Trump threatens to roll back US-Cuba relations

By David Wright

Updated 10:15 PM ET, Mon November 28, 2016

(CNN)President-elect Donald Trump threatened Monday to "terminate" the Obama administration's efforts to normalize US-Cuba relations.

"If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate the deal," Trump tweeted.

Trump's threat came after the death of long-time Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, whose passing on Saturday he marked with another tweet. "Fidel Castro is dead!" the president-elect wrote, before issuing a statement condemning the Cuban leader.

Trump appears to be aiming to use the coming political transition in Cuba -- likely to be smoothed by the presence of Castro's brother Raul -- as a possible opportunity to renegotiate the terms of the rapprochement between the US and Cuba.

Speaking later Monday at the White House, spokesman Josh Earnest said the death of Castro is unlikely to have any impact on US effort to normalize relations between the two countries.

Earnest defended the policies of the Obama administration, but also said of Castro "there certainly is no whitewashing the kinds of activities that he ordered."

The spokesman said the President's statement Saturday on Castro's death -- which didn't criticize the Cuban leader -- "speaks for itself" and that Obama is focused on looking to the "future" with the goal of expanded the United States and Cuba's interests.

During his presidential campaign, Trump was an uneven critic of the détente with Cuba, alternately supporting the effort while criticizing the terms of the diplomatic negotiations.

In an interview with the Daily Caller in September, Trump had said the move was "fine." "50 years is enough," he said. "I think it's fine. I think it's fine, but we should have made a better deal. The concept of opening with Cuba is fine."

But a Miami rally in October, he took a more aggressive tone, saying he would reverse the deal unless Cuba met certain demands such as the "religious and political freedom for the Cuban people, and the freeing of political prisoners," without going into specifics. He called the Obama administration's negotiations "a very weak agreement."

CNN's Allison Malloy contributed to this report.http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/28/politics/cuba-trump-threat/

Is demand for travel to Cuba flattening?

Beth J. Harpaz, Associated Press 12:42 a.m. EST December 11, 2016

Demand for travel to Cuba may be flattening, with soaring hotel prices on the island, American Airlines cutting some flights, and uncertainty over whether new travel restrictions could be imposed when Donald Trump takes office.

Gregory Geronemus, co-CEO of smarTours, a tour company that’s taken 3,000 Americans to Cuba, confirms there has been a softening in demand.

In part he blamed hotel prices on the island, which have nearly doubled since 2015 and which are set by the government.

“There’s still demand, but there’s only so much people can afford,” he said.

Cheaper lodging is available through Airbnb and other services, but not all travelers want the hassles and uncertainty of traveling on their own in Cuba.

Geronemus said “Zika has cast a shadow” on the region too, despite the Cuban government’s assertion that mosquito abatement efforts have been successful. Zika, a mosquito-borne virus, can cause birth defects.

While an increasing number of airlines are offering flights, American Airlines is cutting three of its 13 daily flights to Cuba beginning Feb. 16 and switching to smaller planes on some routes, said spokesman Matt Miller. He added that adjustments are common with new service and that the reduction was made before the presidential election.

ForwardKeys, which compiles data based on global reservations transactions, says it has not detected a drop in bookings for Cuba. And Cuban government statistics show an 80 percent increase in visits by Americans the first six months of this year over the same period in 2015, from 76,183 to 136,913. In the last few weeks, several U.S. airlines started regular commercial flights to Cuba. United Airlines launched Newark-Havana flights Nov. 29 and Saturday service from Houston on Dec. 3. Spokesman Jonathan Guerin said the airline is “prepared to work with the new administration” going forward. JetBlue, which also just launched service, would not provide specifics but said “we are pleased with how flights to Cuba are selling.”

Tanner Callais of Austin, Texas, who runs a cruise website called Cruzely.com, had hoped to cruise to Cuba in 2017.

But “now with some of the things I’ve heard about tightening up restrictions on travel to Cuba, we’re taking a wait-and-see approach,” he said. “The last thing we want to do is put a lot of money down for a trip and then have the cruise canceled due to new restrictions put in place.”

Others are booking trips as soon as they can, fearing a Cuba travel ban under Trump.

“Ordinarily we book trips three to six months ahead, but people are calling this week to register for trips three weeks from now,” said Kimberly Haley-Coleman, executive director of GlobeAware, which organizes volunteer trips.

Though Geronemus says the softening started “long before Trump was elected,” some travelers are asking for reassurance that they’d be covered if travel gets banned between the time they book their tickets and their planned trip. That has smarTours promising a full refund or credit for a discounted trip elsewhere should new rules make it impossible to go ahead with a trip, Geronemus says.

Erika Richter, spokeswoman for the American Society of Travel Agents, says “some people we talk to are convinced that everything will be rolled back on Jan. 21. Others think, as a hospitality industry leader, (Trump) will not follow through. So, I think it’s probable, but not guaranteed that we see a roll back in early 2017.”

But what Trump has in mind for Cuba is unclear. Three days after Fidel Castro’s death, the president-elect tweeted: “If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the U.S. as a whole, I will terminate deal.”

Some critics believe the Obama administration should have held out for democratic and human rights reforms as part of the loosening of travel restrictions. But others think that stimulating Cuba’s economy through travel — including inroads by U.S. cruise, hotel and tour companies there — is the best way to bring change.

On Wednesday, two U.S. cruise companies, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean International received permission from the Cuban government to sail from the U.S. to Cuba. In May, Carnival Corp. became the first U.S. company in decades to run cruises to Cuba.

Haley-Coleman thinks the most likely scenario is a return to strict enforcement of rules for permitted types of trips. Even under President Obama, Americans can’t go to Cuba as regular tourists. They have to certify that their trip falls into one of 12 permitted categories, including educational, humanitarian or cultural travel. Right now, though, that certification is done on the honor system. Haley-Coleman thinks Trump may require itineraries be pre-approved to ensure Americans are not just drinking mojitos on the beach.

Also Wednesday, a group of Cuban entrepreneurs traveled to Washington to deliver a letter asking Trump to support increased U.S. travel, trade and investment with Cuba. As owners of restaurants, bed-and-breakfasts and other businesses, they said that continued engagement with the U.S. is essential for progress and growth on the island.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/travel/2016/12/11/demand-travel-cuba-flattening/95224676/

Death of Fidel Castro May Pressure Donald Trump on Cuba Promises

President-elect Donald Trump could face pushback from some U.S. businesses if he tries to reverse recent openings to Cuba made by President Barack Obama.

By CAROL E. LEE and FELICIA SCHWARTZ

Nov. 27, 2016 6:48 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON—The death of Fidel Castro is putting unexpected pressure on President-elect Donald Trump to follow through on earlier promises to reverse the recent openings to Cuba made by President Barack Obama.

While Mr. Trump could undo Mr. Obama’s efforts, which were implemented using executive authority, he could face pushback from U.S. companies now deeply invested in Cuba under the current administration’s policy. Those companies include major airlines, hotel operators and technology providers, while big U.S. phone carriers have signed roaming agreements on the island.

Mr. Trump’s top aides said Sunday that he would demand the release of political prisoners held in Cuba and push the government to allow more religious and economic freedoms. Reince Priebus, Mr. Trump’s incoming White House chief of staff, said the president-elect “absolutely” would reverse Mr. Obama’s policies if he didn’t get what he wanted from Cuba.

“We’re not going to have a unilateral deal coming from Cuba back to the United States without some changes in their government,” Mr. Priebus said Sunday on Fox News. “Repression, open markets, freedom of religion, political prisoners—these things need to change in order to have open and free relationships, and that’s what president-elect Trump believes, and that’s where he’s going to head.”

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), a critic of Mr. Obama’s opening, said Sunday on CBS that he hopes Mr. Trump will examine Mr. Obama’s changes to U.S.-Cuba policy and consider whether they foster democracy.

Ana Rosa Quintana, an expert on Latin America at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said she hopes Mr. Trump will roll back regulations that allow U.S. companies to interact with state-run entities in Cuba.

Mr. Obama announced in December 2014 that his administration had reached a deal with Cuba to begin to normalize relations. Since then, embassies have reopened in both countries, and the U.S. has loosened trade and travel restrictions to Cuba.

Despite bipartisan support, Congress has refused to lift the economic embargo on Cuba, which administration officials have said is necessary to fully normalize relations.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), a co-sponsor of a bipartisan bill to lift the embargo, said until Republican leaders allow a vote on the legislation its supporters are “stymied.”

That gives Mr. Trump broad authority to scale back U.S. relations with Cuba, said lawyers and former officials who specialize in sanctions policy.

Regulations that allow U.S. companies to deal with Cuban state-owned entities seem the most vulnerable, such as one that allows U.S. businesses to use state-owned distributors as middlemen for deliveries to the private sector, the former officials and lawyers said.

Peter Harrell, a former senior official at the State Department who worked on sanctions in the Obama administration, said he expected Mr. Trump would “pull back some of that dealing with the Cuban state while allowing travel and private enterprise to go forward.”

