President Donald Trump said Friday that he was 'cancelling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba' and putting new travel and trade restrictions in place.

Barack Obama's agreement with Raul Castro's government led to an increase in violence and instability in the country, Trump said, and enriched the brutal communist regime that imprisons its own people.

'They fought for everything and we just didn't fight hard enough, but now those days are over. Now we hold the cards. We now hold the cards,' Trump said to the delight of Cuban exiles in Miami's Little Havana community. 'Therefore effective immediately, I am cancelling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba.'

Trump said the US will not negotiate a new deal with Cuba until it releases the political prisoners it claims it does not have, turns over fugitives from American justice, hands over military criminals, respects freedom of assembly and expression and holds free and fair elections.

The ban on tourism will be upheld until that time and American companies will be barred from engaging in financial transitions with Cuba's military-operated businesses, he said.

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President Donald Trump said Friday that he was 'cancelling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba' and putting new travel and trade restrictions in place

President Donald Trump kisses Cary Roque, a Cuban political dissident, during his speech

'They fought for everything and we just didn't fight hard enough, but now those days are over. Now we hold the cards. We now hold the cards,' Trump said to the delight of Cuban exiles in Miami's Little Havana community

Cuban violinist Luis Haza, left, plays the national anthem at an event where the president announced a revised Cuba policy aimed at stopping the flow of U.S. cash to the country's military and security services while maintaining diplomatic relations

Trump was joined y his new friend Marco Rubio, a Florida senator he competed against in the GOP primary. He called him 'Little Marco' back then

At a rally last September in Miami, Trump said he would scale back the sitting president's engagement with Raul Castro's government. He returned Friday to make good on the promise that Cuban exiles and Republican Members of Congress with Cuban heritage applauded.

'This is very much a promise that he made that he took seriously - that he kept - and the basic policy driver was his concern that the previous policy was enriching the Cuban military,' an official said. 'That's the opposite of what he wanted to achieve.'

The US president announced plans today to crack down on Americans who contribute to the Cuban military's coffers by spending money at their establishments when they visit the country, often in violation of the rules set forward by the US government.

Commercial flights and cruise liners will still be allowed to ferry Americans to the island nation 90 miles south of Florida, but passengers will face the threat of a Treasury audit if they do not have a government-approved reason to be there.

Trump will not end an Obama-era policy that allows American visitors to bring back all the rum and cigars they can manage if they do make it down.

And he is not closing down the American embassy Obama opened in Havana - a pillar of the deal Trump claimed he was cancelling.

Supporters of the president stressed that the moves the administration announced Friday were just 'first steps' in the reversal of Obama's policies.

'You will see that going forward, the new policy under the Trump administration will empower the Cuban people,' a US official said Thursday.

An official told a reporter on Friday who characterized the moves Trump is making as less dramatic than the administration was casting them, 'I don't think I would classify them as small. I think the changes are very targeted, and the changes are specific, and they have a clear intent, which is to put pressure on the regime and to support the people. '

Trump said at a rally last September in Miami, Florida, that he would scale back the sitting president's engagement with Raul Castro's government. Barack Obama and Raul Castro are pictured together in March in Havana

The US president announced plans today to crack down on Americans who contribute to the Cuban military's coffers by spending money at their establishments when they visit the country, often in violation of the rules set forward by the US government

He is not closing down the American embassy Obama opened in Havana - a pillar of the deal Trump claimed he was cancelling

Trump ordered a full review of Obama's policies in February as he considered his predecessor's end to the 'wet foot, dry foot' policy that allowed Cuban refugees to stay in America if they made it to dry land.

In that period, the administration met with Members of Congress from both political parties with expertise in Cuban relations, an official said Thursday.

The administration said this week that it would adhere to Obama's policy shift to discourage Cubans from making the dangerous voyage to America.

'We will keep in place the safeguards to prevent Cubans from risking their lives to unlawful travel to the United States,' Trump said Friday. 'They are in such danger the way they have to come to this country, and we are going to be safeguarding those people. We have to. We have no choice. We have to.'

