Trump’s hostility vs Cuba divides Republicans

President Donald Trump’s decision to reverse some Obama-era Cuba policies landed with a thud among many congressional Republicans who said the new approach surrendered a potentially lucrative market for American goods and services to competitors.

While anti-Castro conservatives hailed Trump’s partial rollback of President Barack Obama’s detente, a number of other Republican lawmakers, particularly from farm states, criticized the change as misguided and isolationist.

They urged Trump to ease barriers with Havana that would boost trade and create jobs in both countries.

Republican Rep. Rick Crawford said Trump’s shift was more than just a missed opportunity for rural America, which would benefit from greater access to Cuba’s agricultural import market.

He said Trump’s policy may put US national security at risk as strategic competitors move to fill the vacuum the uncoupling could create.

“Further US disengagement opens up opportunities for countries like Iran, Russia, North Korea and China to gain influence on an island 90 miles (145 kilometers) off our coast,” Crawford said.

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake, a frequent critic of Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement that any policy change “that diminishes the ability of Americans to travel freely to Cuba is not in the best interests of the United States or the Cuban people.”

Flake has been among the most outspoken lawmakers opposed to rolling back Obama’s outreach to Havana.

He had warned that returning to a “get tough” policy would hurt everyday Cubans whose livelihoods are increasingly rooted in travel and tourism.

In his statement, Flake called for the Senate’s Republican leadership to allow a vote on his legislation that he said would eliminate “archaic restrictions” on travel to Cuba that “do not exist for travel by Americans to any other country in the world.”

Flake’s bill has 54 co-sponsors, including nine Republicans. Among them are Senators John Boozman of Arkansas, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Jerry Moran of Kansas.

During a speech on Friday in Miami, Trump portrayed his updated policy as the fulfillment of a campaign promise to reverse Obama’s diplomatic rapprochement with Cuba after decades of estrangement.

Trump’s approach is aimed at halting the flow of US cash to the country’s military while maintaining diplomatic relations. US airlines and cruise ships would still be allowed to service the island.

Yet new moves will burden the US government with the complicated task of policing US travel to Cuba to make sure there are no transactions with the military-linked conglomerate that runs much of the Cuban economy.

By restricting individual US travel to Cuba, the new policy also risks cutting off a major source of income.