Another measure Mr. Trump could reverse is Mr. Obama’s decision earlier this year to allow so-called people-to-people travel to Cuba without a tour group, a move that essentially lifted the travel ban and that critics believe went too far. According to the State Department, 700,000 Americans visited Cuba in 2015, which officials said was an increase from previous years.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see that rescinded,” said Robert Muse, a Washington-based lawyer who advises companies on doing business in Cuba.

Republican opponents of Mr. Obama’s Cuba policy—including Mauricio Claver-Carone, who is on Mr. Trump’s transition team at the Treasury Department—have been critical of a deal Starwood Hotels signed with the Cuban government earlier this year, under which the company is running a hotel once owned by the tourism arm of the Cuban military. Mr. Harrell said Mr. Trump might rethink that authorization or allowing similar licenses in the future.

Jeff Flaherty, a spokesman for Marriott International Inc. which now owns Starwood, said it was premature to assess what effect a Trump administration would have on its business in Cuba.

“It is too early to know precisely what it could mean for businesses that have invested in Cuba and are providing opportunities for the Cuban people, but we remain interested in being part of those conversations,” he said.

Mr. Claver-Carone didn’t respond to requests for comment.

In addition to corporations seeking to invest in Cuba, Mr. Obama’s policy has strong support in another Republican stronghold: the farming industry.

Kevin Paap, president of the Minnesota Farm Bureau, said he voted for Mr. Trump but didn’t want to see the next administration take any steps that would put U.S. farmers at a further disadvantage in the Cuban market.

“Every other country in the world has diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba, and what we don’t want to do is lose that market share to the European Union, Brazil, Argentina,” Mr. Paap said, adding that U.S. market share in Cuba has decreased in recent years as other countries are able to provide better financing.

The White House has been working to facilitate new investments in Cuba by U.S. companies to try to further entrench business and trade ties between the two countries before Mr. Obama leaves office, with new announcements expected in coming weeks. It is unclear how Mr. Castro’s death might affect those efforts.

The potential blowback from U.S. business has been the White House’s de facto insurance policy on Mr. Obama’s approach to Cuba.

In March Mr. Obama became the first sitting U.S. president in 88 years to visit Cuba, and many administration officials have gone to the island to advance economic and cultural ties.

Matt Miller, an American Airlines spokesman, said the company is proceeding “full steam ahead” with plans to expand its service from the U.S. to Cuba this week to include flights to Havana from Miami and Charlotte, N.C. U.S. commercial flights to Cuba resumed in September.

To further entrench Mr. Obama’s policy, administration officials also are relying on lawmakers in agriculture states poised to benefit from trade with Cuba and a growing number of Cuban Americans who support policy changes that loosen travel restrictions and allow them to send more money to family members living there.

Rep. Tom Emmer (R., Minn.), a strong proponent of lifting the embargowho supported Mr. Trump in the election, said he hopes the Trump administration will seize on the opportunity of Mr. Castro’s death to further normalize ties.

“Hopefully the Trump administration will build off what has already been created, understanding that it is a new day in the Western Hemisphere,” he said in an interview.

Paul Johnson, co-chair of the U.S. agriculture coalition for Cuba, said he isn’t yet worried that Mr. Trump would reverse the momentum from Mr. Obama’s policy because “rural America clearly supports normalization of trade with Cuba” and wants to end the U.S. embargo.

Dan Restrepo, a former Latin America adviser to Mr. Obama who is now a fellow at the Center for American Progress, said U.S. companies that invested in Cuba under Mr. Obama’s policy could explore legal action against the government if Mr. Trump reversed measures that allowed them to operate there.

U.S. companies “now have a vested interest and they are going to be part of any debate” and that “broadens the political conversation,” he said.

Write to Carol E. Lee at carol.lee@wsj.com and Felicia Schwartz at Felicia.Schwartz@wsj.com

http://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-fidel-castro-may-pressure-donald-trump-to-keep-cuba-promises-1480290496

MEET THE PRESS

CHUCK TODD:

Let me start with Cuba, because on this issue, you could take some of his statements and say he's been on both sides of the, of what President Obama has done in trying to open up, re-open up relations with Cuba. He said he was fine with it back in the spring. Late in the campaign, he seemed to indicate that he wanted to reverse some of the changes that he made. What can you clarify with us this morning on Cuba policy when it comes to President Trump?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

Several things, Chuck. First, President-Elect Trump put out a very strong statement yesterday about Fidel Castro. He is not going to be one of these people romanticizing Fidel Castro as a hero. He knows he was a dictator who oppressed and imprisoned and harmed and murdered people, separated families, and really, has many decades of blood on his hands. So let's be clear there.

On, on the issue of diplomatic relations being reopened with Cuba, what President-Elect Trump says is that he'd be open to that himself, but that we got nothing in return. We're allowing commercial aircraft there. We pretend that we're actually doing business with the Cuban people now when, really, we're doing business with the Cuban government and the Cuban military. They still control everything.

And he doesn't want any of us to be fooled. This is very much in keeping with the America first, Americans first, America, her allies, her interests abroad first. Policies of President-Elect Trump you see in trade, you see it here with respect to Cuba. He wants to make sure we get things in return. And it's not always this unilateral capitulation to these, these foreign governments.

Secondly, he's been very clear that the major priority now is to make sure Cubans on Cuba have the same freedoms that Cubans here in America have, which is political, religious and economic freedom, make sure those political prisoners are finally released into freedom, and make sure the American fugitives face the law.

CHUCK TODD:

So concretely, is he rolling back? Is he just going to reinstitute the embargo immediately and then go to Congress? What is he going to do when he takes office?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

None of that has been decided. The president-elect will make those decisions and will make those announcements once he is president. We have a president in office for eight more weeks, and we're very respectful of that.

CHUCK TODD:

No, I understand that. But doesn't he owe-- if he is going to change it, there are many people who are making plans, based on whether policy is going to change. Is it a definite that policy is going to change? Or is it possible he keeps some of these changes in place?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

Nothing is definite. He'll be speaking with his advisors. And he'll be applying the same brilliance and instincts and, that he, that he applied all throughout the campaign to all of these issues. And frankly, Chuck, I think the first order of business here, now that the dictator is gone, is to see how much we can do as, frankly, a world community, if not the United States of America, to try to get these political prisoners to freedom.

I've met some of them, those who have been released. I've met many of these family members whose lives were devastated, whose entire, you know, families were separated, if not destroyed. You know, you know the stories that Senator Rubio, Senator--

CHUCK TODD:

Is he willing to shut down--

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

--Cruz have and others certainly have.

CHUCK TODD:

But let me ask you this. I know the stories very well. Is he willing to essentially shut down this diplomatic rapproche, rapprochement for the, on behalf of these political prisoners? Does he want to completely shut that down, or does he still want to keep that open?

KELLYANNE CONWAY:

That's for discussion. That's certainly on the table. And this is what, look, this is what leaders do. Leaders listen. They learn. They take the counsel of many people. They see what the circumstances are. And he's even been talking to President Obama. You know, beyond the, beyond the sit-down they had 30 hours or so after President-Elect Trump won the election, they've been talking regularly on any number of issues. They talked just yesterday.

http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-november-27-2016-n688791

Cruz and Rubio condemn Castro as questions remain over Cuba-US ties

Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio criticize Obama after death of Cuban leader but Trump adviser gives little clarity on president-elect’s future policy

Leading Republicans condemned Fidel Castro on Sunday but uncertainty remained over whether the incoming Trump administration would make good on campaign promises to reverse the normalization of relations instigated by President Obama.

“You wouldn’t go to Pol Pot’s funeral,” Texas senator Ted Cruz told ABC’s This Week. “You shouldn’t be doing what Obama and [Canadian prime minister Justin] Trudeau are doing, celebrating Castro.”

In response to news of Castro’s death on Saturday, aged 90, Obama released a carefully worded statement that did not criticise or praise the leader, instead saying: “The Cuban people must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America.”

Trudeau attracted widespread criticism for a statement that many saw as too laudatory.

Cruz, who is of Cuban descent, said Castro had been “a murderous dictator” and said: “This tyrannical regime has gotten stronger because of a weak president, weak foreign policy.”

Cruz’s criticism of policy under Obama and Castro’s brother Raúl, the current Cuban president, was echoed by Florida senator Marco Rubio, another former presidential candidate of Cuban descent.

Rubio, who has long been one of the harshest critics of Obama’s efforts and has links to Cuban Americans in Miami who celebrated news of Castro’s death, said the president’s comments were “pathetic”.

Asked on CNN’s State of the Union about Obama’s statement and that issued by Pope Francis, who expressed sorrow regarding Castro’s death, Rubio said that as a Catholic he looked to the pope for spiritual guidance, not political.

“Barack Obama is the president of the most powerful country in the world,” he said. “And what I called pathetic is not mentioning whatsoever in that statement the reality that there are thousands upon thousands of people who suffered brutally under the Castro regime.

