US Senate panel votes to lift Cuba travel ban

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US Senate panel votes to lift Cuba travel ban
ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Republican-controlled Senate panel has voted to lift a decades-long U.S. ban on travel to Cuba, giving a boost to President Barack Obama's moves to ease travel restrictions and open up relations with the Castro-governed nation.

The Senate Appropriations Committee also voted to block enforcement of a law prohibiting banks and other U.S. businesses from financing sales of U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba.

The Obama administration issued rules in January to significantly ease travel restrictions to Cuba and allow regularly scheduled flights for the first time. The Senate Appropriations Committee 18-12 vote comes just days after the U.S. and Cuba formally ended more than a half-century of estrangement by re-establishing diplomatic relations cut off during the Cold War.

"We have the opportunity to increase the likelihood that Cuban people have greater liberties and freedom with the ability to connect with them," said sponsor Jerry Moran, a Republican. "I also would say that as Americans we have certain freedoms that we cherish, and Americans can travel around the globe today without exception — no country is totally prohibited with the exception of Cuba."

The House Appropriations Committee has moved in the opposite direction, but the intra-party disagreement among Republicans makes it far less likely that the Republican-controlled Congress will try to use spending bills to challenge Obama's rapprochement with Cuba.

The House provision would block new rules issued in January that would significantly ease travel restrictions to Cuba and allow regularly scheduled flights for the first time.

The Senate language goes beyond the administration rules, which lifted a requirement that U.S. travelers obtain a license from the Treasury Department before travelling to Cuba. Instead, all that is required is for travelers to assert that their trip would serve educational, religious or other permitted purposes.

"Positive change in Cuba will take time," said Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Democrat. "But it will come not as a result of stubborn nostalgia by a vociferous few for the Batista years, but by visiting Cuba, listening to the Cuban people, and engaging with them." Fulgencio Batista was Cuba's dictator before he was overthrown by Fidel Castro in 1959.

The hospitality industry and other business sectors are still blocked from doing business in Cuba. Marriot International President Arne Sorenson just returned from Cuba and is representative of many companies eager to do business there, especially as more Americans travel to the island.

"With travel to Cuba now surging, existing Cuban hotels are full and hotel companies from other countries are racing to tie up as many of the new hotels as they can before the likes of Marriott and our U.S. competitors show up," Sorenson said.

The panel's votes reflect growing sentiment, even among some Republican conservatives, to ease the five-decade-plus Cuba trade embargo and travel restrictions to the island, which have failed to move the Castro regime toward democracy.

"After nearly 60 years, we might try something different," Moran said.

The panel also voted to lift restrictions on vessels that have shipped goods to Cuba from returning to the U.S. until six months have passed.

The Cuba legislation was added to a $21 billion measure funding the Treasury Department, which enforces the longstanding trade embargo.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-07-24

[FangFerang]

People have been going there for years on the sly, about time.

[Guest]

What an absolute gold rush it will be for many.

I do hope Cuba has taken time to look at other countries and learned how to get it right.

They can have the next sort of Pattaya Playground for Miami, or they can get it right, and keep the pond scum out.

I hope for the Cuban people, they choose the latter.

"All that glitters is not gold" ... sometimes, it is just exploiting foreigners, pi$$ing down your neck.

I wish i was there for this, it would be awesome to visit before they McAmerika the island and people.

Edited July 24, 2015 by Guest

[Acharn]

After the first ten years it should have been obvious that the whole embargo was a stupid idea. It left the U.S. with no leverage to encourage improved human rights. Of course, that's never really been a goal of the State Department for the last 200 years, but they talk about it all the time. With trade and diplomatic status reestablished they have more tools to exert pressure.

[BKKBobby]

After the first ten years it should have been obvious that the whole embargo was a stupid idea. It left the U.S. with no leverage to encourage improved human rights. Of course, that's never really been a goal of the State Department for the last 200 years, but they talk about it all the time. With trade and diplomatic status reestablished they have more tools to exert pressure.

The embargo was needed. Cant have a thriving communist state off the coast of Florida. Might give the wrong ideas to the rest of the Americas. Edited July 24, 2015 by BKKBobby