Tag: embargo
Obama Eases Restrictions On Cuba, Lifts Limits On Rum And Cigars

Obama Eases Restrictions On Cuba, Lifts Limits On Rum And Cigars

By Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans traveling to Cuba will be allowed to bring home more of the communist-ruled island’s coveted cigars and rum under new measures announced by the U.S. government on Friday to further ease trade, travel and financial restrictions that have been in place for decades.

The steps are part of President Barack Obama’s effort to make his historic opening to Cuba “irreversible” by the time he leaves office in January.

The latest in a series of new rules since the two former Cold War foes began normalizing relations in 2014 will allow Cubans to buy certain U.S. consumer goods online, open the door to Cuban pharmaceutical companies to do business in the United States and let Cubans and Americans engage in joint medical research.

For American travelers, the biggest change is the removal of limits on the amount of rum and cigars they can pack in their luggage, strictly for personal use. The administration partially lifted the ban in 2015, allowing Americans to bring back $100 in alcohol and tobacco products. Now they can return with as much as they want as long as they pay duties and taxes.

“You can now celebrate with Cuban rum and Cuban cigars,” U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice quipped as she laid out the policy changes in a speech to a Washington think tank.

U.S. law still bans general tourism to Cuba, but the administration has used previous regulatory packages to make it easier for Americans to visit the island under 12 officially authorized categories.

The latest measures are part of an executive order on Cuba through which Obama seeks to sidestep the Republican-controlled Congress, which has resisted his call to lift Washington’s economic embargo after more than 50 years.

Republican critics say Obama is making too many concessions to Cuba for too little in return, especially on human rights issues. “After two years of President Obama’s Cuba policy, the Castro regime has made out like bandits,” said U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American lawmaker from Florida.

The latest measures also allow Cuban pharmaceutical companies to apply for U.S. regulatory approval, let U.S. firms improve Cuban infrastructure for humanitarian purposes and authorize them to provide safety-related aircraft services in Cuba, where U.S. airlines are beginning regularly scheduled flights.

Washington was also lifting a prohibition on foreign ships from entering a U.S. port to load or unload cargo for 180 days after calling on a Cuban port, according to a joint statement from U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments.

MAKING THE OPENING “IRREVERSIBLE”

“Today, I approved a Presidential Policy Directive that takes another major step forward in our efforts to normalize relations with Cuba,” Obama said in a statement.

Obama said his goal was to “make our opening to Cuba irreversible.”

Less than a month before the Nov. 8 presidential election, a senior U.S. official said the administration wants to lock in benefits from the new Cuba policy for U.S. citizens and companies to the extent that it will be impossible for any future president to “turn back the clock.”

The latest package, the administration’s sixth, is likely to be the “last significant tranche of changes” during Obama’s tenure, said the senior official, who asked not to be named.

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton backs the policy of rapprochement with Havana. Republican Donald Trump has vowed to roll back Obama’s executive actions.

In March, Obama made the first visit to Havana by a U.S. president in 88 years. His trip was made possible by his breakthrough agreement with Cuban President Raul Castro in December 2014 to cast aside decades of hostility that began soon after Cuba’s 1959 revolution.

Since the opening, Obama has repeatedly used his executive powers to relax trade and travel restrictions, while pushing Cuba to accelerate market-style reforms and boost political and economic freedom.

“The changes announced to Cuba regulations are, by definition, significant because they are new,” said John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. “Whether they will be relevant depends upon the government of Cuba’s willingness to permit United States companies and institutions to engage.”

“This new directive consolidates and builds upon the changes we’ve already made,” Obama said. He added, however, that “challenges remain – and very real differences between our governments persist on issues of democracy and human rights.”

At the same time, the U.S. embargo against Cuba has remained in place, a major irritant in relations. Only Congress can lift the embargo, and the Republican leadership is not expected to allow such a move anytime soon.