“He executed people. He jailed people for 20 to 30 years. [In] the Florida Straits, … thousands of people … lost their lives fleeing his dictatorship. And not to acknowledge any of that in the statement, I felt was pathetic, absolutely.”

Obama began normalizing relations with the island in 2014, with the help of Pope Francis, after what many viewed as a failed embargo and 50 years of harsh sanctions. This year he became the first president to visit the island since 1928.

The embargo is still formally in place but normalization allowed the island nation greater access to the internet, the export of some goods, direct flights from the US, and a likely boost to the Cuban middle class.

Critics have argued that the US conceded too much. On Sunday, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway focused on the “deal”, telling ABC the US got “nothing in return”. She did not, however, give many clues to likely Trump policy.

“[Trump] is open to any number of possibilities,” she said. “He is open to researching and, in fact, resetting relations with Cuba.”

On Fox News Sunday, Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus discussed Trump’s wish for reforms by the Raúl Castro government, for “some movement or some schedule of movement” on Cuba’s part that would be necessary to “then schedule some kind of relationship” the country.

The president-elect was “absolutely” willing to reverse diplomatic openness, Priebus said, but before any decision was taken “there has to be something, and what that something is … is yet to be determined”.

Following Castro’s death, Trump issued a statement that called Castro a “brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades”. Over more than one year of campaigning, he said both that expanded diplomatic relations were “fine” and that he would reverse Obama policy.

In interviews with the Guardian on Saturday, academics cited growing US business interest in Cuba as one indicator that Trump would not put relations into reverse.

“He’s a businessman,” said Gregory Weeks, of the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. “He’s been interested in doing business in Cuba.”

Trump has been accused of investigating a business deal in Cuba while sanctions were in place, in the Clinton era.

Weeks added: “There is not a whole lot of interest in rolling back Cuba policy. The business side of the Republican party is very much in favour of it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/27/trump-cuba-ted-cruz-marco-rubio-fidel-castro

Trump aide talks future of US-Cuban relations

11/27/2016, 09:39am

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — A top aide to Donald Trump says the president-elect will reverse President Barack Obama’s opening to Cuba absent any change of direction by the Cuban government. Reince Priebus, who has agreed to serve as White House chief of staff, tells “Fox News Sunday,” the current arrangement between the U.S. and Cuba has benefited only Cuba.

He says Trump will want some movement in the “right direction” from Cuba to continue the diplomatic relationship. Priebus cited respect for freedom of religion as an example.

Trump can reverse Obama’s opening to Cuba without help from Congress because it was done by executive order, not legislation.

Trump pledged during the presidential campaign to undo the overtures unless the government of Raul Castro met his demands. Trump did not repeat that pledge in a statement Saturday following the death of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

http://chicago.suntimes.com/news/trump-aide-talks-future-of-us-cuban-relations/

Cruz, Rubio want Trump to dial back U.S.-Cuba relations

By REBECCA MORIN 11/27/16 10:56 AM EST

Following the death of Fidel Castro, Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio said Sunday that President Barack Obama's recent ties with Cuba should be reevaluated.

Cruz told correspondent Martha Raddatz on ABC News' “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” that he hopes to see increased liberty in Cuba but that with Obama's' restoration of diplomatic ties, it's hard for that to happen.

"What the Obama administration has done has strengthened Raul Castro," the Texas Republican said. "Raul is the dictator now. You know, I asked my dad at dinner last night, well, what do you think happens now that Fidel is dead? And he shrugged and said Raul’s been in charge for years, that this is — the system has gotten stronger."

Fidel Castro, the author of the Cuban revolution in 1959, died Friday at the age of 90.

The comments by the Republican senators were in line with that of Reince Priebus, President-elect Donald Trump's incoming chief of staff, who said Sunday that Trump is willing to reconsider U.S. relations with Cuba. "There's going to have to be some movement from Cuba in order to have a relationship with the United States," he said on "Fox News Sunday."

Rubio, who, like Cruz, is of Cuban descent, said he believes Trump will demand more of Cuba to bring concessions on human rights issues.

"He has made very clear that he felt that the moves President Obama has made toward Cuba were wrong and that he would examine them and change the ones that needed to be changed," Rubio told correspondent Dana Bash on CNN's "State of the Union." "And I think that's very promising."

Rubio said he believes that if Hillary Clinton were to have been elected, she would have kept Obama's policies in place.

"I know they've had good people advising them on this issue, as well," Rubio said of Trump. "So I certainly have confidence that he's going to do the right thing when it comes to Cuba."

Cruz said Obama has "funneled billions of dollars to Raul Castro" but that he hopes to one day visit and see a "free Cuba."

"This ought to be a moment where Cubans are dancing in the street because they’re being liberated, but instead — listen, if you dance in the street, you’re going to be thrown in jail," Cruz said. "Cuba is not a free society."

During his presidency, Obama has worked to restore some U.S. ties with Cuba, which had been an adversary throughout the Cold War and beyond. Fidel Castro allied himself with the Soviet Union early in his regime.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking on "State of the Union," took a different tack from his Republican colleagues.

"We have had relations with brutal dictatorships all over the world," the Vermont independent said. "The goal right now is to see that we can improve our relationship with the people of Cuba to do what we can to improve their economy and to make sure that the younger generation does better than their older generation."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/11/cruz-rubio-encourage-reevaluation-of-us-cuba-relations-231857

Trump adds Cuba embargo supporter to transition team

NORA GÁMEZ TORRES

ngameztorres@elnuevoherald.com

President-elect Donald Trump Monday named Mauricio Claver-Carone, executive director of the most active pro-Cuba embargo group in Washington, to his transition team.

Claver-Carone has been one of the harshest critics of President Barack Obama's efforts since December of 2014 to improve relations with Cuba, and his appointment to the Trump team could signal a reversal of some of those changes.

He is executive director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee (USCD PAC) as well as Cuba Democracy Advocates, a non-profit that describes itself as “a non-partisan organization dedicated to the promotion of a transition in Cuba towards human rights, democracy and the rule of law.”

The Washington Examiner reported that Claver-Carone was named to the transition team for the U.S. Department of the Treasury, where he was an attorney-adviser until November of 2003.

Trump said during the campaign that he would have negotiated a better deal with Cuba than Obama. Critics of Obama's changes have complained that Cuba was not required to improve its human rights record or further open its economy.

Claver-Carone's appointment to the transition team “is a clear signal … that the president-elect will carry out the promise he made to the Cuban American community,” former U.S. ambassador to Venezuela Otto Reich told the Nuevo Herald.

Reich added that the appointment does not automatically mean Claver-Carone will get a top job in the new administration, although Reich predicted that he would accept it if offered. “In my opinion, not many other people know as much about Obama's mistakes on Cuba policy, and how to change them, as Mauricio,” he said.

In an opinion column published last week in The Miami Herald, Claver-Carone argued that Obama's new policies on Cuba “made a bad situation worse.” U.S. policy on the island “has gone from what it initially portrayed as a noble purpose to pure sycophancy in pursuit of 'historic firsts,' he wrote.

Claver-Carone comments regularly on Cuba issues on his blog, Capitol Hill Cubans, and has hosted a radio program on U.S. foreign policy. A lawyer, he has taught law at the George Washington and Catholic Universities. He testified before a Congressional committee in March about Obama's Cuba policies.

Claver-Carone has been especially critical of the Obama administration's approval of several U.S. companies to do business with companies owned by the Cuban government and its military — as in the case of Starwood hotels. He also has attacked the lack of compensation for properties confiscated from U.S. citizens in the 1960s.

His appointment was criticized by Ric Herrero, director of CubaNow, an organization that pushes for warmer U.S. relations with Havana.

Herrero said he lamented the selection of a man “who has dedicated his long career as a lobbyist in our capital to dividing Cuban families and defending the interests of those politicians who have benefited from the failed embargo policy.”

The USCD PAC spent more $600,000 in the most recent elections, according to Federal Electoral Commission records. It made significant donations to the campaigns of Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Carlos Curbelo, as well as Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz – all critics of the Obama shifts on Cuba.

Claver-Carone did not immediately reply to requests for comments for this story.

Nora Gámez Torres: @ngameztorres

President Obama Predicts No Change on Cuba

LIMA, Peru — President Obama said here on Saturday that, while President-elect Donald J. Trump was unlikely to reverse the warming of ties with Cuba, he would almost certainly re-examine trade deals in Latin America. …

“But once they look at how it’s working, I think they’ll actually determine that it’s working for both the United States and our partners,” Mr. Obama said.

“The friendships we’ve established with countries like Peru, the reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, investments we’re making in trade, environmental policies and so forth — all those things I expect to continue,” he added.

