US PRESIDENT Barack Obama was last night expected to lift restraints on Cuban Americans travelling to Cuba.
He is also expected to relax controls on the transfer of money to their relatives on the communist island.
The move does not end the trade embargo that has been in place for nearly half a century but it is an implicit recognition that the blockade has failed to change the political system while the lives of ordinary Cubans were made more difficult.
In recent days the Cuban American Foundation, for many years an advocate of a total embargo against Fidel Castro’s rule, has shifted position and called for free travel and the easing of other restrictions.
Americans with family in Cuba are at present limited to visiting the island once a year and to sending up to $1,200 in cash to relatives there. Obama’s move would lift the limits on both.
The president’s announcement comes shortly before he begins a trip to Mexico and to attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad later this week.
A White House aide told the Washington Post that the president believes democratic change will come to the island more quickly if the US reaches out to its people.
The move will not be popular with some older Cuban Americans who advocate the overthrow of the government. But younger Cuban Americans are less wedded to their forebears’ homeland and increasingly support engagement with Cuba. – (Guardian service)