[Zagadka]

Cuba deal rollback: Trump says he’s nixing Obama’s ‘one-sided’ pact
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06 ... -pact.html

President Trump, speaking at a Miami theater associated with Cuban exiles, announced Friday he is nixing his predecessor’s “one-sided deal” with the Communist nation – moving to restrict individual travel to the island, crack down on the flow of U.S. cash to the Cuban military and demand key reforms in Havana.

While stopping short of a full reversal, Trump said he would challenge Cuba to come back to the table with a new agreement.

“Effective immediately, I am canceling the last administration’s completely one-sided deal with Cuba,” Trump told a cheering crowd.

Trump cast his announcement Friday as the fulfillment of a campaign pledge to turn back former President Barack Obama’s diplomatic outreach to the country.

“I keep my promises,” Trump said. “And now that I am your president, America will expose the crimes of the Castro regime.”

A cornerstone of the new policy is to ensure Americans traveling to Cuba only support private businesses and services, banning financial transactions with the dozens of enterprises run by the military-linked corporation GAESA.

The Trump administration also says it will strictly enforce the 12 authorized categories allowing American citizens to travel to Cuba – banning one particular type of travel, known as individual “people-to-people” trips, seen as ripe for abuse by would-be tourists.

Most U.S. travelers to Cuba will again be required to visit the island as part of organized tour groups run by American companies. Obama eliminated the tour requirement, allowing tens of thousands of Americans to book solo trips and spend their money with individual bed-and-breakfast owners, restaurants and taxi drivers. The rules also require a daylong schedule of activities designed to expose the travelers to ordinary Cubans.

Trump focused his speech Friday on the crimes and misdeeds of the Castro government, saying his administration would not “hide from it.” He accused the regime of harboring “cop killers, hijackers and terrorists” while casting the policy changes as meant to encourage a free Cuba.

“With God’s help, a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve,” Trump said.

Critics of the United States’ decades-long freeze – and embargo – with Cuba say it failed to spur such changes, and had welcomed Obama’s outreach as a fresh approach. But many Cuban-American lawmakers recoiled.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Cuban-American lawmaker who helped craft the new policy, spoke before the president in Miami on Friday and took a shot at Trump’s predecessor for his visit to Cuba last March.

“A year and a half ago … an American president landed in Havana to outstretch his hand to a regime. Today, a new president lands in Miami to reach out his hand to the people of Cuba,” Rubio said.

U.S. airlines and cruise ships will still be allowed to continue service to the island.

The U.S. Embassy in Havana, which reopened in August 2015, will remain as a full-fledged diplomatic outpost. Trump also isn't overturning Obama's decision to end the "wet foot, dry foot" policy that allowed most Cuban migrants who made it onto U.S. soil to stay and eventually become legal permanent residents.

Trump affirmed in his speech that the U.S. embassy would remain open, in hopes the two countries can forge a “better path.” But he said his administration would enforce the ban on tourism and the embargo, and would not lift sanctions until the regime releases all political prisoners and schedules free and internationally supervised elections.

Trump also demanded the return of Joanne Chesimard, a New York City native wanted in the 1973 killing of a New Jersey state trooper.

The U.S. severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1961 after Fidel Castro's revolution. It spent subsequent decades trying to either overthrow the Cuban government or isolate the island, including toughening an economic embargo first imposed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The embargo remains in place and unchanged by Trump's policy. Only the U.S. Congress can lift the embargo, and lawmakers, especially those of Cuban heritage like Rubio, have shown no interest in doing so.

Reaction to the changes split largely along partisan lines. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., said in a statement the Trump administration “is right to sideline the Cuban military and make human rights and internet access top priorities moving forward.”

Former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes tweeted that Cubans “will be hurt by a mean spirited policy” meant to keep a “political promise to a few people at their expense.”

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said the actions “threaten to slam that door shut and revert to a failed policy of isolation that has done nothing to improve the lives of the Cuban people and has harmed the American economy.”

He seems to WANT the entire planet to hate us.

[Rugoz]

US foreign policy towards Cuba takes the price of being the most retarded.

[skinster]

This is going to piss off Americans who go there for cheap medication.