Mr. Trump has offered contradictory views on Cuban relations. Early in his campaign, Mr. Trump claimed to support restoring ties, but he said more recently in Miami that Mr. Obama should have gotten a better deal.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/20/world/americas/obama-tries-to-reassure-latin-america-about-a-future-with-donald-trump.html?emc=edit_ae_20161120&nl=todaysheadlines-asia&nlid=73600804&_r=0

Transcript from the White House

During my presidency, the United States recommitted itself to the region, in partnership with your countries, based on mutual interests and mutual respect. We increased trade. We stood up for democracy and human rights, fought against corruption and organized crime. We’ve promoted clean energy. We’ve led the global fight against climate change. We opened a new relationship with Cuba.

I strongly believe that this work has to be done with governments, but it's even more important that it's done by people -- because government is important, but it can't solve every problem. So we have to work together at a people-to-people level -- teachers, and doctors, and students, and entrepreneurs, and religious leaders -- all trying to find ways in which we can promote those values of dignity and humanity and respect that so often are threatened....

With respect to Latin America, I don't anticipate major changes in policy from the new administration. I think the work that we've done has been successful in establishing the strongest relationships between the United States and Latin America in modern history. The friendships that we've established with countries like Peru, the reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the investments we're making in trade, in environmental policy, and so forth -- all those things I expect to continue. ...

So you mentioned Cuba, for example, where your father fled. He left in part because they didn’t feel that there was enough opportunity there. Part of the reason I said let's reopen our diplomatic relations with Cuba is to see if you can start encouraging greater opportunity and freedom in Cuba. Because if you have people who have been able to leave Cuba and do really well in the United States, that means they have enough talent that they should be able to do really well by staying at home in Cuba.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/20/remarks-president-ylai-town-hall

Will Trump Stop America's Reset with Cuba?

Street scene in Havana. Flickr/Creative Commons/Bryan Ledgard

This will be the first test of a man who touted his deal-making skills.

Scott B. MacDonald

November 20, 2016

In 2014–16, U.S.-Cuban relations witnessed a considerable thaw. Both countries moved to normalize relations long frozen by Cold War considerations, a development that culminated in President Barack Obama’s visit to Cuba in 2015, the first time a president visited the island since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. And U.S. companies, long excluded from one of the Caribbean’s largest markets of eight million people, have rushed in—multiple commercial airlines are flying planes to Cuba, U.S. telecom companies have signed roaming agreements with the island state, Marriott has commenced a joint venture to manage a number of Cuban hotels, the Caribbean island has become Airbnb’s fastest-growing market and a cruise line has started to sail to Cuban ports. In addition, other U.S. companies are seeking to develop business relations in Cuba. But all of this could change when the Trump administration comes to office in January 2017.

It is early in deciding what is next in U.S.-Cuban relations, considering that President-elect Trump has yet to name key officials for his administration. However, he did state that “concessions” the Obama administration made to the Caribbean country can be easily reversed (as many of them were done by executive order) and that he will unwind them unless U.S. demands are met. Along these lines, he stated, “Those demands will include religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners.”

Cuba is the only full-fledged dictatorship left in Latin America. Although Venezuela and Nicaragua are dominated by left-wing caudillos, there is still some façade of democratic form; Cuba is controlled by the Castro family and the Cuban Communist Party. Political freedoms are limited, competitive national elections are not held and there are political prisoners. Moreover, the regime monopolizes all forces of coercion—the military has a history of being loyal to Raúl Castro, who has led it for decades and is now the Caribbean country’s líder máximo.

For a long time, the Cuban American community’s views on its homeland were shaped by exile, the loss of property and the ruthless nature of the Castro regime toward any opposition. Indeed, those who left the island in the 1960s are staunchly anti-Castro, want no deal with the Castro regime ever and have voted on a regular basis in U.S. elections (98 percent of the first wave are U.S. citizens and 97 percent are registered to vote). Later waves are less anti-Castro, care about other issues beyond Cuba, and are fewer in terms of U.S. citizenship and voter registration (at 53 percent and 43 percent respectively, for those in 1994–2016 period).

Obama’s push to normalize relations with Cuba did receive a positive response among the Cuban American community. According to a Florida International University poll, 63 percent of respondents oppose the continuation of the U.S. embargo and “most respondents favor expanding economic relations between companies and the island.” That 63 percent was no doubt accurate, but it did not match up to the breakdown in voter participation in November.

The Cuban vote (or at least a significant part of it) was important in the Trump victory in Florida, which accounted for twenty-nine Electoral College votes. A New York Times–Siena poll days before the election indicated that support for Trump went from 33 percent in September to 52 percent. This has left the president-elect in the position of having elevated expectations to take a tougher stance on Cuba. This could be done by downgrading the U.S. embassy in Havana to a U.S. Interests Section again, reduce travel to the island for U.S. citizens, penalize companies doing business with Cuba and tightening immigration from the Caribbean country to the United States. He could also reimpose limits on the import of cigars and rum and promise to maintain (or possibly tighten) the trade embargo for the foreseeable future.

Pressure on Trump from the strongly anti-Castro part of the U.S. Cuban community is not likely to go away. Indeed, Mauricio Claver-Carone, the editor of Capitol Hill Cubans and a pro-embargo advocate, stated during the campaign: “Candidates should stop taking advice from a handful of greedy businessmen who are clueless as regards the real pulse of the Cuban-American community.” Moreover, Trump’s Cuban American backers intend to hold him to his “commitment to reverse Obama’s executive orders.”

Although the potential for a policy reversal is possible, such a change in direction will not be easy. The “handful of greedy businessmen” employ large numbers of U.S. citizens (some of whom voted for Trump), there would be costs borne by U.S. companies if sanctions are fully reimposed which would give birth to litigation against the government, and farmers in the Midwest want to sell their products to Cuba and are seeking to have a financing prohibition removed. Moreover, Trump during the campaign did acknowledge that fifty years of the same policy was enough, especially since it failed to remove the Castro brothers from power.

There is another dimension of Trump’s relationship with Cuba. According to Bloomberg Businessweek magazine, Trump executives have been considering the Caribbean country for a number of years. Trump executives have visited Cuba in 2012 and 2013, while his company’s representatives were there as recently as 2015, apparently looking at golf-related opportunities.

What to do about Cuba will be one of the more pressing decisions for the incoming Trump administration. If Trump the pragmatist and businessman moves into the White House, new negotiations might be able to make further adjustments, with the Castro brothers making some changes—don’t look for anything major. At the same time, Cuba’s economy is in poor shape, electricity has been sporadic and the country’s main economic supporter, oil-dependent Venezuela, is in its own very deep economic and political crisis. There is clearly pressure on the Cuban side to keep the process moving forward.

If the more right-wing Trump moves into the White House in January, U.S.-Cuban relations run the risk of taking a major step backwards as a new raft of political demands are made. At the same time, a hard line on Cuba could be troublesome for Trump, from the perspective that the non–Cuban American parts of his base in the Midwest and corporate America are likely to become alienated, a move that could come to hurt him in terms of litigation, bad press and withdrawal of support for the 2018 midterm elections.

U.S. Cuban policy has always been a challenge for Washington. Although Cuba does not carry the same weight on the diplomatic front as China, Russia or the Middle East, it remains a core foreign policy issue in the United States, especially considering the importance of Florida in presidential elections. How Trump handles dealing with the Castro regime will be closely watched, both at home and in Latin America. There will be very little to gain on the diplomatic front in the Caribbean and Latin America by killing off the push toward normalization between the United States and Cuba. Indeed, it could be one more item to complicate issues with Latin America.

The trick for Trump will be to get some concessions out of the Cuban government to open on the political front—which will be difficult considering the Castro brothers’ aversion to democracy—while maintaining a gradual opening of the country to U.S. business and tourists as well as placating a majority of Cuban Americans. This will be a real test for the man who has touted his art of the deal and likely run his policies on a transactional basis. Let the negotiations begin.

Scott B. MacDonald is Chief Economist for Smith’s Research and Gradings.

Image: Street scene in Havana. Flickr/Creative Commons/Bryan Ledgard

http://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-trump-stop-americas-reset-cuba-18455

U.S. businesses to pressure Trump to keep ties to Cuba

Alan Gomez , USA TODAY 4:12 p.m. EST November 20, 2016
Trump Cuba story

MIAMI — A powerful coalition of U.S. companies is preparing to appeal to President-elect Donald Trump's business instincts and drop his vow to reverse one of President Obama's signature achievements: renewed relations with Cuba.

Candidate Trump pledged to close the recently reopened U.S. Embassy in Havana, cut the economic bonds established over the past two years and roll back regulations that made travel to the long-estranged island easier for U.S. citizens.

Now, dozens of major American companies that have started or expanded operations in Cuba under Obama's policy will try to persuade Trump to ignore the political side of his brain and listen to the business side. That will be the ultimate test for Obama's Cuba strategy of creating so many business opportunities that his successor would face the full weight of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a long list of businesses pushing to maintain the new links to the communist government that controls the country.

