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U.S.-Cuba
Relations Could Be Modified
By Karen Branch-Brioso.
The Tampa
Tribune, Apr 8, 2007.
TAMPA - Cuba's leadership changed. Control
of Congress changed.
As a result, many say now is a politically
plausible moment for change in U.S.-Cuba
policy.
No one expects an end to the embargo, but
many say recent events - an ailing Fidel
Castro's transfer of power to his brother,
Raul, and Democrats controlling both chambers
of Congress for the first time in a dozen
years - may lead to a sanding down of the
edges of Cuba sanctions.
William LeoGrande of American University,
an author of two books on U.S.-Cuba policy,
predicts Democrats will move three proposals:
oRemoving red tape on sales of farm goods
to Cuba
oAllowing Cuban-Americans to freely visit
and send money to family in Cuba
oLifting restrictions on U.S. resident
travel to Cuba that ban tourist visits and
require licenses for other types of travel.
"If they can get their way through
the legislative process," LeoGrande
said, "then it becomes a test of wills
between the Congress and the president."
President Bush has threatened to veto any
effort to relax Cuba policy, so few expect
sweeping change while he's in office.
"I think the fights will stay on the
periphery," said Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart,
R-Miami, one of six Cuban-Americans in Congress
and a lead backer of tough sanctions. "There's
no real debate unless there's someone in
the White House that wants to bail out the
regime. That can't happen until January
2009, and that's an eternity."
It's one point where Diaz-Balart and Dagoberto
Rodriguez Barrera, chief of the Cuban Interests
Section in Washington, coincide.
"We can't forget that the White House
continues to be run by the same party and
the same president, who in the past has
been quite clear that he opposes any change
in policy toward Cuba," Rodriguez Barrera
said. "So I don't really see a possibility
for substantial change in Cuba policy during
this administration."
Translation: An end to the embargo, in
place since the early '60s? Nope.
A total erasure of travel restrictions?
Not likely.
Atop a list of possibilities for tweaks
in Cuba policy are two proposals. One would
allow Cuban-Americans unlimited visits and
money transfers to family in Cuba, turning
back Bush's tightening of restrictions in
2004 and prior restrictions.
Another would make selling U.S. farm goods
to Cuba easier. It would expand an exception
to the embargo passed by a GOP-run Congress
in 2000, when Bill Clinton was president.
Trade With Cuba Continues
Last year, Florida exported $36 million
in goods to Cuba, ranking third among U.S.
states in such sales, the Commerce Department
reports. Only Louisiana and Texas sold more.
Florida Produce of Hillsborough County,
the first business in the state to ship
agricultural goods to Cuba after the law
passed, has sold products ranging from onions
to chicken parts to pears since then. This
month, owner Mike Mauricio expects to ship
two containers: one of evaporated milk;
another filled with nuts for a Havana chocolate
factory.
Rep. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., wants to ease
regulations on such shipments, which Cuba
must buy with cash upfront, routed through
third-country banks to the United States.
The Bush administration interprets that
as requiring cash in the bank before shipments
can leave U.S. ports.
Moran would specify the cash simply be
received before the Cuban government takes
possession of goods - and allow U.S. banks
to accept direct payments.
"This would ease a lot of problems,"
Mauricio said, noting that Cuba forwards
cash for his shipments through the National
Bank of Paris.
"There are so many restrictions and
so many eyeballs on top of us, you've got
to make sure your paperwork on all your
documents for exportation are just right."
Diaz-Balart expects he'll have a harder
time persuading colleagues to oppose a bill
to increase agricultural sales. Moran, a
farm-state Republican, and others like him
are expected to join many Democrats to support
such a plan.
"There, I would say, we don't have
the votes," Diaz-Balart said.
He feels stronger about efforts to maintain
travel restrictions. Others feel differently.
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., long
has tried to lift the embargo and travel
restrictions to Cuba. This time, he's doing
it as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.
His bill to lift restrictions on all U.S.
residents' travel to Cuba has 89 co-sponsors.
Even some who support it, however, doubt
the survivability of such changes.
"Whether or not those issues can survive
a presidential veto is an open question,"
said John Murphy, vice president of international
affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
which supports expanded sales to Cuba. "Because
of that, I think half-steps might be the
most likely way forward."
Half-steps include one pushed by Rep. William
Delahunt, D-Mass. He is sponsoring a bill
to lift travel restrictions for only Cuban-Americans
visiting their family on the island - because
he thinks it's doable.
"I'm not hiding my own belief that
we should reconfigure the entire relationship,
but this is a proposal that really has implications
far beyond the bilateral government-to-government
relationships," Delahunt said. "There's
a moral issue here, and that's dividing
families. And I think most Americans understand
that, no matter how they feel about Cuba."
Diaz-Balart counters that Cuban-Americans,
who receive a fast-track to residency because
they're seeking political asylum, shouldn't
be able to travel freely to the country
they fled.
"There are plenty of good people from
Mexico and Colombia and Costa Rica who every
day I talk to who want to stay, and they
can't stay," Diaz-Balart said. "Cubans
… are coming from a communist totalitarian
dictatorship - and if you're treated by
U.S. law as an asylee, you have to be cognizant
of that."
Polls show Cuban-Americans divided on the
issue. A Florida International University
poll of 1,000 Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade
in March found that 55 percent support unrestricted
travel to Cuba. Also, 64 percent would like
to roll back tighter restrictions imposed
in 2004 by the Bush administration on Cuban-Americans'
visits and money transfers to family in
Cuba.
Before that, Cuban-Americans could visit
family, from immediate relatives to aunts,
uncles and cousins, once a year. The 2004
changes limited travel to once every three
years - and to only immediate relatives.
Delahunt's bill would lift all restrictions
on Cuban-American travel and money transfers
to family in Cuba.
Attitudes Toward Change
It likely would take an even narrower change
in policy to clear the Senate. Florida Sen.
Mel Martinez is the chamber's only Cuban-American
Republican. He opposes "all openings
with a dictatorship until there are conditions
in place to support the right of the Cuban
people to live in freedom."
As the chamber's only Cuban-American Democrat,
Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey likely would
hold more sway on such legislation. He publicly
criticized Bush's 2004 changes strictly
limiting Cuban-American visits, saying that
punished families.
He is not expected, however, to support
a plan - as Delahunt's is written - calling
for unrestricted visits and unlimited money
transfers from Cuban-American family members.
Current policy allows Cuban-Americans to
wire $300 per quarter to a family member's
household in Cuba.
The divisions in the community often depend
on how recently the person left Cuba.
A Bendixen & Associates poll of 600
Cuban-Americans in South Florida in September
found 55 percent who have arrived since
1980 oppose the tighter restrictions, while
63 percent of those arriving before 1980
favor them.
"If you look at that poll, you'll
find right now the majority of voters tend
to be older and against it, but when you
look at the young people, it takes off after
1980," said Joe Garcia, director of
the Hispanic Strategy Center for the New
Democratic Network, an advocacy group that
commissioned the poll.
"I'm one of the cardinals of the church
of the embargo, but I do know I have an
obligation to my congregation - and it is
not going to get rid of Castro. We need
to find ways to change Cuba. And nobody
has a more profound effect when they go
to Cuba than Cuban-Americans."
Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached
at (813) 259-7815 or at kbranch-brioso@tampatrib
.com. Keyword: Cuba Politics, to hear an
interview with Cuban Interests Section Chief
Dagoberto Rodriguez Barrera. Busqueda: Politica
en Cuba, Lea la historia y escuche el audio
sobre los cambios en la Política
hacia Cuba en CENTROtampa .com.
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