Trump symbolically selected the Manuel Artime Theater for the site of his address. Artime was a Cuban-American who was captured in combat in the ill-fated the Bay of Pigs invasion in the Kennedy administration. Trump held a campaign event at the theater in October 2016.

'There's so much love, I saw that immediately,' Trump told attendees of his speech on Friday. 'What you've built here, a vibrant culture, a thriving neighborhood. The spirit of adventure is a testament to what a free Cuba could be. And with God's help a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve.'

Florida has become an adopted home state for the billionaire president who has frequently spent his weekends at a Palm Beach club he retains ownership of.

Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (L) greets US President Donald Trump (C), accompanied by Florida Governor Rick Scott (R), upon arrival at Miami International Airport

An official said the travel policies will be 'strictly enforced' once the plans that Trump puts forward Friday go into implementation. Several senior aides could not say when that would be exactly

Trump was not especially interested in US policy on Cuba early on in his campaign. He took a hardline on the issue in the general election after he was accused of violating the embargo as a businessman

He flew into Miami on Friday with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Florida Congressmen Carlos Curbelo and Mario Diaz-Balart.

'We are delighted to be joined by so many friends and leaders of our great community,' Trump said at the top of his remarks.

The president called Rubio, a former Republican presidential candidate and a crowd favorite, as a friend.

'And I want to tell you he's one tough competitor. Sen. Marco Rubio. Great guy. He is tough. Man. He is tough. And he's good, and he loves you, he loves you,' Trump said.

Trump brought Cuban dissident Cary Roque up to the podium to say a few words in the middle of his event on Friday, a moment he said was not planned, and had a Cuban exile give a violin performance of the Star Spangled Banner.

As he closed out the event, Trump signed a memo directing the Treasury and State Departments to rewrite the government handbook on Cuba trade and travel.

Tourism to Cuba has long been banned under US law. Barack Obama's administration looked the other way after it initiated a radical policy shift that gave Americans permission to claim they were visiting to form 'people-to-people' ties.

Trump's administration plans to replace an honor code system for tourism with the threat of a Treasury audit in an attempt to cut down on the flow of cash to the communist government.

The Republican president will outline the strategy shift in a speech Friday in Miami at the Manuel Artime Theater, which is named of a Bay of Pigs veteran

An official said the travel policies will be 'strictly enforced' once the plans that Trump put forward Friday go into implementation. Several senior aides could not say when that would be exactly.

Americans with travel to Cuba in the near future, would not be affected by the policy shift, though, they said.

Payments to military-controlled companies will also be banned as part of an effort to dry up government funds and force free and fair elections.

Americans will be barred from staying at properties or eating at restaurants owned by the government. Privately-owned restaurants and residences, like the ones that are slowly being rented out on Airbnb, will be the only legal options.

US officials said Thursday that they would be willing to reconsider if the Cuban government made positive steps in that direction.

Until then, Castro's government can say goodbye to some of the perks Obama approved in December 2014.

'Any changes to the relationship between the United States and Cuba will depend on real progress toward these and the other goals,' Trump said Friday. 'When Cuba is ready to take concrete steps to these ends, we will be ready, willing, and able to come to the table to negotiate that much better deal for Cubans, for Americans.'

Obama traveled to Havana last March to solidify a detente between the US and Cuba that his administration negotiated in 2014. He delivered a speech on human rights and persuaded Cuban dictator Raul Castro to appear with him at a joint press conference.

He also went to a baseball game with Castro and the first family, where the two were photographed looking relaxed and chummy on the day of a European terrorist attack.

Appearing before Trump at the Miami event, Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart bashed the former US president for 'doing the wave with a ruthless dictator at a baseball game.'

'President Trump will treat the Castro regime as the malevolent dictatorship that it is,' Diaz-Balart told a fired-up audience.

Cuban Democratic Directorate secretary Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat described Castro's Cuba as a 'mafia state.'

'It wasn't a detente. It was a series of unilateral concessions to a dictatorship that's been here for 58 years,' he said of Obama's policy in Cuba. 'That's not a normal regime. That's a mafia state. When they get one unilateral concession after another, they interpret weakness from that.'

