The Washington Times: Donald Trump will undo the Obama administration’s historic diplomatic reset with Havana unless the Cuban government moves swiftly to address human rights abuses and loosen restrictions on freedom of speech and religion on the communist island, the incoming president’s chief of staff says.
With Fidel Castro’s death fresh in the headlines, Reince Priebus, former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said Sunday that Mr. Trump will keep an open mind about future relations with Cuba but demand major changes before embracing the detente set in motion by the outgoing White House.
“We’ve got to have a better deal. We’re not going to have a unilateral deal coming from Cuba back to the United States without some changes in their government,” said Mr. Priebus, a top Trump adviser. “Repression, open markets, freedom of religion, political prisoners — these things need to change in order to have open and free relationships, and that’s what President-elect Trump believes.”
His comments came as reactions to Mr. Castro’s demise, which was announced early Saturday, continued to reverberate around the world — with the starkest contrasts between the response among Cubans in Havana and that of longtime exiles in Miami.
People wept in the streets of the Cuban capital, where music fell silent and weddings were canceled as Cubans faced their first day without the leader who had steered their island to greater social equality and years of economic ruin during his nearly half-century reign.
Cubans across Havana said they felt genuine pain at the death of the 90-year-old dictator, whose words and image had filled schoolbooks, airwaves and front pages since before many were born.
