Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama suggested today they might lift the US trade embargo on Cuba if retiring leader Fidel Castro 's successor moves toward democracy.
Republican front-runner John McCain, meanwhile, said the United States must keep the sanctions on Cuba's communist government in place until it allows free elections and releases political prisoners. "I fear that anything short of that, that any assistance that came in earlier than that, might serve to prop up a new regime," the Arizona senator said at a rally in Milwaukee.McCain has generally echoed the Bush administration's approach to Cuba, but Clinton and Obama have differed in some respects.Clinton, a New York senator, voted to ease travel restrictions to Cuba in 2003 and 2005 but has supported keeping other aspects of the embargo in place. "I would say to the new leadership the American people are ready to meet you if you move forward toward the path of democracy," Clinton said in a statement.Obama, an Illinois senator, also supports loosening restrictions on visits to Cuba. He has also said he would be open to direct talks with Cuba and other US enemies.As a candidate for Senate in 2004, Obama said he would favor lifting the embargo even without a change in government, a popular stance in Midwestern farm states seeking to expand overseas markets.But in a statement issued today, Obama said any change in US policy should depend on changes in Cuba first."If the Cuban leadership begins opening Cuba to meaningful democratic change, the United States must be prepared to begin taking steps to normalize relations and to ease the embargo of the last five decades," Obama said.Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor, said the change in leadership will not lead to reforms in Cuba as long as Castro is alive.Former Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Chris Dodd, both US senators on the Foreign Relations Committee who dropped out of the race in January, said the United States should ease the embargo immediately.