Other Cuban Americans at the event associated another word with Castro: 'murderer.'

Members of the audience watch as President Donald Trump speaks on Cuba policy on Friday in Miami

Trump was not especially interested in US policy on Cuba early on in his campaign. He took a hardline on the issue in the general election after he was accused of violating the embargo as a businessman.

'All the concessions that Barack Obama has granted the Castro regime were done through executive order, which means the next president can reverse them — and that I will do unless the Castro regime meets our demands,' Trump said at a rally in Miami last September.

The White House emphasized this week, as Trump prepared to visit Miami once again, this time as president, that he was keeping his promise.

'I think the President was very, very clear that he thinks the Obama administration's deal wasn't much of a deal at all. It was the United States giving the Cuban regime most, if not all, of what it had wanted for the past half-a-century without getting anything in return for the Cuban people,' an official said Friday.

'And this policy is a necessary change to address the deficiencies that the President outlined in the Obama policy.'

Obama also went to a baseball game with Castro and the first family, where the two were photographed looking relaxed and chummy on the day of a European terrorist attack

Only Congress has the power to undue an embargo on trade with and travel to Cuba. Obama pushed the limits of the legislation in his administration when he said Americans could say they were there for individual, people-to-people relations.

He also allowed commercial flights and cruise liners to travel to the island nation and relaxed a rule that said Americans could bring only $100 of cigars and rum back with them.

The Democratic president opened a US embassy in Havana, as well, and appointed an acting ambassador. The Democratic president removed Cuba's designation as a state sponsor of terror, too.

US officials told reporters Thursday that Trump will not undo most of those arrangements.

'If an individual follows regulations for travel to Cuba, then they can travel, whether they get there by air, boat or any other means,' an official said.

Americans will no longer be able to travel to Cuba individually unless they fall into one of 12 previously established categories that will continue to include people-to-people but only if they are part of a group with a set schedule.

Official government visits, family visits, journalistic activity, research, education, religious activities, professional sports or performances, humanitarian trips and certain government-approved voyages for exports will still be allowed.

The US government also permits Americans to visit if they are providing 'support to the Cuban people.'

A senior official explained that Trump was not cutting diplomatic relations off or restricting travel to Cuba entirely because 'we want this relationship to be one in which we can encourage the Cuban people through economic interaction.'

'I think this is an effort to review what the president has called a very, very bad deal, not that he is opposed to any deal, but he is opposed to a bad deal with Cuba,' the official said.

The US government is hoping to squeeze on the Grupo de Administración Empresarial, S.A., or GAESA. It's the military-run company that controls the bulk of Cuba's establishments.

Rubio and GOP Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, both of whom are from Florida and are of Cuban descent, lobbied the Obama administration unsuccessfully to keep relations with Cuba on ice until the Communist country demonstrated respect for human rights.

Castro contended in his press conference with Obama last year that the country did not jail political dissidents, even though human rights groups and the US government have assessed that the claims are untrue.

'A year and a half ago, an American president landed in Havana to outstretch his hand to the regime. Today a new president landed in Miami to reach out his hand to the people of Cuba,' Rubio said Friday.

Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona, a Republican, and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, a Democrat, led 53 other US senators - a majority of the upper chamber - in introducing legislation at the end of last month to lift the ban on travel.

Proponents of the legislation claim the travel restriction has not had the intended effect in the more than 50 years it has been in place.

'Recognizing the inherent right of Americans to travel to Cuba isn’t a concession to dictators, it is an expression of freedom. It is Americans who are penalized by our travel ban, not the Cuban government,' Flake said in a statement.

The Republican senator argued that 'lifting the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba can pave the way to meaningful change by increasing contact between Cubans and everyday Americans, and it is certain to have positive benefits for the island’s burgeoning entrepreneurial and private sector.'

The bipartisan legislation would not lift the embargo on Cuban goods. It would merely extricate travel from that policy to benefit Americans and Cubans in the private sector.

'If we don’t engage, China and Russia will – in fact they already are,' Leahy said in a statement.