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In a memo Monday, Trump said the reviews should focus on Cuba’s
treatment of dissidents, its policies directed at dissidents and
restricting financial transactions that “disproportionately
benefit the Cuban government, military, intelligence, or
security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people.”
In one potential significant change, the order said the U.S.
should look for ways to shut down all tourism to the island and
to restrict educational tours to groups that are organized and
run only by American citizens.
The move is not a surprise given that Trump has previously said
he plans to rescind the easing of sanctions and other penalties
in Cuba that were instituted during the terms of Democratic
Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. In the days before
leaving office, Biden had moved to lift the U.S. designation of
Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Trump's memo “supports the economic embargo of Cuba and opposes
calls in the United Nations and other international forums for
its termination,” according to a fact sheet.
In Cuba, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded swiftly to
the document.
"The Presidential Memorandum vs #Cuba released today by the US
government strengthens the aggression & economic blockade that
punishes the whole Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our
development," he wrote on X. “It’s a criminal behavior that
violates the #HumanRights of an entire nation.”
The Trump administration also has made Cuba one of seven
countries facing heightened restrictions on visitors and revoked
temporary legal protections for about 300,000 Cubans, which had
protected them from deportation.
The administration also has announced visa restrictions on Cuban
and foreign government officials involved in Cuba’s medical
missions, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called
“forced labor.”
In an interview with The Associated Press this month, Cuban
Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio accused the
United States of trying to discredit the medical missions and
criticized reversal of policy welcoming Cubans to the U.S.
Rubio, whose family left Cuba in the 1950s before the communist
revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power, has long been a
proponent of sanctions on the communist island.
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AP writer Andrea Rodríguez in Havana contributed to this report.
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