By Michael D. Shear
President Obama will announce today that he is lifting travel restrictions that block Cuban Americans from traveling to Cuba and will relax the rules governing what items can be sent to the island, a senior White House official said.
The decision does not lift the trade embargo on communist Cuba but eases the prohibitions that have restricted Cuban Americans from visiting their relatives and has limited what they can send back home.
As a candidate, Obama promised to seek closer relations with Cuba, and courted Cuban voters in the key state of Florida. As president, he has signaled that he intends to move toward a greater openness.
A White House aide said the president believes that democratic change will come to the Cuban nation more quickly if the United States reaches out to the people of Cuba and their relatives in the United States.
But the move is highly controversial, especially among those who supported former president George W. Bush's hardline policy, which viewed the restrictions as a way of spurring political change.
Obama's administration takes a somewhat different view, but has resisted a wholesale elimination of the trade embargo and travel ban, which has been pushed for by some in Congress.
The announcement, which is expected to come later today, comes as the president prepares to leave Thursday for the Summit of the America's in Trinidad, and a stop in Mexico
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment