President Bush has vowed to maintain the U.S. embargo on Cuba through the end of his presidency. In a speech at the State Department Wednesday, Bush called Cuba a “tropical gulag” that would be isolated until it removes its government.

President Bush: “America will have no part in giving oxygen to a criminal regime victimizing its own people. We will not support the old way with new faces, the old system held together by new chains. The operative word in our future dealings with Cuba is not 'stability.' The operative word is 'freedom.'”

Bush went on to announce a so-called “freedom fund” that would provide aid to Cuba if it changed leadership. Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque called Bush’s speech an “invocation to violence.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque: “Cuba understands these words as an irresponsible act, which gives an idea of the level of frustration, of desperation and of personal hatred of President Bush against Cuba. An invocation to violence, a call to the use of violence to defeat the Cuban Revolution.”