Obama Administration Lifts Some Cuba Travel Restrictions

The Obama Administration has announced that they are making some minor changes to the current restrictions on contacts with the Communist island nation of Cuba. According to the Huffington Post:

In a measured break with a half-century of U.S. policy toward communist Cuba, the Obama administration lifted restrictions Monday on Cuban-Americans who want to travel and send money to their island homeland.

In a further gesture of openness, U.S. telecommunications firms were freed to seek business there, too. But the broader U.S. trade embargo remained in place.

The White House portrayed its changes, which fulfilled one of President Barack Obama's campaign promises, as a path to promoting personal freedom in one of the few remaining communist nations. They also marked another major step away from the foreign policy priorities of the Bush administration.

But the moves fell far short of the more drastic policy adjustments that some _ including Republican Sen. Richard Lugar _ have argued are required to promote U.S. interests in Latin America and to bring about change in Cuba. For most Americans, Cuba remains the only country in the world their government prohibits them from visiting _ a barrier to potential travelers as well as to the Cuban tourist industry that would like to see them.

Washington Note blogger Steve Clemons was not impressed.

So, applause for the Cuban-American oriented efforts. Better than nothing -- but not nearly enough. And the precedent is worrisome and disconcerting.

We did not open up relations with Vietnam by restricting travel to Vietnamese-Americans. We really should not be doing this with Cuba either.

What is happening is that Barack Obama has started the ball moving forward -- and is opening up something he knows many will find completely unacceptable and discriminatory.

Separate is not equal -- and that is what Barack Obama's team has just moved forward.

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Obama has also eased up restrictions on humanitarian gifts and packages to Cuba -- which was really needed after the recent devastating hurricanes this past year. Humanitarian relief has been something we should have eased long ago -- and this was a good step.

Now, my hunch is that Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod see that they have "done enough" to check off the boxes for what they have promised the right wing, moderates, and even left wing of the Cuban-American community that felt collectively strangled by the tightness of the Bush administration restrictions.

As one of the few Americans who have visited Cuba on an academic travel waiver to participate in a conference and do research on the teaching of mathematics in secondary schools I completely agree with Steve Clemons, who is a well-known foreign policy expert on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Interestingly, the policy was announced just days before President Obama travels to Trinidad and Tobago for the 5th Summit of the Americas (in which Cuba is not allowed to participate) this weekend.