Washington, United States.- The U.S. administration attempted on Tuesday to justify the new travel restrictions to Cuba with the argument they are measures against the government, despite warnings of their negative effects on the people.

Republican executive Donald Trump, who has considerably increased hostility against the neighboring nation, announced Tuesday that he will prohibit the citizens of this country from going to the Caribbean island under the prior authorization known as group educational trips people to people.

In addition, according to a statement from the State Department, ‘it will no longer allow visits to Cuba through passenger and recreational boats, including cruise ships and yachts, and private and corporate aircraft’.

With these controversial steps, the federal agency said it seeks to prevent U.S. travelers from ‘enriching Cuba’s military, security and intelligence services’.

In its statement, the State Department once again linked the measures against Cuba with the solidarity it maintains towards Venezuela and the constitutional government of Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington insists to ignore despite having been re-elected in May 2018 with 68 percent of the votes.

The U.S. administration maintains that the crisis in Venezuela is the responsibility of Cuba, which has thousands of collaborators in Venezuela, mainly in health, but also in areas such as education and culture.

In the meantime, it doesn’t mention the serious effects on the Venezuelan people of Washington’s economic pressures and sanctions.

According to the communiqué, the actions announced today against the Antillean nation are directly linked to the tourism industry, with the argument that this sector ‘has served to fill the pockets of the Cuban military’.

Thus, it does not allude to the fact that the people-topeople educational trips, under which hundreds of thousands of Americans have visited the island, have been a great impulse for the workers of Cuba’s growing private sector and their families.

Trump’s administration will continue a failed 60-year policy that harms the Cuban people and denies Americans their freedom,’ Engage Cuba coalition president James Williams wrote on Twitter after the new limitations spread.

When National Security Advisor John Bolton announced on April 17 that new restrictions would apply to non-family travel, different groups and legislators also referred to the impact on Cubans.

The announcement of the administration of new hard-line restrictions causes pain to families and affects the growing Cuban private sector, said then Florida Democratic Congresswoman Kathy Castor.