Trump’s tough talk on Castro, shows big shift from Obama

Donald Trump started to put his stamp on a more muscular foreign policy Saturday with a toughly-worded statement following the death of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. The president-elect eschewed the diplomat-speak of President Barack Obama, who offered his condolences to the Castro family in an anodyne statement. Instead, Trump tore into the newly-deceased dictator in perhaps the clearest example since this month’s election of the two men’s sharply different world views. Castro, who established a communist regime in Cuba that survived the collapse of the Soviet Union, inspired revolutionary movements and brought two superpowers close to nuclear war before stepping down after 49 years in power, died late Friday night local time. He was 90. His funeral will be held on December 4. Crowds of exiled Cubans and their supporters gathered on the streets of Miami to celebrate the passing of a sometimes unyielding ruler who divided families and ruled with an iron fist. Havana, meanwhile, remained quiet, and in both countries it was unclear how Castro’s death will impact the detente that has developed in the past two years. Trump said weeks before the November 8 presidential election that Obama has propped up Cuba economically and politically “in exchange for nothing,” and said that if elected he wanted to cut a better deal both for the Cuban people and the US. (Steven T. Dennis/Bloomberg)