That list includes most major airlines, which have started regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba, and Carnival Corp., which is already running a regular Cuba cruise. It will include Starwood Hotels and Resorts, which is operating three Cuban hotels, and Airbnb, which is being used by more than 8,000 Cubans to rent their rooms to travelers.

There are tech giants, like Google and Cisco, trying to develop Cuba's bare-bones telecommunications infrastructure, cellphone giants offering roaming services and banks starting to offer U.S.-issued credit and debit card services.

"Everybody is looking for a seat at the table," said Pedro Freyre, a Miami-based attorney for the Akerman law firm, which represents many U.S. businesses operating in Cuba. "All of us who are stakeholders in Cuba are very active in lobbying. At this very moment, they are seeking an audience with the teams that will be part of the new administration."

On the other side, the long-standing political coalitions that oppose any opening with Cuba will be tugging at the billionaire businessman's ear as well. That is led by a powerful bloc of Cuban-American members of Congress. They have described Obama's opening as a failed policy that has done nothing to moderate government control of the economy and a dismal human rights record.

"By any objective measure, President Obama’s unilateral policy changes have failed, and they are not in the best interest of the American people or the people of Cuba," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. "Rolling back President Obama's one-sided concessions to the Castro regime, a key campaign promise shared with President-elect Trump, will be a top priority for me next year."

Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro announced the historic end to their countries' estrangement on Dec. 17, 2014, ending 55 years of isolation between the Cold War foes and sparking a surge in trade and travel between the United States and Cuba.

Travel to Cuba as a tourist is still forbidden under the economic embargo the U.S. maintains — and that Congress has vowed will remain. But in the first six months of this year, 136,913 Americans visited Cuba, up 180% from the same period in 2015, according to Cuba's National Office of Statistics and Information.

Defenders of Obama's policy say the rush of Americans has helped everyday Cubans, especially the growing numbers of private entrepreneurs.

Ricardo Torres Pérez, an economist at the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy in Havana, said those tourists provide tangible benefits to Cubans who rent their homes to them, drive them around in taxis, take them on tours and feed them in restaurants.

"More interest in Cuba that helps some businesses and gives hope to the people? That is good," Torres said. "That doesn't reach all Cubans, but it's a good start."

The increased travel has gone the other way, too, helping Cubans visit relatives, set up business relationships and study in the U.S. Many are Cuban entrepreneurs like Marta Deus, 28, a Havana resident who spent six weeks studying marketing and sales at Florida International University in Miami through an exchange program created after the rapprochement.

Deus now runs an accounting firm for Cuban entrepreneurs, a messenger service in Havana and a business magazine launched this month, and she employs nine full-time employees and several part-time contractors. She said the Cuban government has not made enough changes to take full advantage of the opportunities created by the Obama administration, but Trump's proposal to close the door would hurt regular Cubans in so many ways.

"All those cultural exchanges, they're important," she said. "No country can flourish if it's closed to the world."

Guillermo Fariñas sees all those changes and scoffs. The leading Cuban dissident, who recently completed his 25th hunger strike protesting the Cuban regime, said they've done nothing to change the underlying problem in Cuba: its political system and horrid human rights record.

The Seventh Congress of the Cuban Communist Party ended in April with no changes to the government's one-party rule. And Fariñas, one of the dissidents who met with President Obama during a March visit to Havana, said Cuba's crackdown on political opposition has only increased.

In 2013, the Cuban government made 6,424 arrests of dissidents and political prisoners, according to the Cuban Commission of Human Rights and National Reconciliation. Through the first 10 months of 2016, that number is already 9,125.

Fariñas said that should have been expected since the Obama administration gave plenty during its negotiations but secured little in return.

"Like you would see in any negotiation, the Cuban government should be expected to give something to get something back," he said. "On the contrary, the Cuban government was given many economic concessions, political credibility and (Castro) has only responded by increasing political repression."

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/11/20/cuba-donald-trump-barack-obama-diplomatic-opening/93956270/

Cuba Central Newsblast
The Center for Democracy in the Americas

November 18, 2016

No one knows to a provable certainty what President-elect Trump plans to do about U.S.-Cuba relations. We are neither wild-eyed optimists, believing that he will take relations in the same direction as President Obama, nor are we ready to concede "game over," despite considerable evidence that the winds of diplomacy based on engagement may soon shift.

In The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine wrote of "deducing or proving a truth that would be otherwise unknown, from truths already known." In these times, following the facts could make that reasoning dubious, but using evidence to answer the question, "What happens next?" is the only reasonable thing to do.

It may be cold comfort, but those of us who support engagement with Cuba are not the only ones with doubts about the new president's intentions. Consider the Japanese: after a long campaign in which candidate Trump promised to scuttle the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, accused our European and Asian allies for not paying enough for their defenses, and suggested Japan and South Korea get nuclear weapons to defend themselves, Japanese Prime Minister Abe flew 6,700 miles from Tokyo to New York to meet with the president-elect himself. Why? Because, as a respected analyst told the New York Times, "the question the Japanese side still cannot understand is what a Trump administration will actually do on Asia."

In other words, they know what he said, they just didn't know if he meant it. Is there also room for doubt about Trump's "real" position on Cuba?

As we and others have reported, Mr. Trump was against the embargo twice (in 1996 and 2015-2016) before he was for it - twice (in 1999 and 2016). While that history is important, let's focus on how he closed his campaign.

"We will cancel Obama's one-sided Cuban deal, made by executive order," he said in Miami, days before the election, unless Cuba's government capitulates to demands that it change its system. His Vice Presidential nominee, Governor Mike Pence, went even further, saying, "When Donald Trump and I take to the White House, we will reverse Barack Obama's executive orders on Cuba," Politico reported. This reversal would apparently be undertaken unconditionally.

Personnel is policy, the saying goes, and today the names of Mr. Trump's national security advisor and his nominee to lead the Central Intelligence Agency were released. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, who will lead the White House National Security Council, has called Cuba an ally of Radical Islamists that shares their hatred of the West. If confirmed, Congressman Mike Pompeo of Kansas, will serve as CIA Director. He condemned President Obama's opening to Cuba on the day it was announced as appeasement of one of America's enemies. Even if these two men didn't advise Trump the candidate to reverse his position on Cuba, they will likely be advising him to adhere to his campaign promises as president.

Running the legislative machinery in Congress, Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Paul Ryan are both foes of engagement with Cuba (although Ryan hasn't always been that way). In March, McConnell denounced President Obama's visit to Cuba as "embarrassing," after the President used his appearance on live Cuban television to address themes like human rights and respect for the island's Afro-Cuban population. Last month, Speaker Ryan released a statement which said, "I fully intend to maintain our embargo on Cuba."

It is not a stretch to expect that the Republican leadership in Congress will be standing by to ensure the President keeps his campaign promise; as it has been for years, support for the embargo and regime change in Cuba was written into their party's 2016 platform. Looking over the leadership's shoulders, the hard edge of the diaspora's embargo supporters - from Senator Rubio to "Pepe" Hernandez, a founder of the Cuban American National Foundation, to Brigade 2506 - will be standing right behind them to ensure that they work on President Trump so he keeps candidate Trump's word.

Together, they are taking aim at President Obama's Cuba policy executive orders on which the regulatory openings of travel and trade rest. What Obama wrought by the stroke his pen, Trump can strike with his. As Politico observed, his legislative priorities - the tax package, infrastructure development, repeal of Obamacare, etc. - will take time. So will the confirmation of his Cabinet. Why wouldn't the president want to establish momentum by issuing a raft of executive orders reversing as much of President Obama's domestic and foreign policy legacy on day one? This he apparently plans to do, but will his barrage also be aimed at Barack's Cuba policy?

Lists of likely targets have been printed by the New York Times and The Miami Herald, and proposed by Capitol Hill Cubans. President Trump could close or downgrade the U.S. embassy; eliminate people-to-people to travel; end the regularly scheduled commercial flights to Cuba; change the rules that allow Airbnb and Marriott to operate in Cuba; scrap the new policy allowing imports of rum and cigars, and more. Anything he leaves out, Congress can put on his desk once it actually starts legislating. With the White House and Congress under common party control, we don't see any vetoes looming on the horizon. Arguably, nothing is safe from the chopping block.

But we can't and won't stop or shrink from the challenge of building on the progress that has been made between the U.S. and Cuba. There are powerful facts on our side, too.

Although the embargo and travel bans remain in place by statute, President Obama's opening to Cuba is very good policy. For the first time since the Cuban Revolution, an American president stated publicly that a prosperous and stable Cuba was in our country's national interest, and that the policy of starving Cuba's economy and people to foment popular resistance and regime change would finally be ended.

In addition to restoring diplomatic relations, the administration signed a dozen bilateral agreements in areas where the U.S. and Cuban national interests converged, like environmental protection and counter-narcotics cooperation. These agreements demonstrated, in deeds and words, that our government respected the sovereignty of the Cuban government.

