According to an informative sheet of the White House, the Directive will apply a legal prohibition to the United States tourism to Cuba, while supporting (and reinforces) the economic, commercial and financial blockade against the Caribbean nation.
While US citizens cannot visit the largest Caribbean island for pleasure, there are some categories for educational or humanitarian trips, the document indicates.
To guarantee its application, the presidential memorandum emphasizes that “it restores and strengthens the solid policy towards Cuba implemented during its first mandate” and that will guarantee its compliance “through periodic audits and the mandatory maintenance of records of all transactions related to trips for at least five years”.
It also specifies that it opposes requests in the United Nations and other international forums that demand the lifting of that hostile policy.
With this memorandum, the Republican president renewed the prohibition of any direct or indirect financial transaction with Cuban entities such as the Business Administration Group SA (GAESA) and its subsidiaries.
However, there will be “exceptions for transactions that promote objectives of American policy or support the Cuban people.” President Trump, ”said the document – is fulfilling his campaign promise.
In his first term, Trump implemented a maximum pressure against Cuba policy that included 243 additional coercive measures with which he also reversed the advances achieved during the administration of Barack Obama (2009-2017).
The Memo points out that the federal government has no intention of reinstating the policy of “wet foot, dry foot” (“Wet Foot, Dry Foot”), which allowed irregular migrants from Cuba to remain in this country once they touched the US territory.
At the beginning of June, Trump also implemented a new entry restriction to the United States of Citizens from Cuba by virtue, among other false arguments, of the arbitrary inclusion in the list of alleged sponsoring states of terrorism. In addition, he cited the lack of cooperation in the fight against the scourge.
As one of his first measures after assuming in January, Trump revoked the last minute decision of the Biden government to eliminate Cuba from that unilateral list of Washington and the one that limited financial transactions with Cuban entities that, according to the United States, are linked to the army and the government.
In a recent interview granted to Prensa Latina here in Washington, Johana Tablada, deputy director of the United States Directorate at the Cuban Foreign Ministry, denounced the attack of the current government in the White House against Cuba. It is a policy that went from “maximum pressure to maximum aggression,” he warned.
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