Trump tightens US policy on Cuba
US President Donald Trump has signed a memorandum that will impose more strict restrictions on Cuba.
This decision aims to reverse some of the measures introduced by the Biden administration, which relieved American pressure on the country managed by the Communists.
The White House said that it would apply an existing ban on American tourists going to Cuba more rigorously and would oppose calls from international organizations such as the UN to end the American economic embargo in the Caribbean nation.
The Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said that the memorandum “strengthens the aggressive and economic blocking which punishes all the Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our development”.
In an information sheet published on its website, the White House declared that it would end the “economic practices which would benefit in a disproportionate manner in the Cuban government, the military, information or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people”.
American citizens are already prohibited from traveling to Cuba only for tourism activities, but there are 12 categories of authorized travel, in particular visits to family training and education, humanitarian projects and sports competitions.
The new memorandum indicates that compliance with existing policy will be applied by regular audits and “compulsory registry of all transactions linked to travel for at least five years”.
This also prohibits American citizens from doing business with Gaesa, a conglomerate led by the Cuban army which has many Cuba hotels.
Tourism is one of the main sources of money for the Cuban government, but the number of visitors has decreased while shortages on the Caribbean island have become more serious and several power cuts have plunged it into darkness.
The memorandum stresses that President Trump “undertakes to promote a free and democratic Cuba, attacking the long -standing suffering of the Cuban people under a communist regime”.
The policies listed in the document are based on measures that Trump has implemented during his first mandate and also in recent months.
Shortly after being sworn in a second term, Trump restored the designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, which had been lifted a few days before by the president of the time, Joe Biden.
Trump and his point-to-point Iron Policy have had solid support from the Cuban-American community in the United States.
However, the decision of the Trump administrations to end the temporary protected status (TPS) for Cubans – as well as for Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans – was widely disappointed by many Cubano -American.