By easing restrictions on travel and trade, normalization accrued benefits to big business in the U.S. - starting with travel, tourism, and telecommunications - which now has vested interests in keeping the door to Cuba open. With a cruise line sailing into Cuban ports, roaming agreements that enable U.S. travelers to use their cell phones on the island, the commercial airline agreement that is boosting tourism with dozens of flights into Cuba every day, the joint venture agreement bringing Marriott into the Cuban market, and more - all of this ties Cuba and the U.S. closer together in a mutually beneficial relationship that provides profits and jobs to companies and workers on both sides of the Florida Strait.

The reforms were designed, as Reuters wrote it, to make it "difficult, if not impossible for any Republican president to reverse the opening to Cuba." Public opinion polls - among Cuban Americans and the U.S. public at large - tell us the reforms have strong, deep, and bipartisan support. If his plan is to pull them down, this decision could be costly. Bob Muse, a lawyer who specializes in U.S.-Cuba trade law, told the New York Times that if Trump were to cancel these agreements, the U.S. government could be financially liable for pulling the rug out from companies who relied on the new rules to do deals.

The critics like to say that the new policy isn't working, but the facts suggest otherwise. It is working for hundreds of thousands of Americans who have reclaimed most - but not all - of our rights to travel to Cuba. As Americans travel to Cuba, we are building bridges that policy reversals will be hard-pressed to take down, and money spent as travelers lands in the pockets of Cubans engaged in private enterprise.

From the moment President Obama reinstated travel for Cuban American families, he was giving entrepreneurial Cubans fuel to fire their enthusiasm for working in Cuba's private economy, and a reason to remain on the island and build Cuba's future.

It is working for Americans once doomed by lung cancer, as we report below, who are now getting access to life-extending vaccines created by Cuba's biotechnology and pharma companies.

It is even working in Miami, in the precincts and places most associated with anti-Castro resistance, among exiles who now believe that "one of President Obama's best decisions," was changing U.S. policy toward Cuba.

In a letter he sent to President-elect Trump, Adolfo Garcia, who voted for the New York businessman-turned-politician, invoked his past in an appeal not to upend the policy:

"No matter how horrible the Castro Regime was to my parents and many others, including me, this is late 2016 and life must go on," Garcia wrote. "It is time from the U.S. side to open fully with Cuba and change US law and end the Embargo."

These are powerful words. But will they be heard in Trump Tower?

Charles Lane, in a Washington Post opinion column, advises us to take Trump seriously and literally. Trump, he says, has core beliefs, citing his opposition to global trade and his support for law and order. We should take him at his word. Question is: which one?

What embargo supporters want most is to beef up the embargo to dry up revenues to the Cuban state. That's a tall order - telling JetBlue and American Airlines and other carriers who have restored commercial service to ground their planes, and telling Marriott to come home and let the Cuban hotels they are managing mind themselves.

Will he? Maybe. But as Bob Muse says, "Rescinding enhanced travel that Obama has introduced would be the most tragic thing Trump might do, but I don't think he will. He has invested a lifetime in travel, resorts and hotel accommodations, and it's a global enterprise. It seems counterintuitive."

Trump, after all, has been focused on Cuba for twenty years. In 1998, as Newsweek reported, his company spent $68,000, probably in violation of the mbargo, looking at potential investments in Cuba. The opening to Cuba is probably pretty close to his core beliefs. It is - and will remain - central to ours.

At the end of the day, like you, like the Japanese Prime Minister, we can't be sure what the president-elect will do; although, after the election, the uphill climb toward normalization did get steeper.

That said, we will leave you with this:

Trump's "extraordinary mixture of braggadocio and brash populism," Will Grant of the BBC wrote this week, has led some in the region to compare him to the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez. Isn't that ironic? The Obama opening being saved by Trump's greatest core beliefs - his belief in himself and his abiding faith that he can always get a better deal.

Rubio, others want Trump to ditch Obama efforts to improve U.S.-Cuba relations
By Doug G. Ware | Updated Nov. 17, 2016 at 7:42 AM

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (UPI) -- As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to move into the White House, Republicans have rattled off a list of Obama administration projects they want overturned, including scaling back relations with Cuba.

In recent days, GOP lawmakers have mentioned a host of items they want Trump to jump on -- from President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law to the Iran nuclear pact to the next Supreme Court justice.

Now, throw Cuba into the mix.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., once a Trump rival for the GOP nomination for president, said Tuesday he's hoping the controversial billionaire will act quickly and scrap Obama's efforts to improve the long-frigid diplomatic relations with Cuba.

Obama's administration began working to improve U.S.-Cuba relations many months ago, producing a number of results -- including renewed business access and passenger travel between both nations, and an easing of U.S. sanctions against the Caribbean country. In March, Obama also became the first sitting president to visit Cuba in 88 years.

The new working relationship is a far cry from the decades of radio silence, political confrontation and military saber-rattling that defined U.S.-Cuban diplomacy during the Cold War.

Now, though, it seems that some in the Republican Party might view those as the good ol' days.

"By any objective measure, President Obama's unilateral policy changes have failed, and they are not in the best interest of the American people or the people of Cuba," the junior senator said in a statement Tuesday. "Rolling back President Obama's one-sided concessions to the Castro regime, a key campaign promise shared with President-elect Trump, will be a top priority for me next year."

Rubio introduced a resolution in September to honor Cuban dissident Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas, who has opposed the Cuban regime of Raul Castro. Another prominent Republican, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, joined Rubio in the measure.

Rubio, who met with Fariñas in Washington on Wednesday, isn't alone in opposing improved relations with Cuba. A good number of Cuban-Americans are also against rekindling ties with what they view as an oppressive government that has a poor track record on human rights.

"I have faith that President Trump will be better for the people of Cuba and press the cause of freedom and democracy," Fariñas told Fox News. "Let's just say no one can possibly be worse than Barack Obama has been for our cause."

During his campaign, Trump said he planned to revoke Obama's executive orders regarding Cuba unless Castro's regime took steps to make substantial reforms on human rights.

The Cuban-American National Foundation, an organization that opposes Castro and calls for a free Cuba, said in September that there will be no investment in Cuba without major reforms.

"Despite the U.S. government's efforts to promote a better environment for U.S. investments in Cuba and direct engagement with the Cuban people, a multitude of American investors have gone to Cuba and realized that the current economic model is not conducive to foreign investment or trade," CANF said. "There exists no possibility of meaningful, economic investment in Cuba or the achievement of sustainable development until there are deep structural reforms; reforms that the Castro government has refused to undertake."

Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., a supporter of Hillary Clinton, said he is also curious to see what Trump will do on this issue.

"It depends on which Donald Trump shows up -- the Donald Trump who said earlier in his campaign that he thinks it was good to engage Cuba, or the Donald Trump toward the end of the campaign who said he'd consider rolling back much of what Obama did unless there's advantage for the Cuban people," he told Fox News Wednesday.

Chad Olin, a Harvard Business graduate who has worked for years to establish trade in Cuba, wonders what he's in for with Donald Trump in the White House.

"I am still trying to think about what this means for my business that I spent literally the last two years working on, setting up something that was going to be perfect for an open market," he told The New York Times. "If we go back to the old way, I don't know if I have a business. It's a huge blow."

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/11/16/Rubio-others-want-Trump-to-ditch-Obama-efforts-to-improve-US-Cuba-relations/6351479338142/

Business or Politics? Examining Donald Trump’s Record for Clues to Cuba Policy

By FRANCES ROBLES

NOV. 15, 2016

During his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump vowed to roll back policy initiatives that expanded business and travel in Cuba.

MIAMI — To Chad Olin, it seemed like the perfect opportunity: Decades of animosity between the United States and Cuba were peeling away, opening a final frontier in the Caribbean to dollar-wielding Americans.

Mr. Olin, 30, a Harvard Business School graduate, gave up a career in private equity to break into the Cuba travel market. He started a company that organizes trips for millennials to legally visit Cuba — a business made possible because President Obama has broadened travel to the island and expanded licenses for Americans to do business there.

So what happens now, Mr. Olin wonders.

On the campaign trail, President-elect Donald J. Trump threatened to roll back the sweeping détente with Cuba, lambasting the “concessions” made to its Communist government and raising the possibility that one of Mr. Obama’s signature foreign policy initiatives could be stripped away.

“I am still trying to think about what this means for my business that I spent literally the last two years working on, setting up something that was going to be perfect for an open market,” Mr. Olin said. “If we go back to the old way, I don’t know if I have a business. It’s a huge blow.”

Hundreds of thousands of people have taken advantage of Mr. Obama’s decisions to loosen travel and other restrictions on Cuba. More Americans and Cuban émigrés now travel to Cuba, and the number of Americans that visited the country rose by 50 percent last year, according to the state news media.

More Cubans receive money transfers and parcels. There’s a Four Points Sheraton in Havana, and three more hotels set to open. Airbnb rents private rooms, and American Airlines is about to start direct flights to Havana.

