Trump Changes Policy With Cuba

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

As promised in his electoral campaign for South Florida, President Donald Trump reversed part of the agreements that his predecessor Barack Obama had established to improve relations with Cuba.

“A new policy has been born. I consider the Obama agreement canceled,”Trump announced Friday during a speech at the Manuel Artime Theater in Little Havana, Miami, as reported by the Spanish newspaper El País. "We will not support the military monopoly that oppresses Cubans."

And he added: “We know what is happening there and we do not forget it. Cuba must legalize parties, allow supervised elections, release prisoners and hand over fugitives. As long as there is no freedom, there will be restrictions.”

One of the biggest changes announced Friday was the cancellation of the so-called town-to-town exchanges that allowed Americans to travel more freely to the island following certain rules.

Trump left some diplomatic agreements in place, such as keeping the US embassy in Havana. Neither will flights and commercial cruises be canceled, although there will be greater control to regulate these trips by Americans to that country.

Regarding the policy known colloquially as Dry Feet / Wet Feet - which allowed Cubans to make landfall in the United States to stay and eventually obtain their legal residence in the country - it will not be reinstated by Trump. That policy itself was removed by President Obama in December last year. "We will not lift sanctions against the Cuban government until there are free elections, political prisoners are free and there is freedom of expression," Trump emphasized before various media during his speech in South Florida.

But Trump left open the possibility of dialogue between the two countries. "We challenge Cuba to come to the table with a new agreement in favor of its people, the American people and Cuban-Americans," she concluded, as reported by the Spanish newspaper El mundo.