America smokes a Cuban
‘Time for new’ Cuba relations Prisoner swaps help end freeze
President Obama on Wednesday declared the end of America’s “outdated approach” to Cuba, saying the United States would restore diplomatic ties, open an embassy in Havana and ease travel restrictions in a historic deal brokered with the help of Pope Francis.
“Isolation has not worked. It’s time for a new approach,” Obama said from the White House, announcing a stunning shift in US policy that aims to end more than 50 years of Cold War hostility between the two countries, which severed ties in January 1961.
“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests. Neither the American nor the Cuban people are well served by a rigid policy that is rooted in events that took place before most of us were born,” he said.
Even as Obama spoke, bells tolled in celebration and teachers halted lessons midday in Cuba as President Raul Castro told his country he was restoring relations with the United States. “This shows we can resolve our differences without renouncing a single one of our principles,” said a triumphant Castro, whose brother Fidel led the revolution that established communist rule in the country more than a halfcentury ago.
The announcement followed more than a year of secret talks between the United States and Cuba, including clandestine meetings in Canada and at the Vatican facilitated by Pope Francis, who said that he “wishes to express his warm congratulations” to both leaders. Other developments included:
The release of ailing American aid worker Alan Gross, who was held in a Cuban prison for five years on spying charges. “I truly hope that we can now get beyond these mutually belligerent policies,” Gross said after arriving in the US Wednesday.
The swap of a top US spy held in Cuba in exchange for three Cubans who were jailed based on intelligence he had provided. “This man is now safely on our shores,” Obama said of the unidentified operative, described as a Cuban.
The easing of travel restrictions on Americans, who will be able to use their own credit or debit cards in Cuba and bring home up to $400 in goods — including up to $100 worth of booze and prized Cuban cigars.
An increase in the amount of money Americans with relatives in Cuba can send to loved ones, up from the current limit of $2,000 a year to $8,000.
The president himself said he might pay the island nation a visit. “I don’t have any current plans, but let’s see how things evolve,” Obama told ABC’s “World News Tonight.”
Obama also said he would work with Congress to lift an economic embargo and pressure Castro’s government to increase personal and economic freedoms for Cuba’s people. He asked Secretary of State John Kerry to launch a review of Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism.
But, he warned, “I do not expect changes to bring about a transformation of Cuban policy overnight.”
Several top GOP congressional leaders immediately pounced on the announcement.
“This Congress is not going to lift the embargo. I intend to use every tool at our disposal in the majority to unravel as many of these changes as possible,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican whose parents left Cuba in 1956.
The unidentified spy released by Cuba was credited with exposing the “Cuban Five,” former US intelligence officers convicted in Miami on espionage charges.
Three of the five were released in the exchange, while the other two had already finished their sentences.
The spy was also responsible for the arrests of several other Cuban spies who worked in sensitive positions in the US government.