Cuban FM Rejects New US Travel Restrictions

Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, has on Tuesday rejected the US government announcement of further restriction to curb cultural and educational travels to the island nation, as well as private jet and vessel visits.

Such restrictions increase the economic, financial and commercial US blockade against Cuba, Rodriguez wrote on his Twitter account.

The Cuban FM also added that Washington is intending to stifle the Cuban economy and harm the Cubans' standards of living 'to wrest political concessions from us.' 'They will fail again,' Bruno Rodriguez stated.

The US Treasury Department on Tuesday announced that it will not authorize both cultural and educational travels to Cuba, known as 'people to people' travels.

It included in this section an 'exemption' which sets out that certain group educational visits, previously authorized, may be carried out if the person has already completed at least one people-to-people travel transaction (such as ticket or lodging reservation) before June 5.

According to the statement, the Trump administration will bar private jets and corporate aircrafts, cruises, sailboats, fishing boats and similar vessels from travelling to Cuba.

The only civil aircrafts still authorized to go to the Caribbean nation are the commercial ones that operate under Air Carrier Certificates or other specifications of the Federal Aviation Administration, according to the text.

The new US restrictions were conducted before the National Security Advisor John Bolton's announcement, when on April 17 he stressed that new restrictions would be implemented to non-family trips to Cuba.

So far, US citizens could travel to Cuba if they fulfill some of the 12 existing categories such as government visits, media activities or research centers, educational, religious and medical projects, among others.

The US Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, said these new restrictions seek to 'face the destabilizing role of Cuba in Latin America, especially for its support for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his Nicaraguan counterpart, Daniel Ortega.