President Donald Trump is stopping into Miami Friday to announce changes to U.S. - Cuba policies.
Calling the policy changes "moderate", Sebastian Arcos, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute, told Xinhua that Trump was making adjustments to, instead of cancelling Obama's Cuba policy, and the impact on U.S. -Cuba relationship was limited.
Pointing to human rights abuses, Trump said, "My administration will not hide from it, excuse it, or glamorize it and we will never ever be blind to it".
The government has though repeated its desire to engage in "respectful dialogue" with Washington. It also regretted "a reversal in relations between the two countries". But Trump vowed that trade and other penalties would stay in place until a long list of prerequisites is met.
Marco Rubio, who said the new policy "aligns the United States with the Cuban people".
"Officially, today, they are rejected". Trump said he was reimposing certain travel and trade restrictions that had been relaxed by the Obama administration in an attempt to improve relations, criticising it as a "completely one-sided deal".
"I think it's critically important we open up these market, that's the best way to change Cuba overall", said Sen.
The lengthy statement then went on to strike a conciliatory tone, saying Cuba wants to continue negotiations with the United States on a variety of subjects.
Embassies in Havana and Washington are to remain open. US airlines and cruise ships would still be allowed to service the island. He also doesn't plan to restore the so-called "wet feet, dry feet" immigration policy - repealed by Obama - that allowed Cuban migrants who reached USA soil to stay.
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"Today is a major setback for worldwide relations, NAFSA, our allies and the Cuban and American people". He'll make it somewhat more hard for Americans to travel individually to Cuba. And the US government will police other trips to ensure travelers are pursuing a "full-time schedule of educational exchange activities".
Still, Carnival, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines expressed satisfaction that Trump's policy will allow them to continue sailing to Cuba. Many Cuban entrepreneurs fear this will stifle the American travel that has allowed so many of them to flourish since the start of detente.
The changes will not go into effect until new documents laying out details are issued.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell pushed a pro-Cuban narrative ahead of Trump's announcement that he was tightening travel and trade relations between the U.S. and Cuba.
"There are so many other opportunities in so many other countries that are easier to deal with government and infrastructure that (hotel companies) will look to those opportunities first", said Zelkowitz, whose firm represents hotel companies such as Solé and Marriott.
Former President Barack Obama's 2014 declaration of detente with Cuba prompted hundreds of islanders to launch media, entrepreneurship and cultural projects that were outside control of the state but within the bounds of law, unlike the directly confrontational tactics of Cuba's small dissident groups.
"Any strategy aimed at changing the political, economic and social system in Cuba - whether by pressure or imposition or through more subtle means - is destined to fail", it said.
"Expanding U.S. commercial interests and introducing U.S. investment in Cuba should be coupled with the Cuban government's concrete and irreversible steps to ensure the democratic rights and freedoms of its people".
A statement on Cuban national television said: "The Cuban government denounces the new measures which prolong the blockade".
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