Many Cuban exiles embrace Trump policy but want more
MIAMI — Many Cuban exiles in Miami are embracing the changes President Donald Trump announced Friday to his predecessor’s policies of engagement with the communist island — but some want even more.
President Barack Obama’s restoration of diplomatic relations with Cuba and easing of decades-old travel and business restrictions had divided Cuban-Americans. Hard-line exiles agreed with Trump’s move to roll back some of the changes by restricting commerce with entities linked to Cuba’s military, restoring tougher travel rules and other moves in hopes of forcing Cuba toward democracy.
While Trump gave his speech, a hundred activists about evenly divided between supporters and opponents of the president chanted and held up signs outside the venue, the Manuel Artime Theater, named after a late political leader of Cuban exiles who launched the failed Bay of Pigs uprising in 1961.
Cuban-born poet Armando Valladares, who was imprisoned for 22 years by the government of then-Cuban leader Fidel Castro, said at a weekly luncheon of Cuban exiles that he is vexed that not all of Obama’s changes were rolled back.