WASHINGTON — President Obama said Saturday that the death of Fidel Castro was an occasion for Americans to “extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people’’ and acknowledge the “powerful emotions’’ the revolutionary leader had evoked in both countries.
The president sought to use Castro’s fraught legacy to underscore his own efforts to bury decades of bitterness between the United States and Cuba.
“History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him,’’ Obama said in a statement that neither criticized nor praised Castro. “The Cuban people,’’ he added, “must know that they have a friend and partner in the United States of America.’’
The death of Castro, the embodiment of decades of suspicion and enmity between the two countries, has the potential to hasten Obama’s goal of cementing the historic rapprochement he hopes will be a signature part of his legacy.
But with Donald Trump, who has been critical of the détente, set to succeed Obama, the future of the thaw between the United States and Cuba is far from clear. Trump’s initial response on the matter Saturday morning was a four-word post on Twitter. “Fidel Castro is dead!’’ he wrote.
A few hours later, in a statement issued by his transition team, Trump called Castro a “brutal dictator’’ who had oppressed his people and left a legacy of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty, and the denial of fundamental human rights.’’
“While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve,’’ Trump said.
“Though the tragedies, deaths, and pain caused by Fidel Castro cannot be erased, our administration will do all it can to ensure the Cuban people can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty,’’ he said.
While Obama did not disparage Castro, Trump condemned him. But both described his death as a potential turning point for Cuba, and both appeared to accept as fact that its prospects for freedom and prosperity are bound up with that of the United States.
While Trump said during the Republican primary race that restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba — a step the Obama administration took last summer — was “fine,’’ he called Obama’s 2014 agreement with President Raúl Castro of Cuba a “very weak agreement’’ those provided too many “concessions’’ to the Cubans.
Trump promised to reverse the concessions unless new US demands are met.
Since his surprise announcement of a shift in policy, Obama has relaxed trade, commercial, and financial sanctions against Cuba, reestablished diplomatic relations, and resumed direct flights. He signaled a plan to lift the Cold War trade embargo entirely, a move that would require congressional approval.
