The Push for Lifting the U.S. Embargo, Travel Ban on Cuba Continues

Proponents of lifting the embargo on Cuba are hoping for more progress on that front — either from the White House or Congress — before Obama leaves office in January.

“There’s a sense that more can be done,” former Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, chairman of the U.S-Cuba Business Council, told Morning Trade by phone after a luncheon in New York with Irma Martinez Castrillon, first vice president at the Central Bank of Cuba, during which obstacles in the banking sector to increased trade were discussed.

Although direct commercial flights to Cuba are available for the first time in decades, Americans won’t be able to legally visit the island strictly for tourist purposes until Congress lifts the travel ban, Gutierrez said. In addition, a sanctions reform bill passed in 2000 allows U.S. farmers to sell their goods to the island, but only if Cuba pays cash.

The House Agriculture Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday to examine the potential for farm trade with Cuba if the prohibition against credit sales is lifted. That’s part of a deal that Rep. Rick Crawford (R-Ark.) worked out with House leadership this summer in exchange for withdrawing from an annual spending bill an amendment aimed at easing the restriction for one year.

Luke Albee, a senior adviser for the Engage Cuba coalition, said they see a chance for action on both the travel ban and the ag credit provision in the lame duck session, since both measures sailed through the Senate Appropriations Committee in June.

But much will depend on the twists and turns of budget negotiations and whether the House and Senate conference on the spending bill containing the measures, he said.

In the meantime, Engage Cuba is working at the local level to build support for lifting the embargo and other intermediate steps through the creation of state councils, representing a cross-section of interests, Albee said.

The 13 councils launched so far are in predominantly Republican states or those that tend to be swing states in presidential elections. The group will launch three new state councils, in Missouri, Kansas and Virginia, by November, he said.

Source: politico.com