For them, and Mr. Olin, the critical question remains whether Mr. Trump, a real estate mogul and hotel developer, will be a businessman at heart and allow Mr. Obama’s measures to continue — or if he will instead keep a vow he made and scale back everything from diplomatic relations to the unlimited rum and cigars Mr. Obama recently allowed from Cuba.

Such a move by Mr. Trump would underscore the shifting relations between the United States and Cuba, which have long depended on who occupied the Oval Office.

“Several large European investment groups have asked me to take the ‘Trump Magic’ to Cuba,” Mr. Trump once wrote in a 1999 editorial in The Miami Herald supporting the trade embargo against Cuba.

“My investment in Cuba would directly subsidize the oppression of the Cuban people,” he said at the time. “But I’d rather lose those millions than lose my self-respect.”

Mr. Trump has, at other times, been vague on the issue. During the primary contest, he repeatedly said that he thought restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba was “fine,” but added the United States and the Cuban people did not get enough in return.

But as the election approached, Mr. Trump grew less equivocal.

In March, he told CNN that he would “probably” continue having diplomatic relations with Cuba, but he said he would want “much better deals than we’re making.”

Then, Mr. Trump took a harder line in Miami this fall.

“All of the concessions Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in September. “Not my demands. Our demands.”

Vice President-elect Mike Pence reaffirmed that stance on Twitter, saying Mr. Trump would repeal Mr. Obama’s executive orders unless there is “real political and religious freedom.”

Asked by a reporter if his comments meant he would break off diplomatic relations with Cuba, Mr. Trump suggested that he might, and said he probably would not appoint an ambassador to Cuba.

“The agreement President Obama signed is a very weak agreement,” he said. “We get nothing. The people of Cuba get nothing, and I would do whatever is necessary to get a good agreement.”

Robert L. Muse, a lawyer who specializes in United States-Cuba trade law, said Mr. Trump seemed to believe that Washington had struck a single deal with Cuba, when in reality there are several agreements that range from direct mail to managing oil spills.

Mr. Trump could pick through them one by one to eliminate the ones he dislikes and keep others. But Mr. Muse said the American government could be financially liable if it pulled out the rug from companies that had acted in good faith.

“Rescinding enhanced travel that Obama has introduced would be the most tragic thing Trump might do, but I don’t think he will,” Mr. Muse said. “He has invested a lifetime in travel, resorts and hotel accommodations, and it’s a global enterprise. It seems counterintuitive.”

What else could Mr. Trump do?

Change travel rules. Tourism to Cuba is still illegal under the embargo, but President Bill Clinton was the first to allow “people-to-people” excursions that allow travelers to go if the trip was, for example, for educational or religious purposes. President George W. Bush scrapped those, and then Mr. Obama expanded them so that travelers no longer needed to get special permission first.

Under Mr. Bush, a Cuban-American could visit once every three years. Now, it’s unlimited.

Cuba and the United States agreed to allow up to 90 daily round-trip flights between the nations, the Department of Transportation said.

Southwest began its service on Sunday, and American Airlines is set to start flights to Havana on Nov. 28.

“We are full steam ahead and can’t speculate as to any possible future changes,” Martha Pantin, an American Airlines spokeswoman, said.

Scrap the contentious “wet-foot, dry-foot” policy. When tens of thousands of Cubans took to the seas in 1994, Mr. Clinton changed American policy so that anyone caught at sea was sent back. But tens of thousands of Cubans continue to migrate to the United States anyway, most by land, because if they arrive they can stay. Many have walked across the Americas to reach the southern border.

“One of the big, main ways Trump looks at foreign policy is through the issue of immigration,” said Phil Peters, a longtime Cuba expert who now serves as a consultant for American companies seeking to do business there. “When it gets to Cuba, he’s going to see a country where there’s a lot of illegal immigration coming to the United States.”

Change the rules that allow businesses like Airbnb and Marriott to operate in Cuba. He can do this. But if he’s a developer at heart, would he?

John S. Kavulich, the president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said that in the 1990s the Trump organization inquired with him about the logistics of doing business in Cuba. Newsweek reported that Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts paid at least $68,000 to a consulting firm in late 1998 to go to Cuba on the company’s behalf, in an apparent violation of the American trade embargo.

Maurcio Claver-Carone, the founder of a political action committee that supports the trade embargo, said Mr. Trump seemed genuinely moved by stories of human rights violations in Cuba, so he “made a commitment” to the Cuban-American community that he is likely to keep.

He is most likely to repeal the orders that were “blatantly inconsistent with U.S. law,” Mr. Claver-Caron said, such as allowing investments with companies run by the Cuban military. (The hotel industry in Cuba is run by the armed forces.)

Mr. Trump could also overturn a move from late October that broadened the pool of Cuban officials who are allowed to receive cash allowances and conduct banking transactions with Americans, he said.

The Trump transition team did not respond to a request for comment.

But in Cuba, several people interviewed said that the changes Mr. Obama made had not yet made their way down to the people. Some felt that the expansion of business opportunities had helped the Castro government, not the people, so they were generally pleased with the idea of a Trump administration.

Roberto Peñalber, 34, said that many Cubans felt forced to flee under Mr. Obama, because they feared he would rescind preferable immigration treatment for Cubans.

“Now we don’t have to worry about that,” he said. “Trump could possibly make better deals than Hillary. She’s more communist than he is. That’s maybe why the United States voted for Trump.”

Follow Frances Robles on Twitter @FrancesRobles.

Hannah Berkeley Cohen contributed to this report from Havana.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/16/world/americas/cuba-donald-trump.html?_r=1

What does a Trump presidency mean for US-Cuba relations?

By Will Grant
Cuba correspondent, BBC News
12 November 2016

Many wonder if the newly opened diplomatic ties between the US and Cuba will hold

The headline greeting Cubans the morning after Donald Trump won the US election sounded alarming.

Five days of military exercises were scheduled to take place across the island this month, said the state-run newspaper, Granma, as Cuba's armed forces readied themselves for "a range of enemy actions".

In reality, those exercises take place every few years and, by the end of the day, President Raul Castro had sent his formal congratulations to Mr Trump, who will take office in the wake of last year's re-establishment of ties between Havana and Washington.

Even that brief congratulatory message represents an important break with the past.

Quite what the 85-year-old communist leader makes of the former reality TV star isn't clear. He has seen 10 US presidents come and go since he and his brother, Fidel, took power in 1959, some of them vehemently opposed to the Castro government and intent on forcing them from office.

Mr Trump's comments on Cuba have been conflicting

Raul Castro is unlikely to have dealt with a US political figure quite like Donald J Trump.

The extraordinary mixture of braggadocio and brash populism is more often compared with a very different Latin American leader: the late Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez.

Beyond their personal differences, though, it is Mr Trump's position on the much-vaunted process of thaw that is most under scrutiny in Cuba at this stage. Early in his campaign he said he was "fine" with the Obama administration's policy of rapprochement.

"Fifty years is enough time, folks," he said during a CNN televised debate.

Rolling back detente?

However, by the end of the arduous campaign, he was in Little Havana in Miami, drinking coffee with Cuban-American opponents of the thaw in the well-known Cafe Versailles.

He promised anti-Castro Republicans that he would roll back on Mr Obama's detente, would keep the decades-long US economic embargo on the island firmly in place and would even close the recently reopened US embassy in Havana.

"I want to believe that this was last-minute election opportunism, a kind of old-style form of it and one which I don't think benefited him that much," says Mike Bustamante, an assistant professor in Latin American history at Florida International University.

Certainly it didn't seem to make a huge difference at the polls, as Hillary Clinton got roughly the same percentage of the Cuban vote in Florida as Barack Obama did in 2012.

"It's hard to say whether he's genuinely planning to implement these policies. Let's not forget that a number of years ago representatives of his companies violated the embargo by coming out and scouting out investment opportunities in Cuba," says Dr Bustamante, referring to an article in Newsweek magazine which alleges that Trump executives visited Cuba in 1998.

His campaign argued that the story simply showed he didn't invest any money on the island.

Still, if he approaches the issue as a hotel businessman, President Trump might actually prove more favourable to lifting the embargo than he led his audience in South Florida to believe.

Dr Bustamante is less concerned about what a Trump administration would do in the short-term than seeing both houses of Congress and the White House in Republican hands.

"If folks in Congress who oppose the normalisation add an amendment to a bill that strips away a piece [of the detente], would a Trump White House threaten a veto?" he asks rhetorically.

However, one of the key lobby groups pushing for greater engagement with Cuba actually believes the latest make up of the House and the Senate could work in their favour.

"On Tuesday night, the pro-engagement forces picked up four senators and over 10 pro-engagement members in the House," says James Williams, president of the "Engage Cuba" advocacy group in Washington DC.

"We came into this in a strong position, but we're actually in a much stronger position than we were a few days ago."

The last time he eased the economic embargo, Mr Obama called his administration's steps towards Cuba "irreversible". But many are based on executive orders and, when president, Mr Trump could repeal them.

