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As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump said he would roll back President Obama's executive orders that open the way for travel and trade to Cuba. That was before Fidel Castro's death. Today President-elect Trump tweeted that he would terminate Obama's deal with Cuba if Havana isn't willing to negotiate a better one. Some Americans doing business with Cuba are nervous, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Lawyer Peter Quinter has seen all sides of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. He worked for the U.S. Customs in Miami, enforcing trade restrictions, and now in the private sector, he's helping clients take advantage of the Obama administration's new approach by applying for U.S. government licenses. He's encouraging them to continue despite what he calls Trump's bombastic rhetoric.
PETER QUINTER: In the past two weeks, actually, I have received phone calls and emails from clients saying whether or not they want to proceed with the license or not proceed with the license or not even to file a license application. They want to wait and see.
KELEMEN: One of his clients is seeking a license to build a warehouse in Cuba to support cruise liners.
QUINTER: If the Trump administration reverses course of what the Obama administration has done, take some hardline approach, then I don't see that the cruise lines will continue. The warehouse application - whether it's processed or approved or not - the U.S. company will not open a warehouse in Cuba.
And similar companies will no longer do business in Cuba. And it will be back to the way it was, which is not good for the Cuban people or the American people.
KELEMEN: Supporters of the Obama administration's policy were hoping that by now, business and diplomatic ties would be deep enough for this opening to Cuba to survive a change in administration. But John Kavulich of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council says Cuba hasn't made that easy.
JOHN KAVULICH: This is a two-way relationship. The Cuban government has not done what it could have done to provide that landscape.
KELEMEN: And he doesn't expect Fidel Castro's death will have an immediate impact on that.
KAVULICH: The Obama administration allowed U.S. companies to directly export to the 200 categories of independent businesses in Cuba. And the Cuban government has not permitted that to happen. And there are companies that want to have offices in Cuba, and the Cuban government has not allowed that to happen.
KELEMEN: Kavulich says the Obama administration could continue to issue licenses but should probably avoid new regulatory changes. That would be a, quote, "red cape for the bull" and would be quickly overturned by the incoming administration.
Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told NBC's "Meet The Press" that the new administration won't be fooled as she says the Obama White House was.
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KELLYANNE CONWAY: We got nothing in return. We're allowing commercial aircraft there. We pretend that we're actually doing business with the Cuban people now when really we're doing business with the Cuban government and the Cuban military. They still control everything.
KELEMEN: Still, she says, Trump hasn't decided yet whether he will roll back Obama's executive orders on Cuba. Cuba watcher Ana Quintana of the Heritage Foundation says it will take time to work through all of that. What will change now, she says, is the tone.
ANA QUINTANA: The rhetoric is going to change 'cause if you - the Obama administration has lease, its rhetoric has been so conciliatory and accepting of the Castro regime. I mean the diplomatic discourse is going to be much different.
KELEMEN: That's clear already. President Obama's statement on Fidel Castro's death took pains not to characterize the Cuban revolutionary leader while Trump called Castro a brutal dictator whose legacy is one of, quote, "firing squads, theft and the denial of fundamental human rights." Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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