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Ayesha Rascoe and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Sarah Marsh and Marc Frank in Havana; Editing by W Simon and David Gregorio)

Photo: Cuban cigars for sale are displayed at a hotel in Havana, Cuba October 14, 2016. REUTERS/Enrique de la Osa

As Cuba Policy Moves Forward, Chief Critic Rubio Faces Stiff Odds Reversing It

As Cuba Policy Moves Forward, Chief Critic Rubio Faces Stiff Odds Reversing It

By Chris Adams, McClatchy Washington Bureau (TNS)

WASHINGTON — In December, just hours after the White House abruptly changed course in the nation’s relationship with Cuba, Senator Marco Rubio laid down his marker.

“I intend to use every tool at our disposal in the majority to unravel as many of these changes as possible,” he said Dec. 17.

It’s now February — and despite congressional hearings and ongoing pressure on the administration, it’s not clear that Rubio and other opponents can undo what the president already did.

Rubio is perhaps the nation’s most prominent lawmaker on the Cuba issue. He’s a Cuban-American, a member of the Senate’s Republican majority and a potential presidential candidate. And he represents Florida, Cuba’s closest U.S. neighbor.

But according to Cuba experts, Rubio might have little ability to reverse Obama’s changes. And Rubio might have realized that.

That doesn’t mean Congress — and Rubio — can’t curtail the administration’s long-term plans. Congress clearly has authority over some aspects of the new Cuba policy, and congressional leaders beyond Rubio are skeptical of the president’s plans.

For his part, Rubio is letting the administration make its case — and also watching as Cuba makes demands that he said could make normalization untenable.

In an interview with McClatchy this week, Rubio said President Barack Obama has “exceeded his authority” with already-announced moves.

“I think many of the changes that he’s made run counter to existing legislation, which I believe makes it illegal,” Rubio said. “We’ve made that case, but obviously this is a case we want to prove. But ultimately it’s going to wind up in the court system.”

Those changes really are just the first step in the Cuban opening. Up next will be the establishment of an embassy in Havana, as well as the confirmation of an ambassador.

Asked whether there were enough votes in the Senate to deny confirmation to an ambassador, Rubio said, “Well, there are multiple ways to stop an ambassador nomination, and I reserve the right to use all of them. … I can tell you for certain that no matter who they nominate I will not be supportive of and will do everything I can to try to stop the nomination of an ambassador to an embassy that’s not a real embassy.”

The opening to Cuba is a complicated, multipronged effort. Already, the Treasury and Commerce departments have relaxed rules on some travel to Cuba, loosened restrictions on financial transactions between the United States and the island nation, and allowed for U.S. exports of certain products.

Rubio said some of those changes — such as increased telecommunications exports to Cuba — are specifically prohibited under current statutes and will not withstand legal challenges.

The White House disagreed. National Security Council spokesman Patrick Ventrell said that all changes were “looked at closely by administration lawyers and all actions were taken in the context of what could legally be done.”

According to experts on Cuba, stopping the actions the administration already has taken will be difficult, even with the Republicans in control of both sides of Congress.

“I think he’s in a bit of a bind,” said Phil Peters, president of the Cuba Research Center in Alexandria, Va. “I think he knows there’s not a legislative means to reverse what President Obama did.”

Rubio might be “planting a flag,” Peters added. “But in terms of action, I don’t think there’s anything he can do about it. President Obama acted clearly within his authority, and Congress can’t stop it.”

Last week, Rubio kicked off a trio of hearings — one in the Senate, two in the House of Representatives — in which opponents of the president’s plans laid out a case that the Obama administration was taken advantage of in negotiating its new policy. Rubio emphasized ongoing human rights abuses and political detentions on the island, as well as demands Cuban President Raul Castro has made as a condition for normalization.

Rubio’s hearing, experts said, helped frame the upcoming debate and could slow the administration’s plans.

“There was this level of irrational exuberance from proponents of the new policy, but Congress hadn’t had a say yet,” said Jason I. Poblete, a former Republican congressional staffer and an international regulatory lawyer with Poblete Tamargo LLP who supports the sanctions on Cuba but said he has been critical of both parties and prior administrations for their Cuba policies. “Now they are having a say.”

But having a say and reversing the policy are two different things — although Rubio will have an outsized role in the debate.

“People take what he has to say very seriously,” said Darrell M. West, vice president and director of governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

But the president has substantial executive power on his side. “He can open an embassy, he can liberalize travel restrictions, he can increase the amount of money that people living in America can send to Cuba,” West said. “There’s very little Senator Rubio can do about those things.”

