Cuba Relations Changing Once More

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I agree 150% with everything Trump says and does.

While Trump gave his speech, a hundred activists about evenly divided between supporters and opponents of the president chanted and held up signs outside the venue, the Manuel Artime Theater, named after a late political leader of Cuban exiles who launched the failed Bay of Pigs uprising in 1961.

"The outcome of the last administration's executive order has been only more oppression", Trump told an audience of Cuban Americans in Miami.

The presidents of all four organizations - the Illinois Beef Association, Illinois Corn Growers Association, Illinois Pork Producers Association and Illinois Soybean Growers - spoke on behalf of their members in the release saying, "Our farmer members are discouraged to hear that President Trump has chose to roll back the advancements we have made in agricultural trade opportunities with Cuba". USA travelers are engaging in what amounts to illegal tourism, but they are also pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into the restaurants and bed-and-breakfasts that are driving the growth of Cuba's nascent private sector.

In response to the USA, the Cuban government issued a statement on Friday slamming Trump's policy as "destined to fail", while reaffirming its willingness to continue the dialogue and cooperation with Washington.

During his speech, Trump slammed Cuba for human rights abuses, saying, "The Castro regime has shipped arms to North Korea and fueled chaos in Venezuela".

Cuba regretted "a reversal in relations between the two countries", the statement said.

A former Cuban soldier who arrived in the U.S.by boat in 1959, he said that that Trump measures were the right ones to take.

He will not close the United States embassy in Havana, commercial flights from the U.S. will continue, and Americans will still be able to return home with Cuban goods.

A glance at the Senate's Iran, Russia sanctions legislation
" Any idea of the president's that he can lift sanctions on his own for whatever reason are dashed by this legislation ". Finally, it provides that no sanctions can be lifted by the President without Congressional review.

"Cuba denounces the new hardening of the blockade, which is destined to fail", said an official statement from the Cuban Government, which nevertheless repeated its "willingness to continue a respectful dialogue and cooperation on issues of mutual interest".

Boosting travel was a key aim of Obama's effort to restore ties with Cuba after a half-century chill, which culminated with a visit by the then-president in 2016.

As a result, the changes - though far-reaching - appear to be less sweeping than many U.S.pro-engagement advocates had feared.

On the surface, the announcement appears to benefit the territory; Cuba, if opened to full commerce with America, including travel, serves as an enormous threat to not only the U.S. Virgin Islands' tourism product, but much of the Caribbean, with industry leaders meeting on multiple occasions previous year to discuss the potential impact.

However, individual "people-to-people" trips by Americans to Cuba, allowed by Obama for the first time in decades, will again be prohibited.

The statement continues, "The Cuban government denounces the new measures to tighten the blockade, which are destined to fail as has been shown repeatedly in the past, and which will not achieve its objective to weaken the revolution or to defeat the Cuban people, whose resistance to the aggressions of any type and origin has been proven over nearly six decades". The policy bans most financial transactions with a yet-unreleased list of entities associated with Cuba's military and state security, including a conglomerate that dominates much of Cuba's economy, such as many hotels, state-run restaurants and tour buses. "I'd print a copy for every Cuban", said Iroel Sanchez, a pro-government columnist and blogger who was fiercely critical of Obama. The ability of Americans to travel freely on vacation to the country will be scrapped.

Trump said his new policy will tighten rules on travel and on sending funds to Cuba. Diplomatic relations will remain in tact and commercial air and sea links will be exempted from the new restrictions. The Cuban statement criticised the "hostile rhetoric that recalls the time of open confrontation", and "return to the coercive methods of the past".

The Castro government is certain to reject Trump's list of demands, which includes releasing political prisoners, halting what the US says is abuse of dissidents and allowing greater freedom of expression. Mr. Ferrer's group supported the Obama opening in December 2014, believing that recognition by the United States would deprive dictator Raúl Castro of his old excuse - Yankee hostility - for political repression.

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