Cuban negotiator says Trump's efforts to destabilize Cuba's government will fail

A Cuban diplomat involved with negotiations between Cuba’s government and the Obama administration that led to a warming of U.S.-Cuba relations for the first time in decades said that President TrumpDonald John TrumpImpeachment? Not so fast without missing element of criminal intent Feds say marijuana ties could prevent immigrants from getting US citizenship Trump approval drops to 2019 low after Mueller report’s release: poll MORE‘s efforts to reverse President Obama’s efforts will fail.

Josefina Vidal, presently Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, told Bloomberg News that the Trump administration’s recent actions related to Cuba amount to efforts to destabilize the Cuban government following the resignation of Cuban president Raul Castro last year. Castro, 87, remains head of the country’s communist party.

In recent days, the White House, led by national security adviser John Bolton, has announced a number of actions targeting Cuba’s government, include lifting a ban on lawsuits for Americans who had property confiscated during the Cuban revolution and a recent statement indicating that nonfamily travel to Cuba would be increasingly restricted in the days ahead.

“This is a policy which is condemned to be defeated again,” Vidal told Bloomberg. “They want Cuba to surrender. They want Cuba to abandon what Cuba is, to abandon its principles, and to submit Cuba again to the desires of the U.S. But that won’t happen.”

“It’s very frustrating that once again they have chosen hostility instead of cooperation,” she added.

Much of the Trump administration’s policy towards Cuba, she argued, has been a response to the president’s success in Florida during the 2016 election and his desire to repeat that performance in 2020.

“You can manipulate data very easily,” Vidal told Bloomberg. “It seems to us that [Sen.] Marco RubioMarco Antonio RubioFreedom to Compete Act would benefit many American workers Booker, Harris have missed most Senate votes Dems say attorney general undermined credibility with Trump talking point MORE (R-Fla.) convinced Trump that he won in 2016 because he won Florida, and that he won Florida because he won the Cuban vote.”

“The reason why Trump won Florida is the same reason he won in other areas, in Rust Belt states, because of the vote in the rural areas,” she added.