President Donald Trump announced new sanctions on Cuba on Wednesday as well as greater restrictions on Americans traveling to the communist nation, continuing his administration’s rollback of agreements created under his predecessor Barack Obama.
The new actions prohibit Americans who travel to Cuba from purchasing rum, tobacco and staying in hotels – which are all owned by the government.
“Today as part of our continuing fight against communist oppression, I am announcing that the Treasury Department will prohibit U.S. travelers from staying at properties owned by the Cuban government,” Trump said at the White House in a speech honoring veterans of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. “We are also further restricting the importation of Cuban alcohol and Cuban tobacco. These actions will ensure U.S. dollars do not fund the Cuban regime.”
The Bay of Pigs was an effort by exiled Cubans, funded and backed by the U.S. government, to reclaim Cuba following the takeover of the island nation by Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries.
Besides tourists and importation of rum and tobacco, the move prohibits groups from attending or organizing certain professional meetings or conferences in Cuba, as well as public performances, clinics, workshops, competitions and other exhibitions in the country, Fox News reported.
The move is aimed at further denying a source of U.S. currency and revenue to the Cuban government, which dominates the hospitality industry as well as tobacco and alcohol production, Carrie Filipetti, deputy assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on a conference call with reporters, the Miami Herald reported.
Additionally, Trump imposed new sanctions on Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, including on companies involved in shipping oil from Venezuela to Cuba and cited the Caribbean nation’s human rights violations and support of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
The moves follow actions that began in June 2017 that began to “cancel” agreements negotiated by the Obama administration, which restored diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2015.
"The Obama-Biden administration made a weak, pathetic, one-sided deal with the Castro dictatorship that betrayed the Cuban people and enriched the communist regime,” Trump said. “I canceled the Obama-Biden sellout to the Castro regime."
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