| | |  Travel & Outdoors | April 2009 
Obama to Lift Some Restrictions on Cuba
 Ian Swanson - The Hill
go to original
| | A traveler at the Miami International Airport holds up his passport while awaiting a flight to Cuba. (Getty Images) | |
President Obama is expected to lift numerous restrictions on travel to Cuba next week in advance of a summit of Latin American leaders that begins on April 17.
The move comes after significant pressure from Latin America for Obama to signal a change in relations with Cuba, and is meant to break with the hard-line approach taken by the Bush administration.
Advocates on both sides of the debate over Cuba expect Obama to lift rules preventing Cuban-Americans from visiting relatives on the island. The rules were imposed by Bush's administration and are unpopular with many Cuban-Americans.
Obama is also expected to allow Cuban-Americans to send remittances to family members in Cuba, which would end another unpopular restriction imposed by Bush.
Obama is also expected to allow U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba for cultural, academic and humanitarian purposes, which would effectively return policies to the status at the end of the Clinton administration. The Cuban American National Foundation, a Miami-based dissident group that supports a trade embargo with Cuba, announced its support this week for allowing cultural visits.
The changes would leave the trade embargo in place, as well as restrictions meant to prevent U.S. citizens from going to Cuba as tourists.
Some supporters of a more open relationship with Cuba had feared the administration might back away from loosening rules to allow cultural, academic and humanitarian trips out of fear the steps might force Obama to spend political capital with powerful lawmakers who support a hard line with Cuba, such as Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who heads the Senate Democrats. campaign arm.
These sources said administration officials were annoyed that conflicts over Cuba policy complicated efforts to move the omnibus spending bill last month.
A recent trip to Cuba by several House Democrats who met with Fidel Castro and offered kind words to the former leader was not helpful, several sources opposed to the Bush-era policies said. A pro-embargo supporter, noting that the lawmakers did not visit dissidents during their trip, said they had harmed the credibility of those pushing for changes to U.S. policy.
However, those closely tracking the issue said they believe the administration will move forward with steps to allow further travel to Cuba, partly to take the issue off the table at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago.
The White House deferred questions on Obama's announcements on Cuba to the National Security Council, which declined to comment.
If Obama goes forward with the changes, he would be resetting U.S. policy back to the Clinton era, when travel for a cultural or educational matter was encouraged, said Robert Muse, a Washington attorney with expertise on the complicated set of U.S. laws and regulations affecting travel and trade with Cuba.
"It is a significant departure from the Bush administration policy toward Cuba," he said.
Lifting travel restrictions on Cuba could help Obama politically in Florida, and internationally.
Obama won Florida in 2008, partly by taking the state's Hispanic vote. He won 57 percent of the state.s Hispanic voters, far more than the 44 percent won by Democratic Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) in 2004. Polls showed that 84 percent of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade County voted for Republican Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in 2008, while 55 percent of those voters under 29 years old voted for Obama.
If the younger Cuban-American voters are looking for a different approach to U.S. policy toward Cuba, as the Obama administration and Democrats think, lifting some of the travel restrictions could help Obama grow his popularity with this community.
Joe Garcia, a fellow at the NDN think tank, said Obama made it clear he would lift these restrictions and change U.S. policy with Cuba during the presidential campaign. Restricting travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans makes little sense in terms of policy or politics, said Garcia, a Democrat who last fall unsuccessfully challenged Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), one of Congress.s staunchest supporters of the embargo.
Internationally, a flood of Latin American leaders have visited Cuba in recent months, and called for Obama to announce changes to U.S. policy. These calls have come from the far left, as well as from more centrist Latin American leaders.
The Associated Press reported Thursday that Jeffrey Davidow, the White House adviser for the Summit of the Americas, said debate over Cuba would be an "unfortunate" distraction, but acknowledged it is likely to come up. By announcing changes in advance, Obama could take control of the situation. |
|
| |
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us