Tougher Trump line toward Cuba delights hardliners on island
HAVANA — President Donald Trump’s announcement of a tougher line toward Cuba has delighted hardliners on the island, who say it reveals the long-held U.S. aim of imposing American will on Cuba and justifies their wariness toward Washington.
The president’s speech to Cuban exiles in Miami has also dismayed moderates who were working with pro-engagement Americans but now fear association with a policy of open hostility toward the communist system could make them targets for repression.
Trump and the Cuban-American Congress members who helped design the new policy pledged on Friday that it would block the flow of U.S. cash toward military-linked enterprises and direct it toward independent businesses, with the long-term aim of overturning President Raul Castro’s government.
Members of Cuba’s small but vibrant independent civil society say they fear the new policy will do more harm than good.
“Trump’s become the independent business people’s new enemy because — even though he’s said he wants to help entrepreneurs — this new policy alienates entrepreneurs from the government,” said Angel Rodriguez, a 27-year-old sociologist who works with the Catholic Church in entrepreneurship-training programs. “That could bring them under fire now, and they could find themselves much weaker.”
Trump’s new policy retains key aspects of Obama’s reforms, leaving full embassies in Washington and Havana and letting U.S. cruise and airlines continue service to Cuba, although it will make travel harder by requiring most Americans to come in groups and banning payments to military-linked businesses.
Former President Barack Obama’s 2014 declaration of detente with Cuba prompted hundreds of islanders to launch media, entrepreneurship and cultural projects that were outside control of the state but within the bounds of law, unlike the directly confrontational tactics of Cuba’s small dissident groups.
Some of those new groups came under intense pressure during detente, particularly after Obama’s May 2016 visit to the island. Despite bitter criticism and personal attacks, most have continued to operate, many with a degree of support from U.S. individuals and foundations that would have been impossible before the reestablishment of diplomatic relations.
Many government officials and their supporters saw the Obama policy as an attempt to lull Cuba into complacency and undermine the foundations of a communist system based in part of near-total control of virtually every aspect of society, from animal-rights groups to the film industry.