WASHINGTON — In abandoning longstanding restrictions on the ability of Cuban-Americans to visit and send money to family members on the island, President Obama demonstrated Monday that he was willing to open the door toward greater engagement with Cuba — but at this point, only a crack.
The announcement represents the most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades, and it is a reversal of the hard line taken by President George W. Bush. It comes as Mr. Obama is preparing to meet later this week in Trinidad and Tobago with Latin American leaders, who want him to normalize relations with Cuba and its leader, Raúl Castro.
The White House made clear on Monday that Mr. Obama, who campaigned on improving relations with Cuba, was not willing to go that far, at least not yet. Rather, the steps he took were modest, reflecting the complicated domestic politics around Cuba and the unpredictability of the Cuban response.
This volatility on both sides of the Florida Straits has bedeviled every president since Kennedy, and even Mr. Obama, who has vowed to make greater use of diplomacy with enemies as well as allies, seems to have recognized the threat.
As such, he did not lift the trade embargo with Cuba, enacted in the 1960s in an unsuccessful attempt to force a change in government after Fidel Castro came to power. Instead, he is using his executive power to repeal Mr. Bush’s tight restrictions and the looser restrictions under President Bill Clinton so that Cuban-Americans can now visit Cuba as frequently as they like and send gifts and as much money as they want, as long as the recipients are not senior government or Communist Party officials.
Mr. Obama is also allowing telecommunications companies to pursue licensing agreements in Cuba, in an attempt to open up communications there by increasing access to cellphones and satellite television. In a sign that the Cuba issue is a delicate one, the president left it to senior aides to explain his decision.
“This is a step to extend a hand to the Cuban people, in support of their desire to determine their own future,” Dan Restrepo, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, said in announcing the move. “It’s very important to help open up space, so the Cuban people can work on the kind of grass-roots democracy that is necessary to move Cuba to a better future.”
In a sense, the policy shift is an admission that a half-century of American policy aimed at trying to push the Castros out of power has not worked — as the Cuban American National Foundation, the most powerful lobbying group for Cuban exiles in Miami, conceded last week. Cuba policy experts characterized Mr. Obama’s moves as important humanitarian steps but said they still left open the broader question of how the United States and Cuba plan to engage in the future.
The State Department has said it was reviewing American policy toward Cuba, and Mr. Restrepo said the policy was not “frozen in time today” — a suggestion, some Cuba experts said, that the White House is laying a foundation for more far-reaching change.
“We really don’t know yet what he’s got in mind for the long term,” said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, which advocates a further loosening of the restrictions. She said the administration may be trying to take “baby steps toward building confidence” by letting the Cuban exile community in Miami, which has traditionally opposed any softening of American policy, get used to the idea.
Mr. Obama is also facing pressure from Capitol Hill. The House and the Senate are considering legislation that would lift travel restrictions to Cuba for all Americans, not just those with family in Cuba. And some experts, like Philip Peters, a Cuba specialist and vice president at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center, argue that a president who is willing to engage Iran and Syria ought to be willing to engage Cuba.
“This is a narrow set of measures,” Mr. Peters said. “It doesn’t at all get at the issue of broader contact between American society and Cuban society, and it leaves us in kind of an odd situation where one ethnic group has an unlimited right to travel to Cuba and the rest of us are under these cold war regulations.”
Those who still support the Bush hard line denounced the decision. The Cuban government charges hefty fees on remittances, and critics like Representatives Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida Republicans and brothers who are Cuban-Americans, said Mr. Obama was making a “serious mistake” that would effectively put millions of dollars into the hands of the Castro regime.
Yet those old animosities are giving way to an emerging interest in dialogue that is working in Mr. Obama’s favor, both in Washington and Florida.
In Miami, the conservative old guard could still be found. On Radio, a Spanish-language station that often acts as a megaphone for Cuban-American conservatives, Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a popular host, echoed the concerns of the Diaz-Balarts. At Latin Café 2000 in Hialeah, Fla., José Soberón, 71, said he would never consider sending money or visiting the island he left years ago.
