Trump cracks down on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- The Trump administration Wednesday intensified its crackdown on Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, rolling back Obama administration policy and announcing new restrictions and sanctions against the three countries whose leaders national security adviser John Bolton dubbed the "three stooges of socialism."

"The troika of tyranny -- Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua -- is beginning to crumble," Bolton said in a hard-hitting speech near Miami on the 58th anniversary of the United States' failed Bay of Pigs invasion of the island, an attempt to overthrow the Cuban government.

The measures seem likely to hit hardest in Cuba, which is at a moment of severe economic weakness as it struggles to find cash to import basic food and other supplies following a drop in aid from Venezuela and a string of bad years in other key economic sectors.

Bolton announced a new cap on the amount of money families in the United States can send their relatives in Cuba. The Obama administration had lifted limits on remittances, but the new limit will be $1,000 per person per quarter. Remittances to Cuba from the United States amounted to $3 billion in 2016, according to the State Department.

Washington also moved to restrict "non-family travel" after a broad loosening of so-called purposeful visits under Obama led to soaring numbers of American trips for cultural and educational exchanges. Details on the restrictions were not immediately clear, but tourism is a key lifeline of hard currency for Cuba. Bolton called such visits "veiled tourism."

Bolton spoke hours after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a new policy allowing lawsuits against foreign firms operating on properties Cuba seized from Americans after the 1959 revolution. The United States has enforced a trade embargo against Cuba since the early 1960s.

Cuban officials met the announcements with defiance.

"Nobody will snatch away from us, neither through seduction nor force, 'the Fatherland that our parents won for us by standing up,'" President Miguel Diaz-Canel said via Twitter. "We Cubans will not surrender."

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called it an attack on international law, Cuban sovereignty and countries doing business with the island: "Aggressive escalation by #US against Cuba will fail. Like at Giron, we will be victorious," he tweeted, referring to a Bay of Pigs beach where invaders landed.

On Venezuela, Bolton said Washington was sanctioning the country's Central Bank, which the Trump administration says has been instrumental in propping up the embattled government of President Nicolas Maduro. The sanctions do not bar humanitarian aid or private remittances and aim to ensure reliability of debit and credit card transactions, which have become essential amid skyrocketing inflation and a shortage of cash notes.

Bolton also announced sanctions against financial services provider Bancorp, which he claimed is a "slush fund" for Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.

"The United States looks forward to watching each corner of this sordid triangle of terror fall: in Havana, in Caracas, and in Managua," Bolton said in South Florida, which is home to many thousands of exiles and immigrants from the three countries.

He said Obama administration policies had given the Cuban government "political cover to expand its malign influence" across the region, including in Venezuela. Cuba has trained Venezuelan security forces to repress civilians and support Maduro, Bolton said, calling Maduro "quite simply a Cuban puppet."