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Will Trump Roll Back Obama's Cuba Deal?

By Joshua Fatzick November 26, 2016

President-elect Donald Trump has been a longtime critic of the Cuban government and U.S. President Barack Obama's efforts to normalize relations with the country, vowing to roll back all of Obama's executive actions related to Cuba.

Speaking at a campaign event in September, Trump said that should he win the presidency he would "stand with the Cuban people in their fight against communist oppression."

He bashed Obama's actions to lift restrictions on U.S. trade with Cuba as one-sided, working only to the benefit of Cuban President Raul Castro's regime.

'Unhappy about it'

"People are very unhappy about it," Trump told the crowd in Miami, which is home to a large Cuban population. "But all of the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them. And that is what I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands."

Obama had been working with Castro and others in the Cuban government for nearly two years to restart relations between Cuba and the U.S., culminating earlier this year in the first direct flights between the two countries in 50 years and the reopening of embassies.

The relaxed regulations introduced by Obama made it easier for Americans to bring products back from Cuba, allowed more access for doctors to work with Cuban researchers on medical investigations and ended the 180-day ban on ships docking at U.S. ports after leaving Cuba.

Obama also visited Cuba earlier this year, marking the first time a U.S. president had stepped foot in Cuba since Calvin Coolidge did in 1928.

At the time of Obama's announcement, national security adviser Susan Rice was asked whether a new administration would be able to alter the new rules, to which she said: "It would be profoundly unwise and counterproductive to turn back the clock."

Roll back

But during that September campaign stop, Trump said he would roll back Obama's executive orders unless Cuba met his demands, which included "religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners."

As a sign of what may happen under Trump's leadership, John Kavulich, a Trump transition adviser and president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said it would be easy for a Trump administration to eliminate the flights to Cuba, calling them "an additional measure of normalcy in an anything-but-normal" relationship.

"Individuals associated with the president-elect, both officially and unofficially, will not be enthusiastic about the resumption of the flights; they will view each flight as a satchel of United States currency traveling on a one-way journey to Cuba with no meaningful measurable return other than to perpetuate abhorrent commercial, economic and political systems," he said.

'Very weak agreement'

During an interview in October with a local CBS-TV affiliate in Miami, Trump called the Obama administration's Cuba deal a "very weak agreement," but said he would like to have some sort of a deal and he would do "whatever you have to do to get a strong agreement."

The reporter asked Trump if he would break off diplomatic relations with Cuba on his first day in office, and Trump repeated that he would "do whatever you have to get a strong agreement."

"And people want an agreement, I like the idea of an agreement, but it has to be a real agreement. So if you call that for negotiation purposes, whatever you have to do to make a great deal for the people of Cuba," Trump said.