Trump: US ‘Taking Care’ of Cuba Following Election of New President

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US President Donald Trump said his administration is taking care of Cuba after Miguel Diaz-Canel was formally elected as the country’s next president, the White House press pool said on Thursday.

"We love Cuba. We’re taking care of Cuba," Trump said as quoted by the press pool.

Earlier in the day, Miguel Diaz-Canel replaced Raul Castro as the new leader of Cuba after the National Assembly of People's Power approved his candidacy for the post of the president of the Cuban Council of State.

Diaz-Canel, who has served as the first deputy president of the Council of State, was officially nominated for the position of the head of the governmental body at the parliamentary session on Wednesday. During the same session, the lawmakers held a vote on Diaz-Canel's candidacy.

After the victory of the Cuban revolutionaries over US-backed regime in 1959, Washington severed diplomatic ties with Cuba and imposed a trade embargo against the country. In 2014, the United States and Cuba expressed their intention to start working on normalizing bilateral relations between. 

The US and Cuba restored their diplomatic ties in 2015 under the administration of then-US President Barack Obama. But the new government announced in June changes to the US policy toward Cuba. US President Donald Trump reversed the policy of his predecessor and abandoned attempts to normalize relations with the island nation. On September 19, 2017, Trump said the US would not lift sanctions on the Cuban government until it made fundamental reforms. On November 8, the United States announced fresh restrictions, including limiting travel and business dealings with the island nation.