OCB provided special coverage to President Donald Trump’s enunciation of changes to U.S. Cuba policy, in a major speech on the subject made in Miami on Friday June 16. Regular programming was interrupted beginning at 12:00 noon. Working as a multi-platform broadcast and with participation from various venues we provided the people of Cuba with President Trump’s speech from the Manuel Artime Theatre in Little Havana in which he maintained many aspects of the Obama policy but also significantly scrapped others, most notably U.S. travel to Cuba and the ability to carry out business from the U.S. with Cuban entities affiliated with GAESA, operated by the Cuban military and thus the Cuban state. The thinking behind the new policy is to deprive the Cuban state of funds that it presumably uses to repress the people and Cuba’s peaceful opposition while maintaining engagement with civil society.

On Thursday November 9, the highly anticipated changes to U.S.-Cuba policy were finally announced and specified by the White House. These mainly consisted of curtailing U.S. business contacts and interactions with about 180 Cuban state entities deemed to be closely affiliated with the Cuban military, and additionally, limiting individual U.S. citizen trips to the island in favor of group “people to people” contacts with Cuba. Radio Marti covered the announcement and analyzed the ramifications for people on the island as well as the Cuban diaspora in all of our programming. Many listeners from Cuba called in with concerns and opinions in the days following the announcement. The announcement also had wide coverage on our website, and had a notable impact on social networks.

President Trump’s statements on Cuba to a question from OCB, on the occasion of the third anniversary of the restoration of relations with the Raúl Castro regime. The President’s remarks in his response were recognized nationally and internationally, although some media did not make the due attribution to Radio -TV Martí. (December 17).