Latest news with #CubaPolicy
LBCI
2 days ago
- Business
- LBCI
Trump signs memo toughening US policy towards Cuba
President Donald Trump signed a memorandum imposing a hard-line U.S. policy toward Cuba and reversing measures put in place by former President Joe Biden, the White House said. The directive will enforce a statutory ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba while supporting an economic embargo of the country, the White House said in a fact sheet. While Americans cannot visit Cuba for leisure, travel has been allowed for activities, including educational or humanitarian trips. As one of his first acts after taking office in January, Trump, a harsh Cuba critic, revoked the Biden administration's last-minute decision to remove the country from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. He has also partially restricted the entry of people from Cuba. Under Monday's memorandum, Trump renewed a ban on direct or indirect financial transactions with entities controlled by the Cuban military, such as Grupo de Administracion Empresarial S.A. (GAESA), and its affiliates, with exceptions for transactions that advance U.S. policy goals or support the Cuban people. Biden had revoked a 2017 Trump order that restricted financial transactions with some military and government-linked Cuban entities. The new memorandum "enforces the statutory ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba and ensures compliance through regular audits and mandatory record-keeping of all travel-related transactions for at least five years," the White House fact sheet said. It also supports the economic embargo of Cuba and opposes calls in the United Nations and other international forums for its termination, the fact sheet said. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez posted on social media platform X that "the Presidential Memorandum against Cuba made public today by the U.S. government reinforces the aggression and economic blockade that punishes the entire Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our development." "It is a criminal act and a violation of the human rights of an entire nation. The main obstacle to our development," he said. Reuters
BBC News
2 days ago
- Business
- BBC News
Trump imposes tougher US policy towards Cuba
US President Donald Trump has signed a memorandum which will impose a tougher policy on Cuba. The move is aimed at reversing some of the measures introduced by the Biden administration which eased US pressure on the Communist-run White House said it would enforce an existing ban on US tourism on Cuba more stringently and oppose calls by international organisations such as the UN to end the US economic embargo on Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez said the memorandum "strengthens the aggression & economic blockade that punishes the whole Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our development". In a fact sheet published on its website, the White House said it would end "economic practices that disproportionately benefit the Cuban government, military, intelligence, or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people".US citizens are already banned from travelling to Cuba solely for tourism activities but there are 12 categories of travel which are permitted, including family and educational educational visits, humanitarian projects and sports competitions. The new memorandum says compliance with the existing policy will be enforced through regular audits and "mandatory record-keeping of all travel-related transactions for at least five years".It also prohibits US citizens from doing business with GAESA, a conglomerate run by the Cuban military which owns many of Cuba's is one of the main sources of hard currency for the Cuban government, but numbers of visitors have dwindled as shortages on the Caribbean island have become more severe and several nationwide power cuts plunged it into the dark. The memorandum stresses that President Trump "is committed to fostering a free and democratic Cuba, addressing the Cuban people's long-standing suffering under a Communist regime".The policies listed in the document build on measures Trump has implemented in his first term in office and also in recent after being sworn in to a second term, Trump reinstated Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which had been lifted just days before by the then-president, Joe Biden. Trump and his iron-fist policy towards Cuba had strong backing from the Cuban-American community in the the Trump administrations decision to end Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for Cubans - as well as Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans - was met with widespread disappointed by many Cuban-Americans.
Globe and Mail
3 days ago
- Politics
- Globe and Mail
Trump asks top officials to review, toughen U.S. sanctions on Cuba
U.S. President Donald Trump has instructed his top Cabinet officers to review U.S. policy toward Cuba, ordering them to examine current sanctions and come up with ways to toughen them within 30 days. 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. Cuba warns against 'public disorder' as scattered protests erupt 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. 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.
Reuters
3 days ago
- Business
- Reuters
Trump signs memo toughening US policy toward Cuba, White House official says
WASHINGTON, June 30 (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday signed a presidential memorandum strengthening U.S. policy toward Cuba and reversing the policy put in place by then-President Joe Biden, a White House official said. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the directive will enforce a statutory ban on U.S. tourism to Cuba and supports the economic embargo of Cuba.
