United News of Bangladesh

President Donald Trump has directed his top Cabinet officials to review current U.S. policy on Cuba and propose ways to strengthen sanctions within the next 30 days. In a memorandum issued Monday, Trump instructed officials to focus the review on Cuba’s treatment of dissidents, policies targeting opposition voices, and measures to curb financial transactions that “disproportionately benefit the Cuban government, military, intelligence, or security agencies at the expense of the Cuban people.” One significant proposal under consideration is to shut down all US tourism to the island and limit educational tours to groups that are organized and operated solely by American citizens. The move follows Trump’s repeated pledges to roll back the easing of sanctions and other penalties on Cuba introduced under former Democratic Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden. In his final days in office, Biden had lifted the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism. According to a fact sheet, Trump’s memorandum “supports the economic embargo of Cuba and opposes calls in the United Nations and other international forums for its termination.” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez swiftly condemned the move, calling it an act of aggression. “The Presidential Memorandum vs #Cuba released today by the US government strengthens the aggression & economic blockade that punishes the whole Cuban people and is the main obstacle to our development,” Rodríguez wrote on X. “It’s a criminal behavior that violates the #HumanRights of an entire nation.” Trump halts trade talks with Canada over digital tax on tech firms The Trump administration has already imposed stricter travel restrictions on Cuba, placing the country among seven nations facing heightened limitations on visitors. It has also revoked temporary legal protections for about 300,000 Cubans, which had shielded them from deportation. Additionally, the administration has announced visa restrictions on Cuban and foreign officials involved in Cuba’s medical missions, which Secretary of State Marco Rubio has labeled “forced labor.” In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio accused the US of trying to discredit the medical missions and criticized the reversal of policies that previously welcomed Cuban migrants. Rubio, whose family emigrated from Cuba in the 1950s before Fidel Castro’s communist revolution, has long advocated for tough US sanctions on the island nation. Source: AP