Opponents of normalizing relations with Cuba are seizing on reports that President Obama plans to use his executive power to chip away at the travel embargo and allow scheduled commercial flights between the two countries by year’s end.
Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Florida Republican and vocal critic of Obama’s shift to renew trade and diplomatic ties with Cuba, said Obama’s effort is one more example of the president abusing his executive power and trying to circumvent Congress.
“Any effort to increase tourism travel to the island is illegal but the Obama administration, once again, has decided to change the law when it is up to Congress to do so,” she said.
Worse, she argued, is that the surge in U.S. tourism to the island nation will only fill the coffers of the Castro regime and his military because Cuba’s hotels and tourism industry are government-owned, and include private property confiscated from private owners during the revolution.
“The hotels and tourism enterprises are owned by Cuban regime and its shadow organizations and many of these enterprises are on confiscated property of U.S. citizens so the Obama administration is promoting trafficking in stolen properties,” she said.
More tourism travel in Cuba, she argued, will only embolden the Castro government, not bring about democratic reforms as the Obama administration contends. “These changes will fill Castro’s coffers, and it is another part of President Obama’s legacy shopping list,” she said.
Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, also has argued that increasing tourism to the country will only benefit the Castro regime, not the Cuban people.
“In the eyes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, his former secretary of state, the Cuban people are suffering because not enough American tourists visit the country, when the truth is that the Cuban people are suffering because they live in a tyrannical dictatorship,” Rubio said in a speech in New York last week.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the Obama administration is working to reach a deal with Cuba by the end of the year that would allow airlines to start regular service between the two nations as early as December, which would amount to the most significant expansion of economic and tourism ties between the two countries since the 1950s.
Restrictions on travel put in place by Congress created 12 approved categories of travel to Cuba that don’t include tourism. Obama eased licensing rules for these approved travel categories earlier this year.
According to the article, Obama could be looking to ease those rules further on his own. For example, “people-to-people” cultural exchanges are currently allowed, but only as part of a group. The Wall Street Journal said Obama could change the rules to allow these visits to happen individually, a significant change that would likely encourage more travel to the island by individuals.
In announcing his decision to renew relations with Cuba in December, Obama announced several exceptions to the trade embargo, such as allowing Americans to use credit and debit cards on the island and expanding commercial sales and exports between the two countries.
By chipping away at the travel and trade embargo by significantly expanding commercial travel to the island, the president is trying to make it more difficult for his successor to roll back the changes once he leaves office in 2017, the Journal said.