Rubio “has the ability to stop the parts of the initiative that require congressional approval, like ending the embargo,” West said. “What he can’t block is opening an embassy.”

Beyond that are the big issues of freeing travel between the two countries and ending the embargo that has cut off Cuba from most trade with the United States. Legislation already has been introduced in Congress to accomplish both of those goals, though experts say Rubio and his allies have significant ability to sway the debate.

In an interview with the CBS News program 60 Minutes, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) expressed opposition to the president’s plans, and Boehner was skeptical that the most ambitious of them — such as repealing the trade embargo with Cuba — would go anywhere. Asked whether the trade embargo would stay in place, Boehner said, “I would think so.”

Carl Meacham, a former senior Republican aide on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who’s now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, said that while support for the trade embargo is on the decline nationally, Rubio’s position as a voice for the Cuban exile community means its voice will be heard. A recent national poll by the Pew Research Center found two-thirds of respondents favored ending the embargo.

But whether the voice of the Cuban-American community will steer enough votes in Congress is unclear. Democrats are generally unified in a pro-change position — with at least one major, influential detractor in Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey — while Republicans are more fractured, Meacham said.

The ultimate level of support that Rubio can expect for his position is hard to pin down, thanks to libertarian-leaning Republicans and those from agriculture states that would benefit from new markets.

“I really think Republicans are split on this issue,” Meacham said. “And those Republicans who support the president’s decision on this should not be ignored.”

Of all the potential changes to the relationship with Cuba, Meacham said Obama is able to change one-third of them on his own. The other two-thirds fall under the jurisdiction of Congress.

Photo: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Cuban Dissidents Testify On Capitol Hill Against Obama Policy

Cuban Dissidents Testify On Capitol Hill Against Obama Policy

By Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald (TNS)

Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, who spent 17 years in jail as a political prisoner, said Thursday during a House subcommittee hearing that U.S. efforts for a rapprochement with Cuba are a “betrayal.”

“These agreements are considered by an important part of the Cuban resistance as a betrayal,” said the dissident, who is known as Antunez. “They are unacceptable.”

He was one of three Cuban activists who testified before the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights. Berta Soler, the leader of the Ladies in White, and Sara Martha Fonseca Quevedo, active in the Ladies in White and now a political refugee in the United States, also disagree with U.S. efforts to restore diplomatic ties with Cuba.

New Jersey Rep. Chris Smith, a Republican, said he called the hearing to ask whether in overturning 50 years of U.S. policy toward Cuba, the Obama administration “used the considerable leverage it wields to seek to better the condition of the Cuba people, or, as I fear, it’s an opportunity squandered in the haste to achieve a breakthrough and even create a legacy for the president.”

But Geoff Thale, Cuba program director at the Washington Office on Latin America, testified that far from a squandered opportunity, the new Cuba policy of engagement will lead to expanded family visits, assist a small but growing private sector, increase religious and cultural contacts and help Cubans connect to the outside world.

While subcommittee members agreed on their support for the Cuban people and the need to hold Cuba accountable for its human rights record, they disagreed on the best way to do it.

“The president’s policy of opening up relations with Cuba I actually think is a very good thing, especially for people who are concerned about human rights,” said California Rep. Karen Bass, a Democrat.

“I think many times that is the way societies become more open and accountable and democratic, and trade and culture exchange becomes mutually beneficial,” she said. “You just can’t change people and governments who you refuse to engage with.”

Not only did the United States’ former Cuba policy hurt U.S. relations with other Latin American countries, she said, but “many Latin American nations view the embargo itself as a human rights violation against the Cuban people.”

Even though Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson testified repeatedly Wednesday at a hearing before the full House Foreign Affairs Committee that human rights is very much a priority in the United States’ evolving relationship with Cuba, South Florida Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart said President Barack Obama has chosen to ignore repression in Cuba.

“This is Cuba in front of us today,” he said, indicating the dissidents.

Antunez, who said he was first arrested for calling for reforms similar to those sweeping Eastern Europe in 1990 and then tortured and punished while in jail because he continued his activism, said he was testifying at the subcommittee hearing “in the name of my brothers and sisters in the resistance and most especially those in prison for their political ideas — of which there are dozens.”

