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Cuban President Raul Castro on Friday denounced U.S. President Donald Trump’s changes to relations with Havana, saying they ignored broad public support for better relations.
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Cuba: Trump’s Policy Will Backfire by Strengthening Revolution
In his first public comment on Trump’s new Cuba policy, Castro told the country’s National Assembly that any attempt to topple the revolution would fail, as it had under 11 previous U.S. presidents.
“Any strategy that seeks to destroy the revolution either through coercion or pressure or through more subtle methods will fail,” Cuba’s president told legislators.
Surrounded by Cuban-American exiles and Cuban dissidents in Miami, Trump announced last month that he was cancelling former President Barack Obama’s “terrible and misguided deal” with Cuba.
Trump ordered new limits on U.S. travelers to the island and a clampdown on U.S. business dealings with Cuba’s military-linked conglomerate, but called for maintaining diplomatic relations with the Cuban government.
He said the United States would consider lifting those and other restrictions only after Cuba made a series of other internal changes including freeing so-called “political prisoners,” allowing “freedom of assembly” and holding “free elections.”
Speaking to the National Assembly, Castro called Trump’s policies a “setback” and ejected any “lessons” on human rights from the United States.
