Trump is 'reversing relations' and returning US to 'neo-colonial attitudes', says Raul Castro

So much change, so much remains the same.

Raul Castro has stood down as Cuba’s president, bringing to an end the 59-year era of rule under he or his brother, but immediately indicating the philosophy and anti-US defiance that marked their decades of rule, are likely to guide the nation for some years to come.

The 86-year-old was replaced by Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Bermudez, a vice president with little international profile. In an sign the world should not expect dramatic change overnight, Mr Diaz-Canel, 57, said he intended to pursue a policy of “continuity”.

Meanwhile, in his first speech as former president, Mr Castro, attacked Donald Trump for a foreign policy he claimed had restored America’s “neo-colonial” attitudes. He said that, after an historic restoration of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba engineered by him and Barack Obama, the US was once again seeking to isolate Cuba and its allies.

Even before the comments of the two men at the ceremony at the National Assembly in Havana, it was apparent that what appeared on paper to mark an shift in the nation’s course, may turn out to be less transformational than it might.

Firstly, though he represents a generational change, Mr Diaz-Canel has a reputation as a party loyalist with little public reputation or charisma. Last year, a video of a Communist Party meeting was leaked in which Mr Diaz-Canel voiced several orthodox positions that included a promise to close some independent media.

Secondly, though said to be growing increasingly tired and desirous of moving to a home he has built in colonial city of Santiago de Cuba, Mr Castro will remain first secretary of the Communist Party, the most powerful organisation in the country.

Elizabeth Newhouse, a regional expert and director of the Cuba Centre for International Policy in Washington, said there would be pressure on Mr Mr Diaz-Canel to act quickly in some areas in order to help the economy, which she said was in a dire state.

She said she believed this was less the result of US sanctions, which were frequently blamed over the years, but continued mismanagement in Havana. She said Mr Diaz-Canel success as president would depend on how quickly he was able to show people he was capable and “able to make life better for them”.

She said the party had intentionally chosen someone with a modest domestic and international profile. “They were not looking for someone to replace Fidel,” she told The Independent.

Reports said that Mr Castro sat and nodded as Mr Diaz-Canel gave his first address.

“The people have given this assembly the mandate to provide continuity to the Cuban Revolution during a crucial, historic moment that will be defined by all that we achieve in the advance of the modernization of our social and economic model,” Mr Diaz-Canel said, according to the Associated Press.

He said Cuba was prepared to negotiate with the United States but unwilling to cede to any of Washington’s demands for internal change.

He also said reforms would follow a 12-year-plan laid out by the National Assembly and Communist Party that would allow moderate growth of private enterprise while maintaining important sectors of the economy in the hands of the state.

“I confirm to this assembly that Raul Castro, as first secretary of the Communist Party, will lead the decisions about the future of the country,” he said, during his 30-minute address.

“Cuba needs him, providing ideas and proposals for the revolutionary cause, orienting and alerting us about any error or deficiency, teaching us, and always ready to confront imperialism.”

Speaking after Mr Diaz-Canel, Mr Castro not only attacked Mr Trump but said he expected the younger man to become first secretary of the party after he stood down from the position in 2021.

“From that point on, I will be just another soldier defending this revolution,“ Mr Castro said, apparently unwilling to reflect on own mortality.

He said he expected Mr Diaz-Canel to serve two five-year terms as head of the party, saying he envisioned him guiding his own successor for three years after leaving the presidency in 2028.

Mr Castro took control of the country in 2006, after his brother, Fidel, fell ill. He officially became president in 2008 and enacted a series of reform that that expanded Cuba’s private sector, allowed citizens greater freedom to travel and access to information

Those changes presaged a remarkable announcement at the end of 2014 when Mr Castro and Mr Obama revealed they had been secretly negotiating to end the diplomatic stand-off that has existed for 54 years, during which time Washington had tried to assassinate Fidel Castro on countless occasions. He eventually died, peacefully, in 2016.

The rapprochement saw a lifting of US sanctions had been aggressively enforced for decades, and the opening of embassies in the two countries’ respective capitals. That re-engagement has somewhat faltered since the election of Donald Trump, who rolled back some of the Obama administration’s changes, including the ability of US citizens to visit Cuba.

Mavis Anderson of the Latin American Working Group, a Washington-based group that promotes closer ties, said US foreign policy was now in the hands-of hardline conservatives, including Mike Pompeo, who has yet to be confirmed as secretary of state,

At the same time, Cuba-specific policy is led by a pair of ultra-conservative legislators of Cuban origin - Senator Marco Rubio and Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, both of Florida.

“[The ball is in the US’s court right now and that is] sad, because the court is broken,” Ms Anderson told the AFP.

Relations between the two countries have not been helped by the controversy surrounding the mysterious, alleged attacks on the health of US diplomats in Cuba, which led the State Department to say it was dramatically scaling back its diplomatic presence.

At least 24 US envoys and their family members have fallen ill with symptoms that resembled concussion but with no exterior signs of trauma, leaving investigators confused.

The illnesses were not only confined to the US embassy. In January, a senior Canadian official said 27 Canadian diplomats and family members were tested after complaining between April and December of dizziness, headaches and nausea.