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Moving to Scuttle Obama Legacy, Donald Trump to Crack Down on Cuba - The New York Times

posted onJune 16, 2017
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Article snippet: WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday will move to halt the historic rapprochement between the United States and Raúl Castro to change its repressive ways. Mr. Trump is expected to declare that the two-year-old Obama-era approach of engagement had amounted to a failed policy of appeasement. To that end, he plans to outline stiffer rules for American travelers visiting Cuba and a sweeping prohibition against transactions with companies controlled by the military, which runs vast swaths of the hotel and tourism sector, according to White House officials. The changes are likely to affect both countries, making it more difficult and costly for Americans to travel to and do business with Cuba. The island’s population potentially may pay the steeper price, particularly Cubans who derive their livelihoods from tourism and increased business opportunities stemming from the opening. The expected changes will also place a distinct chill on the relationship between the United States and Cuba that was just beginning to thaw after a half-century of isolation and estrangement and thrust the two countries back into an adversarial posture that is among the last vestiges of the Cold War. In making the shift, Mr. Trump is delivering on a politically potent promise he made to the Cuban-American exile community based in Miami, which backed him in last year’s election and was deeply opposed to the détente. The new policy was shaped in large part by Cuban-American Republicans in Cong... Link to the full article to read more

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