Obama Administration Set to Ease Travel Restrictions to Cuba

The Obama administration will soon allow Cuban-Americans to travel to Cuba to visit relatives in the communist island nation, senior U.S. officials said Saturday. President Barack Obama plans to announce the policy change, which will also allow Cuban-Americans to send money to their relatives in Cuba, before the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

Obama had already signed a bill last month temporarily easing certain restrictions but lifting the bans on travel and sending money would meet a pledge he made during the presidential campaign and could signal a new openness with Cuba although as of yet, there is still no plan to lift the decades-old embargo on the island nation.

Under the new bill, Cuban Americans will be allowed to visit Cuba once a year, instead of once every three years under restrictions imposed by the Bush administration, and they will be allowed to spend up to $179 a day while there.

Technically, there is no law that specifically forbids Americans from traveling to Cuba but under the embargo they are forbidden from spending any money there, which basically means there is no point going there.

Many in Congress have been calling for repeals on the restrictions on Cuba and some have also made their case for a totally doing away the embargo, which has, by most accounts, been an absolute failure. But each attempt at even slightly easing the embargo has met tough resistance from Cuban Americans in Florida, who wield incredible political influence. But many are hoping that now that Fidel Castro has finally given up power they now have a chance to ease more restrictions.

Many others have consistently argued that lifting that embargo would encourage some political change in the government. They have argued that lifting the embargo would increase ties and exchange between Americans and Cubans the Cuban government could be lightly pressured to ease restrictions on the daily lives of its citizens.