WASHINGTON: As President-elect Donald Trump threatened to "terminate" the detente policy with Cuba, the White House on Tuesday warned that reversing historic rapprochement would have "significant" diplomatic, economic and cultural costs.
The policy is considered as one of the foreign policy legacies of outgoing President Barack Obama.
Trump on Monday threatened in a tweet to put an end to the detente policy.
"If Cuba is unwilling to make a better deal for the Cuban people, the Cuban/American people and the US as a whole, I will terminate deal," Trump said in a tweet.
"All of that would be undone by the reinstitution of a policy that has failed after having been in place for more than five decades. There are significant diplomatic, economic, cultural costs that will have to be accounted for if this policy is rolled back. This is among the many significant challenges that the incoming administration will have to carefully consider," Earnest said.
After realising that the five decades old policy was not working, Obama two years ago announced to begin normalising relations between the two countries.