They have remained in prison, he said, despite the “unconvincing process of release agreed upon by Barack Obama and dictator Raul Castro.”

As a separate gesture that was not part of the deal to begin the process of restoring diplomatic ties, Castro agreed to release 53 Cuban political prisoners on a list provided by U.S. negotiators over the summer.

Although Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat, said he still has “deep concerns” about the way Cuba treats its people, he said the previous policy didn’t work either.

“I hope the Cuban government will come to the negotiating table with the United States with a real desire to work with the United States for a more free, open and more tolerant society for the Cuban people,” he said.

But South Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen said the new policy will only serve to “embolden the regime by implying that it can continue its repressive machinery with impunity.”

Indicating the democracy activists in attendance, Ros-Lehtinen said, “Rarely do they invite dissidents who disagree with this administration. These are the people who have to suffer the consequences of the administration’s decisions.”

Soler said that just before she left Cuba to come to the United States, dozens of activists were arrested in Havana and other provinces for attempting to place flowers at statues of Jose Marti on Jan. 28, the anniversary of the birth of Cuba’s national hero.

“Cuba continues to be a one-party government where fundamental freedoms that are an absolute right in American society constitute crimes against so-called state security,” said Soler, who heads a group of pro-democracy women.

She called for unconditional release of all Cuba political prisoners, recognition of civil society in Cuba, the elimination of laws that penalize freedom of expression and assembly and “the right of the Cuban people to choose their future through free, pluralistic elections.”

Fonseca, who was arrested repeatedly while living in Cuba and was one of four women who in 2011 unfurled a banner calling for release of political prisoners at the Capitolio building in Havana, said she, too, disagreed with Obama’s new Cuba policy.

“Why negotiate with a dictatorship without taking into account the people and their resistance?” she asked. “What has Raul Castro given in exchange?”

Photo: ehpien via Flickr

Despite Differences, U.S. And Cuba Make Positive Steps Toward Establishing Embassies

Despite Differences, U.S. And Cuba Make Positive Steps Toward Establishing Embassies

By Mimi Whitefield, Miami Herald (TNS)

MIAMI — The United States and Cuba held historic normalization talks Thursday aimed at erasing more than five decades of corrosive relations, but there were no major breakthroughs and the two delegations remained apart on some key issues such as human rights.

Behind closed doors, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson and Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations’ top North American specialist, led their delegations in talks to re-establish diplomatic ties between the two nations.

The morning talks were more symbolic than eventful — they discussed measures such as staffing levels and other details of the operations of their prospective new embassies. Vidal said the two countries had developed a list of diplomatic formalities necessary before the embassies could open.

Still, a news conference after the morning session made it clear that there were quite a few differences that must be resolved before flags are flying over respective embassies.

Jacobson, for example, said she brought up human rights, which the United States has said will remain central to its discussions with Cuba. “I did discuss that issue today; it was part of my conversation,” she said.

Asked about human rights at the same news conference, Vidal said: “We still haven’t taken up that theme in our discussions.” During the morning session, she said, negotiations focused exclusively on the re-establishment of embassies.

It could be they were both correct if the conversation took place on the sidelines of the talks or that Jacobson brought the topic up and wasn’t engaged by her Cuban counterparts.

However, human rights did come up during the afternoon session of the talks — perhaps not in the way the United States wanted.

Given Cuban concerns about human rights in the United States, its delegation proposed establishing a “respectful, reciprocal” dialogue on human rights, said Gustavo Machin, deputy director of the foreign ministry’s U.S. division.

During the afternoon, the two sides also reviewed areas of cooperation such as fighting Ebola, human trafficking, law enforcement and environmental protection. They reviewed various bilateral agreements and discussed recent trade proposals by President Barack Obama, including allowing U.S. companies to upgrade Cuba’s telecommunications system.

Both sides said they will keep the process going but no date was set for the next round of normalization talks — although Vidal said she expected the delegations would come up with a date in the next few weeks.

Still, it was huge for the United States and Cuba to reach the point where they were talking normalization after a half-century of hostility, which included the Cuban Missile Crisis, the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, attempts to assassinate retired leader Fidel Castro and, more recently, the shoot-down of four exile pilots by Cuban MiGs.

