By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG
Published: April 13, 2009
WASHINGTON — The White House is preparing to announce that it is abandoning longstanding restrictions on family travel, remittances and gifts to Cuba, and is also taking steps to open up telecommunications with the island, a significant shift in policy that fulfills a promise President Obama made during his election campaign.
The announcement is scheduled for Monday afternoon.
The administration signaled in early April that it would announce the changes before the president traveled to Trinidad and Tobago later this week for a gathering of Latin American and Caribbean leaders, where he may face calls to ease restrictions even further. Some lawmakers on Capitol Hill are also urging the administration to do more, and are pursuing legislation that would allow all Americans, not just those with family ties to Cuba, to travel freely there.
Mr. Obama is not lifting the longstanding trade embargo with Cuba. But according to a senior administration official, who spoke anonymously because the policy has not yet been formally announced, the president will use his executive authority to shift policy toward Cuba in three specific areas.
Under the new policy, Cuban Americans will now be allowed to travel freely to the island and send as much money as they want to their family members — so long as the money is not going to senior officials of the Cuban government or the Communist Party.
Second, the administration will take steps to open up communications to the island by allowing telecommunications companies to engage in licensing agreements that will support cell phones, satellite televisions and computers there.
Third, the president will reverse restrictions on gift packages imposed by his predecessor, former President George W. Bush, in 2004. The new rules will permit Cuban Americans to send clothing, personal hygiene items and fishing equipment to family members on the island — again, so long as the recipients are not government or Communist Party officials.
“This is an effort to reach out in support of the Cuban people’s desire to see change in Cuba,” the official said. “By helping people become less dependent on the regime, it opens the space that is necessary to form the kind of grass roots democracy that everybody hopes will come to fruition in Cuba.”
The action drew immediate criticism, however, from Representatives Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Republicans of Florida, who are Cuban-Americans. The two brothers issued a press statement calling Mr. Obama’s decision “a serious mistake,” that would enrich the Castro regime by enabling the government to skim off the money that Americans send back home to Cuba. Mr. Obama, they said, is “unilaterally granting a concession to the dictatorship which will provide it with hundreds of millions of dollars annually.”
Topic: White House to Announce Easing of Cuba Restrictions (Read 3146 times)