US President-elect Donald Trump says his administration will "do all it can" to help increase freedom and prosperity for Cuban people after the death of former dictator Fidel Castro.
But his initial reaction to Castro's death sidestepped whether the incoming president would make good on a threat made late in his White House campaign to reverse President Barack Obama's moves to open relations with the Cold War adversary.
Obama used his executive powers on a series of steps to ease trade, travel and financial restrictions against Cuba, arguing it was time to try diplomacy after the half-century-long economic embargo against Cuba had failed to shake the regime.
Trump's first statement on Cuba policy since the election, issued from his Palm Beach, Florida, resort where he and his family were spending the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday, did not address whether he would roll back Obama's measures because of concerns about religious and political freedom in Cuba.
"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," Trump said in the statement.
"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," he said.
Trump has just begun to fill out the top ranks of his national security team, and has not yet named his top diplomat - the secretary of state - who will play a major role in formulating policy on Cuba.
He last week named Mauricio Claver-Carone, a political lobbyist who has strongly criticised Obama's efforts to normalise relations with Cuba and supports maintaining the US embargo against the island, to his transition team at the US Treasury Department.
The agency is responsible for enforcing U.S. trade and travel restrictions on Cuba. Claver-Carone is director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee.
