NEW YORK, United States (AFP) – Republican contender for the White House, Marco Rubio, on Friday slammed America’s resumption of diplomatic ties with Cuba, using a speech in New York to attack Barack Obama’s foreign policy.

The 44-year-old charismatic senator from Florida and son of Cuban immigrants promised to be much tougher on America’s foes than Democratic White House front runner Hillary Clinton.

Rubio dismissed Friday’s flag-raising ceremony at the US embassy in Havana as “little more than a propaganda rally for the Castro regime,” complaining that no Cuban dissident had been invited.

If elected, Rubio threatened to put Cuba back on the state sponsor of terror list and cut off diplomatic relations unless it implements “meaningful political and human rights reforms.”

He lashed out at Obama’s “diplomacy with dictators” and said he would quickly reimpose sanctions on Iran and take steps to reverse the nuclear deal on day one in the White House.

“I will give the mullahs a choice: either you have an economy or you have a nuclear enrichment program, but you cannot have both,” he told conservative think tank, the Foreign Policy Initiative.

He said he would ask Congress to pass “crushing new measures” that target human rights abusers and Iran’s leaders involved in the financing and overseeing of the sponsorship of terrorism.

“Iran may not return to the table immediately, but it will return when its national interests require it to do so,” he said.

Rubio’s position on Russia, Iran and the IS group have been seen as a return to the George W. Bush era of neoconservative doctrine.