US tightens Cuba travel rules
Washington, Nov. 9: The US government made it tougher on Wednesday for Americans to visit Cuba and do business in the country, making good on a pledge by President Donald Trump to roll back his Democratic predecessor’s move toward warmer ties with Havana.
The restrictions, which took effect on Thursday, were aimed at preventing the military, intelligence and security arms of Cuba’s Communist government from benefiting from American tourists and trade, the White House said.
They fill in the regulatory detail on a Mr Trump policy speech in June, in which the Republican President called for a tightening of restrictions.
He said then that the Cuban government continued to oppress its people and former President Barack Obama had made too many concessions in his 2014 diplomatic breakthrough with Washi-ngton’s former Cold War foe.
The regulations include a ban on Americans doing business with some 180 Cuban government entities, holding companies, and tourism companies.
The list includes 83 stateowned hotels, including famous hotels in Old Havana such as Ernest Hemingway’s erstwhile favourite haunt the Hotel Ambos Mundos, as well as the city’s new luxury shopping mall.
“All these measures hurt the Cuban people,” said Cuba’s foreign ministry chief for US Affairs Josefina Vidal.
The new rules were criticised as too lax by Republican leaders who favour a hard line, but as counterproductive by those who agreed with Mr Obama’s rationale for the detente: that Washington’s many decades of isolating the Caribbean island failed to force change.
The Cuban hotels listed included those run by military-linked chains Gaviota and Habaguanex.
Republican Senator Marco Rubio said the list failed to go far enough because it omitted companies like Gran Caribe Hotel Group and Cubanacan that have ties to the Cuban government. All these measures hurt the Cuban people. The list is arbitrary and the regulations a further setback in US Cuban relations Josefina
Vidal,
Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy said the regulations were unfair to Cuba, coming as Trump was being “feted in Beijing” by a Communist government “in a country to which Americans can travel freely.” “The hypocrisy of the White House ideologues is glaring,”
Leahy said in a statement. While US travelers will still be able to make authorised trips to Cuba with a US-based organisation and accompanied by a US representative of the group, it will be harder for them to travel individually, according to new rules.
Before Mr Obama’s opening, travel by many Americans was similarly restricted to such organized trips.