Venezuela and Bolivia Decry Trump's Cuba Policy Rollback

In response to the US, 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.

"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".

Trump on Friday in Miami, Florida announced his new Cuba policy, which reverses much of the Obama era easing of travel and trade. Most US business deals with the Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group are also likely to be banned.

The Cuban statement criticised the "hostile rhetoric that recalls the time of open confrontation", and "return to the coercive methods of the past". Some travelers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport expressed concern Friday about restricting travel to Cuba.

Mr Trump cast that as a sign the United States still wanted to engage with Cuba in hopes of forging "a much stronger and better path". He even visited the country before the historic deal's ink was dry, making him the first sitting USA president to do so in almost 100 years. He vowed to seek a "much better deal for the Cuban people and for the United States". But other Americans will face major new complications if they visit Cuba. "My father was imprisoned and tortured", Cruz said, "My aunt was imprisoned and tortured, one by Bautista, one by Castro and they both came to Texas seeking freedom".

While tourism is still officially prohibited, since only Congress can lift the almost 55-year-embargo still in place on Cuba, the Obama administration loosened the rules - and enforcement - to allow individual, "people-to-people" travel.

Trump emphasized that the USA being short-changed in trade transactions was a primary reason for the President's rollback effort.

"America has rejected the Cuban people's oppressors", Trump said in a crowded, sweltering auditorium. However, in a shift from Obama's approach, Trump said trade and other penalties would stay in place until a long list of prerequisites was met.

In one of the most important changes, transactions with the Business Administration Group, S.A - GAESA - will be prohibited.

"You can't put the genie back in the bottle 100 percent", a senior administration official conceded Thursday. "They will not achieve their objective of debilitating the Revolution or submitting the Cuban people, whose resistance to the aggressions of any kind and origin has been proven throughout six decades".

"The policy centres on the belief that the oppressed Cuban people - rather than the oppressive Castro regime's military and its subsidiaries - should benefit from American engagement with the island", he said.

Mr Obama and his aides argued that commerce and travel between the countries, which has blossomed since he relaxed the rules, would make his policy irreversible.

Trump previously had said he supported restoring diplomatic relations but wished the USA had negotiated a better deal.