TDC and The Hill: Trump will rollback Obama Cuba policies in June
There appears to be bad news in the horizon dealing with Cuba travel. The Daily Caller (TDC) and The Hill are reporting that “President Donald Trump is set to announce a rollback of former President Barack Obama’s policies toward Cuba.”
According to TDC, sources have informed them that behind the scene efforts by Senators Marco Rubio and Bob Menendez, as well as Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, have swayed the president to take action and keep his promise to undo President Barack Obama’s initiatives with the island nation. John Kavulich, of the nonpartisan U.S. – Cuba Trade and Economic Council, has confirmed the information to TDC stating, “The Trump Administration has been ‘ready’ since February 2017 to announce changes, but issues unrelated to Cuba have intervened.”
TDC also reported that “Rubio and Rep. Diaz-Balart … have been publicly confident that Trump will bring back hardline policies against Cuba. The National Journal reported Wednesday that Diaz-Balart said he is ‘1,000 percent sure the president is going to deliver on his commitment.’
“‘I have no doubt that you’re going to see in short order a different policy,’ the Cuban-American legislator added. Rubio tweeted in March that he is ‘quite confident’ Trump will ‘treat [Cuba] like a dictatorship.’
“The Florida senator also told El Nuevo Herald, ‘We’ve been walking through all these issues with the president and his team, figuring out the right steps to take and when.’”
The Hill is basing their reporting on what has been published in TDC. The report states that President Trump will make his decision public during a scheduled visit to Miami in June. The White House has refused to verify or deny this.
“Kavulich said that the administration will enact ‘increased enforcement relating to travel,’ and ‘a focus upon discouraging transactions with entities controlled by the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) of the Republic of Cuba,’” according to TDC.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts International currently has a hotel under management that is owned by a company controlled by the FAR, according to Kavulich.
