In December 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba, thereby ending one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. Since then, the Administration has opened an embassy in Havana and removed Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.
The Administration also made it much easier for Americans who fit into one of 12 approved categories to travel to Cuba (including for educational, religious, cultural, journalistic, or family purposes). Longtime restrictions on tourist travel remain in place, however; Cuba is the only country U.S. citizens are barred from visiting as tourists.
The Senate and House are divided on the issue. The 2016 Financial Services spending bill, approved 18 to 12 by the Senate Appropriations Committee in July, contains an amendment that would allow Americans to travel to Cuba under any circumstances without having to get a formal license from the U.S. Government.
“This is a first step by the Senate to dismantle a failed, discredited, and counterproductive policy that in 54 years has failed to achieve any of its objectives,” said Senator Patrick Leahy (VT-D). “These votes were not about the repugnant policies of the Castro regime, but about doing away with unwarranted impediments to travel and commerce imposed on Americans by our own government.”
Talks are also underway between the Federal Aviation Administration and Cuban authorities to resume regularly scheduled commercial flights between the two countries.
On the House side, the 2016 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies Appropriations bill (H.R. 2577) includes language prohibiting airline and cruise ship service to Cuba. An attempt in June to strip those provisions from the bill was defeated on the House floor, 176 to 247.
Representative Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-R), sponsor of the amendment, stated: “The expansion of regularly scheduled flights to Cuba is an obvious attempt to circumvent the tourism ban. Similarly, allowing cruises to dock in Cuba would violate both the spirit and the letter of U.S. law. Increased travel to Cuba directly funds the individuals and institutions that oppress the Cuban people.”
With so many other funding controversies on Congress’s plate, the conflict over Cuba policy is likely to be postponed. Meanwhile, the momentum may be on the side of supporters of open tourist travel, which would pump money into Cuba’s economy and enable its government to buy more U.S. goods.
For more background, see the September 2013 issue of Congressional Digest on “Redefining the U.S.–Cuba Relationship.”
