Does Donald Trump change Cuba
Donald Trump has ended America’s diplomatic ties with Cuba by restoring the restrictions on travel and doing business with Cuba. Caribbean island state.
On December 14, 2014, Cuban President Raul Castro and US President Barack Obama announced in simultaneous speeches that, after a 50 year standoff, the diplomatic relationship between these two countries was to become “normalised”, reopening embassies in Havana and Washington and allowing American citizens to travel to Cuba in a relatively relaxed manner.
With Trump’s new rules that are in reality an attempt to revert back to the previous American policies that was one of isolation, Trump has reaffirmed “the United States statutory embargo of Cuba”. The embassies remain (for for the time being); however, it is clear that the movement of US tourists and dollars will be extremely restricted in the near future.
In his speech on June 16 during his speech in Miami, Trump also took to the Cuban military (the Revolutionary Armed Forces, or FAR in Spanish) and declared that Trump will “expose the crimes of the Castro regime.”
With Trump’s old-fashioned method, any improvement in relations between Cuba and the United States will now depend on a change in the political landscape of Havana as well as Washington watching “Cuba’s progress — if any — toward greater political and economic freedom”.
Cuba’s reaction was swift and uncompromising. “The Cuban government denounces the new measures hardening the blockade that are destined to fail … and that will not achieve their aim of weakening the revolution”, read a statement from Havana that was released on the news at night.
In reality, instead of triggering the process of political change, Trump’s overhauled old policy will result in a contradictory effect on Cuba which could seriously damage the economy and energize the system of political power.
President of Cuba, Raul Castro (left), was quick to criticize his country’s policy change US policy. Marcelino Vazquez/Reuters
A battle for military indirect
Cuba might might not follow the government in which is governed by the US embargo, which was intended to weaken. However, the same coalition of military and civil society controls it.
The Communist Party embodies Cuba’s commitment to anti-capitalist ideals and building an atmosphere of consensus within the civil society. The FAR, comprised of ground, naval, and air military forces, and The Youth Labour Army, is the official manifestation of Cuban nationalist beliefs.
Its aim is to guarantee that it is prepared for any external threat. It has historically been the case for the US.
This is the kind of force President Obama, the US president, is trying to take on through his new economic policies. Since the demise of the Soviet Union in 1990, leaving Cuba on its own in the “capitalist sea,” the FAR has been firmly involved in the management of economics.
The FAR: always vigilant to US invasions of Cuban sovereignty. Ivan Alvarado/Reuters
Castro’s latest “economy czar,” Marino Murillo, is a trained FAR economist. Furthermore, the FAR is also the home of The Business Management Group, or GAESA, which is a recipient of around 50% of the hard-currency Cuban revenues. GAESA is found in almost all areas of the Cuban economy, such as tourism. It is expected to be among the sectors most affected by Trump’s new policy.
Trump did not change one important aspect of Obama’s plan: winning the respect of Cuban small-scale businesses. However, he added another twist. While Obama wanted “to empower the nascent Cuban private sector,” Trump will redirect “economic activities away from the Cuban military” and continue to permit American companies and individuals to establish economic connections with Cuba.
By limiting tourism and reducing tourism, this new US policy is explicitly designed to stop the transfer of US dollars to the military-run GAESA. In the months prior to Obama’s detente in 2015, the amount of Americans traveling to Cuba varied from 10,000 to 100,000. In 2015, the number grew to 160,000. In 2016, 290,000 US tourists were on the island.
Americans remain the sole source of 7 percent of Cuba’s international visitors (second only to Canada, which sent 1.2 million tourists). However, any decline in this sector could result in a negative economic impact on Cuba, which earned US$2.9 billion through tourism in 2016, which was up from US$2.4 billion in 2014.