WASHINGTON — With his legacy in mind, President Barack Obama has used the final months of his administration to try to ensure that the historic changes he ordered in U.S. relations with Cuba could not be easily reversed.

He ended a Cold War animosity that started before he was born, opening unprecedented diplomatic, economic and cultural ties with a Communist-ruled island long off-limits to most U.S. citizens.

President-elect Donald Trump's intentions on this issue are unclear. But the death late Friday of Cuban leader Fidel Castro — who Trump called a “brutal dictator” in a statement Saturday — may hand the incoming administration a politically acceptable way to keep some of Obama's changes in place.

Trump may have signaled a shift in his hard-line stance when he said it was his “hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve.”

He made no mention in the statement of his previous calls to reverse Obama's efforts. As a candidate, Trump variously threatened to scuttle Obama's changes — especially when he was campaigning among anti-Castro Cuban immigrants in Florida — or to seek what he calls a better deal.

Trump's selection of a secretary of state, still very much up in the air and reportedly roiled by internecine struggles within the transition team, may give a sense of how much he will try to change policy toward Cuba.

Some reversals, from a legal and technical standpoint, would be easy. Obama enacted many of the new measures through executive authority and once he's in the White House, Trump can overturn those with his signature.

But there is pressure from U.S. agriculture and tourism sectors to continue with the more relaxed regimen for doing business. With flights and cruise ships pouring into Cuba daily, the country is proving a wildly fertile new market.

So the question is, as Cuba expert William LeoGrande at American University in Washington put it: Will Cuba policy meet Trump the hard-liner or Trump the deal-maker?

Trump the hard-liner spoke first in his statement Saturday.

“A brutal dictator” has died, Trump said, citing what he called Castro's legacy of “firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights.”

But then Trump suggested that Castro's death marked a turning point and opened a future in which Cubans “can finally begin their journey toward prosperity and liberty.”

Castro's brother Raul, the current president, is also a communist and an old-school military man.

But Raul, 85, has already said he will step down in 2018, so Trump presumably will have additional options at that point.

Whatever direction Trump chooses, he is unlikely to try to reimpose the complete diplomatic and economic isolation of Cuba even if he revokes some of Obama's executive actions.

After decades of pent-up demand, the number of U.S. tourists to Cuba grew 80 percent this year compared with 2015.

Hundreds of commercial flights go to and from the island weekly, with U.S. carriers scheduled to join this week.

Agriculture businesses, including chicken and pork suppliers in the southern United States and farm-equipment companies in the Midwest, are eagerly pursuing prospects.

The business community will undoubtedly make its position heard as the president-elect ponders what to do in Cuba.

“There is going to be a strong pushback,” said Eric Olson, associate director of the Latin American program at the nonpartisan Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. “Trump is, after all, a hotel man. I suspect he will understand the potential for American enterprise.”

In deciding to restoring ties with Cuba, Obama made several calculations.

A half-century-old policy of isolation, embargo and sanctions had clearly not weakened the Castro brothers' hold on power. Many would argue that it backfired. Obama also decided that waiting for reciprocal action from Havana was holding his decisions hostage to what the Castro government might or might not do.

Ultimately, he decided, engaging with Cubans first and Cuba second would spread a desire and impetus for freedom, ignoring whether the Castros acted in kind.

After two years of secret negotiations, facilitated in part by Pope Francis, Obama and Raul Castro announced a renewal of diplomatic ties in December 2014. Within a year, the countries had reopened their embassies and expanded trade and travel. This year, Obama traveled to Havana, the first sitting U.S. president to do so in nearly 90 years.

Obama's next step was to push the policy as far as he could. He could not end the trade embargo put in place under the Eisenhower administration. Only Congress could do that.

Instead, Obama ordered changed hundreds of regulations that, in the words of his national security adviser, Susan Rice, would make the swing of the pendulum permanent.

“It would be profoundly unwise and counterproductive to turn back the clock,” she said in October.

Obama and advocates of the thaw with Cuba note that public opinion in the U.S. has also shifted.

New opinion polling indicates overwhelming approval for detente among Cuban-Americans, traditionally anti-Castro but now infused with younger blood.

“The death of Fidel Castro will make it more difficult to justify policies that are rooted in past ideologies rather than future opportunities,” said Geoff Thale, program director for the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonpartisan think tank.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com