HISTORIC CUBA DETENTE ROLLED BACK
Maze of new rules to severely curtail tourist traveling
Cuban dissident Cary Roque is handed a pen by President Donald Trump on Friday after he signed an executive order on Cuba policy. From left are Florida Gov. Rick Scott, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Ms. Roque, Vice President Mike Pence and Labor Secretary Alex Acosta.
MIAMI — Pressing “pause” on a historic detente, President Donald Trump thrust the U.S. and Cuba back on a path toward open hostility Friday with a blistering denunciation of the island’s communist government. He clamped down on some commerce and travel but left in place many new avenues former President Barack Obama had opened.
Even as Mr. Trump predicted a quick end to President Raul Castro’s regime, he challenged Cuba to negotiate better agreements for Americans, Cubans and those whose identities lie somewhere in between. Diplomatic relations, restored only two years ago, will remain intact.
But, in a shift from Mr. Obama’s approach, Mr. Trump said trade and other penalties would stay in place until a long list of prerequisites was met.
“America has rejected the Cuban people’s oppressors,” Mr. Trump said in Miami’s Little Havana, the cradle of Cuban-American resistance to Mr. Castro’s government. “Officially, today, they are rejected.”
Declaring Mr. Obama’s pact with Mr. Castro a “completely one-sided deal,” Mr. Trump said he was canceling it. In practice, however, many recent changes to boost ties to Cuba will stay as they are. Mr. Trump cast that as a sign the U.S. still wanted to engage with Cuba in hopes of forging “a much stronger and better path.”
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 Mr. Obama — will remain terminated. Remittances from people in America to Cubans won’t be cut off.
But individual “peopleto-people” trips by Americans to Cuba, allowed by Mr. Obama for the first time in decades, will again be prohibited. And the U.S. government will police other trips to ensure travelers are pursuing a “fulltime schedule of educational exchange activities.”
The changes won’t go into effect until new documents laying out details are issued. Once implemented, Mr. Trump’s policy is expected to curtail U.S. travel by creating a maze of rules for Americans to obey.
The policy bans most financial transactions with a yet-unreleased list of entities associated with Cuba’s military and state security, including a conglomerate that dominates much of Cuba’s economy, such as many hotels, state-run restaurants and tour buses.
Surrounded by Florida Republican officials, the president was unabashed about the political overtones of his election victory and Friday’s announcement: “You went out and you voted, and here I am, like I promised.”
Cheered by Cuba hardliners in both parties, Mr. Trump’s new policy is broadly opposed by U.S. businesses eager to invest in Cuba.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, typically supportive of GOP presidents, predicted the changes would limit prospects for “positive change on the island,” while Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., said Mr. Trump’s policy was “misguided” and will hurt the U.S. economically.