[Zagadka]

Trump seems to have a hard time understanding that sometimes policy is more important than money or getting a better deal.

But I do feel safer from those Cuban terrorists.

[The Immortal Goon]

Remember all the catastrophic things that happened since Obama cut that deal?

Because I don't.

[Stormsmith]

Considering all the times America's tried to kill Castro, it's a little rich to hear Trump griping about alleged Cuban terrorists.

[Zagadka]

The other troubling thing is this trend... How is the rest of the world going to view America? We shift governments regularly, and this last one has unilaterally either withdrawn or proposed to withdraw from NATO, TPP, NAFTA, Cuba, Paris, and other agreements. It was bad enough going Reagan/Bush - Clinton - W - Obama, but Trump has taken this to an entirely new level of isolationist deal cutting (aside from the weapons deals, those are alright). We are pretty damn lucky that the European countries have their own major problems to deal with (re: existing as a union)... and that Trump has so far failed to do anything meaningful. I don't see how other countries will be able to pledge themselves to agreements that may be canceled in a couple of years. Most of those agreements the previous presidents disagreed with, but didn't try to terminate full stop.

[Bulaba Khan Jones]

That's of course true. I don't think the Cubans are naive: although a Democrat like Obama was willing to engage and work at detente with them, a Republican administration would most likely be unwilling to continue working with them. It's not a matter of economic markets and money to be made like with China, but long-standing politics. I'm certain that Raul Castro went along with limited detente because it was good in the short term and would improve Cuba's image regardless of the US reneging and taking a shit all over the diplomatic progress made so far in order to do some chest-puffing and patriotic cock-jerking for the cameras. Now that the US is going to do just that, Cuba can point out they negotiated in good faith, and we're the assholes, yet again.

[Stormsmith]

Zagadka

The thing to remember is people in other countries are aware Trump isn't a politician, he's a reaction. Most of what he does can be rectified. Climate change will be tricky, but wars are worse. Cuba's not going anywhere. That will be easy peasy to put right.

[MistyTiger]

Cuba is not a big threat. I do not see how Obama's pact is bad for America. Trump just does not like the pact because it is under Obama's name. Trump is such a petty freak. I pity all the men and women who live and work for the bully. He is a "bad hombre", IMO.

[hartmut]

Cuba deal rollback: Trump says he’s nixing Obama’s ‘one-sided’ pact
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06 ... -pact.html


[2] He seems to WANT the entire planet to hate us.

It is strange, even bizarre.
I mean this: " moving to restrict individual travel to the island".
Is there any state on the globe, common US-citizens are not allowed travelling freely to?
And which countries do have such restrictions at all?
It is a little bit drowned GDR (DDR).

[2] That would be not exceedingly surprising.
..regarding a man who emphasized "Americas" antagonism to the world in his campaign, and won while doing so.

[SolarCross]

The other troubling thing is this trend... How is the rest of the world going to view America? We shift governments regularly, and this last one has unilaterally either withdrawn or proposed to withdraw from NATO, TPP, NAFTA, Cuba, Paris, and other agreements. It was bad enough going Reagan/Bush - Clinton - W - Obama, but Trump has taken this to an entirely new level of isolationist deal cutting (aside from the weapons deals, those are alright). We are pretty damn lucky that the European countries have their own major problems to deal with (re: existing as a union)... and that Trump has so far failed to do anything meaningful. I don't see how other countries will be able to pledge themselves to agreements that may be canceled in a couple of years. Most of those agreements the previous presidents disagreed with, but didn't try to terminate full stop.

It's a systemic bug with democracy, not just specifically American democracy, unless one particular policy party always dominates then policy directions swing to and fro as opposing parties take over the reins from the other.

Autocracies and one party states can at least be consistent from one day to the next.

[Zagadka]

Well, yea, that is the nature of democracy. A successful democracy is one that change comes, but not too rapidly, because the system is inherently weighed down. Thus, we went 36 years at just about a more stable rate than has been decreed/proposed in the past 5 months.

[redcarpet]

Considering all the times America's tried to kill Castro, it's a little rich to hear Trump griping about alleged Cuban terrorists.