James Williams doubts he will. "This is one of the single-most popular policy decisions in the country. We had a poll that showed 63% of Cuban-Americans in Miami want to see the embargo lifted. So the only conclusion to draw is that it should continue to move forward."

'Unpredictable'

Meanwhile, in Havana, the mood is a mixture of uncertainty and stoicism.

"It's terrible news," says Angel Bacallao, a retired state employee. "He said he'd turn to ashes all the steps that Obama has made towards better relations with the US. He'll get rid of them all."

Others noted that Cuba has been through difficulties with Washington many times before.
"We have to wait and see what he's like," says Jose, a private business owner. "He's very unpredictable."

Some in Cuba suggest a Trump presidency might even be welcomed by hardliners who oppose the rapprochement.

"We don't need the empire to give us any presents," Fidel Castro wrote shortly after President Obama's landmark visit.

After all, it's easier to rally people against a traditional enemy than one bearing gifts.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-37949743#share-tools

NOVEMBER 10, 2016 8:00 AM

A Trump attempt to reverse Obama’s Cuba policies could be complicated and costly

BY MIMI WHITEFIELD
mwhitefield@miamiherald.com

President-elect Donald Trump has said “concessions” the Obama administration made to Cuba can easily be reversed and that he will unravel them unless U.S. demands are met, but some of the commercial initiatives may be a bit harder to undo than merely signing an executive order.

“The weakness of executive branch action is that what one president does another can easily undo. Trump can rescind the executive orders, but I think it’s unlikely that he would do a wholesale repeal of Obama’s executive actions,” said Robert Muse, a Washington lawyer. “It’s a bigger decision than it might appear.”

Since the normalization process began, a Miami-based cruise line has begun to sail to Cuban ports, U.S. telecom companies have established roaming agreements with Cuba, commercial airlines are flying from U.S. cities to Cuba, Marriott has entered into a joint venture to manage some Cuban hotels, and Cuba has become Airbnb’s fastest growing market.

A pharmaceutical joint venture is about to begin clinical trials in the United States, other U.S. companies are in various stages of trying to close deals with Cuba and travel to the island by Americans has greatly expanded.

These ventures and expanded travel were all made possible by executive orders and regulatory changes since President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raúl Castro began a process of rapprochement on Dec. 17, 2014 and would be affected by any abrupt change in U.S. Cuba policy.

Because the companies struck deals in good faith based on existing U.S. regulations, they could be entitled to compensation or would need to be grandfathered-in to new policies, said Muse. That interpretation is based on a provision of the Fifth Amendment that says no one can be deprived of property “without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

“These companies have expended real time and money on these deals,” he said.

Obama’s policies also have been designed to encourage Cuba’s budding self-employed sector, and U.S. business executives, including some Cuban-Americans, have tried to encourage Cuba’s new entrepreneurs with advice and support.

“Reversing Cuba policy also would mean we are turning our backs on them,” said Carlos Gutierrez, who served as secretary of commerce under George W. Bush and has traveled to Cuba numerous times since the rapprochement began. Throwing out all of Obama’s initiatives would “be complicated and not an easy call,” he said.

“It’s politically difficult to say to U.S. business interests that I’m just going to change the law of the land. It carriers a political cost,” said Pedro Freyre, a Miami lawyer who has represented companies interested in doing business with Cuba.

Here’s a look at some areas that could change under a Trump presidency:

▪ The U.S. Embassy in Havana — Trump could downgrade it to a U.S. Interests Section again or even close it.

“In foreign affairs, the president’s authority is at its fullest extent,” said Muse. When the United States decided to break off relations with Cuba in 1961, it was a presidential decision.

But Gutierrez said Congress has provided no additional funding for the U.S. Embassy in Havana even though the embassy’s workload has expanded and it handles necessary interactions between the two countries. “Why would he close it?” he asked.

The nomination of Jeffrey DeLaurentis, currently chief of mission in Havana, as the first U.S. ambassador to Cuba in more than 50 years also could be a casualty of a Trump presidency. Obama nominated him in September and he has yet to be confirmed by the Senate.

▪ Immigration — If Trump wanted to bring Cuban immigration policy into line with his stated position to prevent waves of illegal immigrants from entering the United States, it would be fairly easy to do.

Wet foot/dry foot, which generally allows Cubans who make it to U.S. shores to remain and sends back those picked up at sea, is a policy, not a law, and could be changed from one day to the next.

The Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans to apply for permanent residency in the United States after a year — even if they arrive without a visa or are smuggled into the country — gives the U.S. attorney general the discretion to grant them parole. The law could remain in effect, “but the attorney general could stop granting discretionary parole,” said Muse.

▪ Travel — Ever since the 1960s, various U.S. presidents have expanded and limited travel to Cuba. Currently Cuban-Americans may make unlimited family visits to the island and other Americans who fall into 12 categories, such as those making educational trips or on people-to-people tours, also are allowed to travel to Cuba.

But during his presidency, George W. Bush barred people-to-people visits and limited visits by Cuban-Americans to once every three years. Rather than rescinding the licenses of people-to-people tour operators, the Bush administration let their two-year licenses run out and didn’t renew them.

If Trump were to place restrictions on U.S. travelers, he would probably have to make such a policy effective at a future date, because reservations and hotel deposits by travelers would be affected, Muse said.

▪ Presidential policy directive — In October, Obama issued a 12-page presidential policy directive that sought to institutionalize his changes toward Cuba. It was intended to be used as manual to help guide federal agencies in their future relations with Cuba. Such presidential directives generally aren’t made public and can be changed from one administration to the next. Administrative officials said it would help make the Obama opening toward Cuba “irreversible.”

But some believe that the new U.S.-Cuba relationship hasn’t progressed to the point that it is irreversible. “There was a lot of loose talk about irreversibility. It was wishful thinking,” said Muse.

The question is whether Trump the businessman or Trump the politician will prevail when it comes to Cuba policy. During the campaign both sides were in evidence.

In recent weeks, Trump has said he can reverse Obama’s executive orders and will “unless the Castro regime meets our demands. Not my demands — our demands. Those demands will include religious and political freedom for the Cuban people, and the freeing of political prisoners.”

In an effort to win Cuban-American votes, he repeated that message in Miami just a week before the election.

But on previous occasions he said normalization was fine — although he thought Obama’s policies didn’t go far enough in pushing U.S. interests and that he intended to get a better deal.

“During the campaign he also said 50 years of the same policy was enough, and then he started fund-raising and came to Miami and was convinced to take a different approach,” said Gutierrez, who is now chairman of the Albright Stonebridge Group and favors engagement with Cuba.

Based on Trump’s recent rhetoric and “the people he has been surrounding himself with, he may reverse what has been done, and I think that would be a shame,” he said.

Pro-embargo Cuban-Americans have been encouraged by Trump’s recent comments and his win in Florida.

“Candidates should stop taking advice from a handful of greedy businessmen who are clueless as regards the real pulse of the Cuban-American community,” said Mauricio Claver-Carone in the Capitol Hill Cubans blog. He said Trump’s Cuban-American supporters will hold him to his “commitment to reverse Obama’s executive orders.”

“He would be killing dozens of American deals, blowing it all up for some Cuban-American votes. Where is the logic in that?” asked Freyre, the chairman of Akerman law firm’s international practice. Trump, he pointed out, also won big in the Midwest farm states that want to sell agricultural products to Cuba and are pushing to have a financing prohibition lifted so their products will be more competitive.

Some Republicans believe a change in Cuba policy under Trump wouldn’t necessarily mean dismantling the entire normalization process.

“What I hope as a Republican and as someone who has been involved with Cuba for 24 years is that Trump would look at the potential for business with Cuba and fast-track things,” said Charlie Serrano, managing director of Chicago-based Antilles Strategy Group, which has taken congressional leaders and business executives to Cuba.

Obama’s regulatory changes were made piecemeal and the Cuban side has been slow to take the U.S. up on many business overtures.

“Some of this stuff is not moving fast enough,” Serrano said. “I think Trump will be interested in getting Cuban policies in a place where the United States benefits more. My hope is he will look at things from a business point of view. Canceling out everything that Obama has done would not be a good thing; it wouldn’t be wise for American business.”

Analysts say that if Obama’s overtures had actually increased trade between the two countries significantly or if the Cuban side had facilitated U.S. investment in Cuban infrastructure projects, it might have created more stakeholders and made Obama’s policies more difficult to reverse.

“There will be political push on all sides; there will be business push,” said Freyre. Cuba policy “will be an interesting exercise for our next president. We are definitely in for some interesting times.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article114076713.html#emlnl=The_Americas#storylink=cpy

Trump's hard line adopted in last months before the election
reported here https://cubapeopletopeople.blogspot.com/2016/09/trump-flip-flops-on-cuba.html

Saturday, November 12, 2016

What Will President Trump Actually Do on Cuba? (updated regularly)