“Our presidents have taken steps to overcome more than 50 years of a relationship that was not based on confidence or trust,” Jacobson said.

In a surprise announcement Dec. 17 that included a prisoner release and U.S. offers to lift some restrictions on American travel and commerce with Cuba, Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro said that after 53 years the United States and Cuba once again planned diplomatic ties.

Although it wasn’t part of the deal, Castro also released 53 political prisoners on a list drawn up by the United States.

Getting the embassies open will be one of the simpler tasks the two sides face. Normalization of relations is a far more complicated and lengthy task.

“Our efforts to normalize relations will be a continuing process that goes beyond establishing diplomatic relations or opening an embassy,” said Jacobson. “Today, we have made further steps in this new direction.”

Normalization issues are “complex and reflect the profound differences between our countries,” Jacobson said.

Vidal said the re-establishment of relations will be difficult as long as Cuba remains “unjustly” on the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

A review of Cuba’s continued presence on the list was one of the promises Obama made Dec. 17.

A senior State Department official said the review began that same day and is expected to be completed in less than six months.

Before embassies can be opened, Vidal also said the banking problem at the Cuban Interests Section, which takes the place of an embassy in the absence of diplomatic relations, needs to be resolved.

For almost a year, the diplomatic mission in Washington has been unable to find a U.S or foreign bank with U.S. offices or offices in a third country willing to handle its accounts.

Its former bank, M&T of Buffalo, N.Y., closed the accounts the Interests Section had for deposits of fees for visas, passport processing for Cubans and other consular services March 1, saying it was getting out of the business of handling the accounts of foreign missions.

The Interests Section temporarily suspended most consular services for a few months last year, restarted them and now says it plans to extend the services until March 31.

Since the two sides are using the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to guide the process of renewing ties, Vidal pointed out that it requires a host country to make sure a diplomatic mission has the facilities it needs to do its work.

But Jacobson said that the Vienna Convention might not cover all the questions that could arise because of the “particular and rather peculiar relationship we have had with Cuba in the past.”

The two delegations sat across from each other at long wooden tables separated by a row of red tropical flowers at Havana’s Convention Palace.

Machin emphasized the two sides discussed “practical steps” to get the two embassies operating during the morning session.

“This first round of talks has been a positive and productive dialogue,” Jacobson said. “We discussed in real and concrete terms the required steps for the reestablishment of diplomatic relations between our countries.”

Vidal said “Cuba recognizes this will be a long process.”

Despite the decades of hostilities, this week the American and Cuban flags flew side-by-side at some hotels or were draped over the balconies at some homes.

In the past, the relationship was so acrimonious that during the era of President George W. Bush, the U.S. Interests Section, which will become the new U.S. Embassy, installed a ticker on its facade that flashed human rights and democracy messages.

Cuba erected scores of black flags to block the scrolling sign but it went dark after Obama took office. The Cuban government has frequently sent mass mobilizations with tens of thousands of demonstrators along the seaside highway that runs in front of the Interests Section.

Meanwhile, Vidal said there could only be true normalization when the U.S. embargo against the island is no longer in place.

The embargo can only be lifted by an act of Congress, but Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday that the former policy of isolating Cuba was “long past its expiration date.”

He said that “this year Congress should begin the work of ending the embargo.” But the Cuban-American delegation is vehement and vocal against any such move and it remains to be seen if there are sufficient votes from lawmakers from farm states and others who support lifting the embargo.

In Miami, Republican Cuban-American representatives in Congress — Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Diaz-Balart and Carlos Curbelo — called for a late afternoon “Vigil for Liberty” in front of the Cuban Monument at Tamiami Park. About 300 people attended.

Ros-Lehtinen said the vigil was intended to “give a voice to those on the island whose voices are repressed by the regime. Human rights and the ability to express one’s self should be inviolate principles — not themes discarded at the negotiating table.”

After the talks, Jacobson visited the Cuban Jewish community and had a meet-and-greet with young ballerinas. On Friday, she planned to continue her outreach to Cuban civil society before leaving on Saturday.

AFP Photo/Joe Raedle