners, stops abusing dissidents and respects freedom of expression.

“America has rejected the Cuban people’s oppressors,” Trump said in a crowded, sweltering auditorium. “They are rejected officially today — rejected.”

Though Trump’s announceme­nt stops short of a full reversal of the Cuba rapprochem­ent, it targets the travel and economic engagement between the countries that has blossomed in the short time since relations were restored. The goal is to halt the flow of U.S. cash to the country’s military and security services in a bid to increase pressure on Cuba’s government.

Embassies in Havana and Washington will remain open. U.S. airlines and cruise ships will still be allowed to serve the island 90 miles south of Florida. The “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which once let most Cuban migrants stay if they made it to U.S. soil but was terminated under Obama, will remain terminated. Remittance­s to Cuba won’t be cut off.

But individual “peopleto-people” trips by Americans to Cuba, allowed by Obama for the first time in decades, will again be prohibited. And the U.S. government will police other such trips to ensure there’s a tour group representa­tive along making sure travelers are pursuing a “full-time schedule of educationa­l exchange activities.”

Trump’s move was a direct rebuke to Obama, for whom the diplomatic opening with Cuba was a central accomplish­ment of his presidency. The new president’s action is broadly opposed by American business groups.

“U.S. private sector engagement can be a positive force for the kind of change we all wish to see in Cuba,” said Myron Brilliant, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce executive vice president.

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