The White House made clear on Monday that Mr. Obama, who campaigned on improving relations with Cuba, was not willing to go that far, at least not yet. Rather, the steps he took were modest, reflecting the complicated domestic politics around Cuba and the unpredictability of the Cuban response.
This volatility on both sides of the Florida Straits has bedeviled every president since Kennedy, and even Mr. Obama, who has vowed to make greater use of diplomacy with enemies as well as allies, seems to have recognized the threat.
As such, he did not lift the trade embargo with Cuba, enacted in the 1960s in an unsuccessful attempt to force a change in government after Fidel Castro came to power. Instead, he is using his executive power to repeal Mr. Bush’s tight restrictions and the looser restrictions under President Bill Clinton so that Cuban-Americans can now visit Cuba as frequently as they like and send gifts and as much money as they want, as long as the recipients are not senior government or Communist Party officials.
Mr. Obama is also allowing telecommunications companies to pursue licensing agreements in Cuba, in an attempt to open up communications there by increasing access to cellphones and satellite television. In a sign that the Cuba issue is a delicate one, the president left it to senior aides to explain his decision.
“This is a step to extend a hand to the Cuban people, in support of their desire to determine their own future,” Dan Restrepo, the senior director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council, said in announcing the move. “It’s very important to help open up space, so the Cuban people can work on the kind of grass-roots democracy that is necessary to move Cuba to a better future.”
In a sense, the policy shift is an admission that a half-century of American policy aimed at trying to push the Castros out of power has not worked — as the Cuban American National Foundation, the most powerful lobbying group for Cuban exiles in Miami, conceded last week. Cuba policy experts characterized Mr. Obama’s moves as important humanitarian steps but said they still left open the broader question of how the United States and Cuba plan to engage in the future.
The State Department has said it was reviewing American policy toward Cuba, and Mr. Restrepo said the policy was not “frozen in time today” — a suggestion, some Cuba experts said, that the White House is laying a foundation for more far-reaching change.
“We really don’t know yet what he’s got in mind for the long term,” said Sarah Stephens of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, which advocates a further loosening of the restrictions. She said the administration may be trying to take “baby steps toward building confidence” by letting the Cuban exile community in Miami, which has traditionally opposed any softening of American policy, get used to the idea.
Mr. Obama is also facing pressure from Capitol Hill. The House and the Senate are considering legislation that would lift travel restrictions to Cuba for all Americans, not just those with family in Cuba. And some experts, like Philip Peters, a Cuba specialist and vice president at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center, argue that a president who is willing to engage Iran and Syria ought to be willing to engage Cuba.
“This is a narrow set of measures,” Mr. Peters said. “It doesn’t at all get at the issue of broader contact between American society and Cuban society, and it leaves us in kind of an odd situation where one ethnic group has an unlimited right to travel to Cuba and the rest of us are under these cold war regulations.”
Those who still support the Bush hard line denounced the decision. The Cuban government charges hefty fees on remittances, and critics like Representatives Mario and Lincoln Diaz-Balart, Florida Republicans and brothers who are Cuban-Americans, said Mr. Obama was making a “serious mistake” that would effectively put millions of dollars into the hands of the Castro regime.
Yet those old animosities are giving way to an emerging interest in dialogue that is working in Mr. Obama’s favor, both in Washington and Florida.
In Miami, the conservative old guard could still be found. On Radio, a Spanish-language station that often acts as a megaphone for Cuban-American conservatives, Ninoska Pérez Castellón, a popular host, echoed the concerns of the Diaz-Balarts. At Latin Café 2000 in Hialeah, Fla., José Soberón, 71, said he would never consider sending money or visiting the island he left years ago.
Francisco J. Hernandez, the president of the Cuban American National Foundation, said the new policy would “help the Cuban people to become protagonists of the changes in Cuba.”
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