Trump clamps down on US-Cuban travel and trade
By
Alexander Fangmann
19 June 2017
On June 16, President Donald Trump gave a speech in Miami’s Little Havana neighborhood outlining his planned rollback of the loosening of travel and trade restrictions initiated under the Obama administration. Repeating his absurd claim that the deal to reopen diplomatic relations and allow US companies to operate on the island was “one-sided” and “terrible and misguided,” the Trump administration is speaking not only for wealthy, right-wing Cuban exiles who were part of his base. American imperialism’s most rapacious layers see a Cuban economic collapse on the horizon and an opportunity to take back their old property without having to give a cut to the Cuban leadership and their associates.
Despite claiming to be canceling the deal “effective immediately,” at the end of the speech Trump signed a presidential directive that the Commerce and Treasury departments begin drawing up changes to the Obama administration’s most recent regulations within 30 days. According to reports and administration officials, the two biggest changes would primarily impact individual travel to the island by US nationals as well as place more limits on business deals with entities owned by the Cuban military.
The biggest expected change in regard to travel is the elimination of the “people to people” individual educational travel license. Due to the Cuban embargo, Americans are not allowed to spend money in Cuba without a license from the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC). The Obama administration, as part of its rapprochement with the government of Raul Castro, created more categories of “general” licenses under which people could “self-certify,”…