And about the harbouring of terrorists. The USA harbours plenty, including Cuban terrorists with Cuban civilian blood on their hands. Bush I gave a presidential pardon for one, YES! This is cant and hypocrisy, as usual from the US Pres.

[Stormsmith]

@redcarpet

True, true. As I recall the policy is, if a Cuban get one foot on dry land, s/he's an American. This is barking mad. All immigrants should be vetted.

I couldn't help but notice a recent change in rhetoric. Trump doesn't want Americans to put money into Cuba's army. This army horse*feathers is 60s stuff. "Russians shouldn't be allowed in the Olympics because the players are in the army, but they're all playing pro hockey" and "Cuban Russian military connection will get us nuked" etc. Better dead than red.

Now, in the 1990s, Trump went to Cuba and spent - by Cuban standards, an absolute fortune. He wanted to build hotels and casinos, probably in Veradero. Trump didn't like the terms, but this is how Cuba does business: Cuba gets 51% of the company. That's the people of Cuba, and the money (profits) goes to paying for education, health care, drugs, housing, food etc. The army too, but that's incidental. Part of the mix. Part of what belongs to all Cubans, as the US armies are there for all Americans.

Also, it gives control to Cuba. They have a huge investment in preventative health care, and I hear the effects McDonald's has on one's health worries them.

I suspect it was around this time (mid 1990s) the Russia- Trump stuff got started. Russia pulled out of Cuba, collapsing Cuba's economy. Trump's wont for investing and Russia's need for capital investment clicked.

Trump is resurrecting this 1960s reference to armies and commies to break out of the deal for personal reasons

[Finfinder]

Cuba is not a big threat. I do not see how Obama's pact is bad for America. Trump just does not like the pact because it is under Obama's name. Trump is such a petty freak. I pity all the men and women who live and work for the bully. He is a "bad hombre", IMO.

The actual petty freak is Obama, who in the end of his term, reversed a policy by executive order that no president has for 50 years , knowing that a republican president would cancel it. Obama is no friend to the Cuban people he used them as a political pawns.

[Zagadka]

The actual petty freak is Obama, who in the end of his term, reversed a policy by executive order that no president has for 50 years

Um... yea. Having been around a long time doesn't make something good. In fact, in the real world, THINGS CHANGE IN 50 YEARS. You're leaning real hard on the concept of "conservatism"

[Finfinder]

So nobody has anything specifically about the policy they have a problem with, it's just the fact that it looks bad to the world? . What exactly looks bad? You can still travel to Cuba.

[layman]

Trump is that petty that he wants to undo whatever Obama did for that reason alone.

On top of this he seems to genuinely not understand there is such a thing as a win win deal.

[MistyTiger]

The actual petty freak is Obama, who in the end of his term, reversed a policy by executive order that no president has for 50 years , knowing that a republican president would cancel it. Obama is no friend to the Cuban people he used them as a political pawns.

So Obama had no right to change it since it had been the same for 50 years? If no one changed anything in 50 years, we probably would not exist very well as a country. The world has changed so much during 50 years so the US must change as well. Some people actually prefer to travel outside of tourist groups, I know I do.

Trump only see how it benefits Cuba but it also benefits the US. There is a growing Cuban population in the US.

Well I am glad that he has not completely nixed the pact. US businesses can still do business in Cuba.

Um... yea. Having been around a long time doesn't make something good. In fact, in the real world, THINGS CHANGE IN 50 YEARS. You're leaning real hard on the concept of "conservatism"

Well said, Zag.

So nobody has anything specifically about the policy they have a problem with, it's just the fact that it looks bad to the world? . What exactly looks bad? You can still travel to Cuba.

The US has an image of being a utilitarianist nation. I hope that Trump does not completely destroy that image. I admire American leaders who genuinely care about helping others and being peacekeepers. A true leader knows how to look out for the interests of its allies or potential allies, after all, world economies are interdependent on each other.

Trump is that petty that he wants to undo whatever Obama did for that reason alone.

On top of this he seems to genuinely not understand there is such a thing as a win win deal.

Exactly. And one article I read even said that Trump even considered doing business in Cuba (illegally) but still, he contemplated it.