US-Cuba tensions on the rise five years after historic thaw

A hostile Trump administration and crises in Venezuela have left the landmark Obama-era detente hanging in the balance. “There are many Cuban Americans in the Miami metropolitan area who will vote entirely on the basis of Cuba policy,” Mahon told Al Jazeera. “For many Cubans, significant structural change to the human rights situation in Cuba is inconceivable any time soon.” However, Mahon said human rights were a “secondary concern” for the Trump administration, saying cementing support in Florida and affecting regime change in Venezuela were more pressing. “If there were a state somewhere that had lots of refugees or exiles from North Korea and that state were as big as Florida and it were a swing state, Donald Trump would not be negotiating anything with North Korea.” A US State Department official told Reuters news agency this week that there were “no plans to break off diplomatic ties” with Havana, but “one thing that has clearly reached a low point is the Castro regime’s abuses of its own people”. “The US policy towards Venezuela has become openly hostile to the current regime and wants to engine a change of regime and that has put it at odds with Cuba directly,” Mahon told Al Jazeera.