HAVANA, Sept 29: A top Cuban diplomat has rejected Donald Trump’s threat to undo detente with Cuba unless the single-party government meets the Republican presidential candidate’s demands.
Trump said in Miami this month that he would reverse President Barack Obama’s executive orders loosening the US trade embargo on the island unless Cuba meets demands including “religious and political freedom for the Cuban people and the freeing of political prisoners.”
Gustavo Machin, Cuba’s deputy director of US affairs, said yesterday that Cuba would never be pressured into making internal reforms, and he said whoever is the next US president should respect Cuba’s right to self-determination.
“Cuba has always made clear that Cuba’s internal matters aren’t on the negotiating table,” Machin told reporters. “They’re a function of internal decisions by Cuba and the Cuban people and we really call on the next president of the United States to stick to those principles. They’re not Cuba’s principles; they’re principles of international law.”
He also urged Obama to issue a final round of orders loosening the embargo before the fifth and last major round of negotiations at the end of this year. The fourth round will take place Friday in Washington.
Machin praised Obama’s nomination of Jeffrey DeLaurentis, the charge d’affaires at the US Embassy in Havana, as the first US ambassador to Cuba in more than 50 years.
“It’s a decision in keeping with the commitments that both countries made and the aim of the United States and its diplomatic mission in being represented here at the highest possible level,” he said.
Laying out Cuba’s wish list for the end of the Obama administration, Machin said Cuba believed the president could permit more US exports to Cuba and more Cuban sales to the United States, and allow American investments in Cuba beyond an exception for telecommunications companies carved out at the beginning of the process.
He also said Cuba remains frustrated by banks’ unwillingness to deal with Cuba, particularly in dollar transactions that were long prohibited by the US embargo and related restrictions. (AGENCIES)
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