Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold

[NHSparky]

President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.

The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of "Yankee" cooperation.

The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.

"The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome," said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. "It just takes us back to the 1990s."

The provisions are contained in a $410bn (£290bn) spending bill due to be voted on this week. The legislation would allow Americans with immediate family in Cuba to visit annually, instead of once every three years, and broaden the definition of immediate family. It would also drop a requirement that Havana pay cash in advance for US food imports.

LINK


Abandon, dismiss, and bad-mouth your allies, and spread your ass cheeks for your enemies.  Is THIS what he really meant by "change"?

Keep your powder dry, boys and girls.  I've a feeling this is only the tip of the iceberg.

[Carl]

Take that Sen.Nelson.

[docstew]

Take that Sen.Nelson.

Yeah, I have a feeling this will make the Dems particularly unpopular in Little Havana

[JohnnyReb]

Yeah, I have a feeling this will make the Dems particularly unpopular in Little Havana

So what?....they'll still be counting the votes.

[TheSarge]

Abandon, dismiss, and bad-mouth your allies, and spread your ass cheeks for your enemies.  Is THIS what he really meant by "change"?

Yes.

[Airwolf]

And here we all thought Jimmy the peanut was the worse Presdent in the History of the United States

[DumbAss Tanker]

Yeah, I have a feeling this will make the Dems particularly unpopular in Little Havana

I'm sure they've done their calculations on how it'll cut, and concluded it's to their advantage.  Of course their calclating track record is somewhat mixed, so you never know.  I favor dropping the embargo myself, but because I figure free market capitalism and consumerism will do more to destroy their Commie ideology in two years than two more decades of embargo will, not out of some Socialist brotherhodd crapola.

[TheSarge]

I'm sure they've done their calculations on how it'll cut, and concluded it's to their advantage.  Of course their calclating track record is somewhat mixed, so you never know.  I favor dropping the embargo myself, but because I figure free market capitalism and consumerism will do more to destroy their Commie ideology in two years than two more decades of embargo will, not out of some Socialist brotherhodd crapola.

IMHO it will just give the Communists the cash they need to rebuild their choke hold on the island.

[DumbAss Tanker]

IMHO it will just give the Communists the cash they need to rebuild their choke hold on the island.

Yeh, well, the fragility of their grasp on power hasn't proven to be one of their big weak points over the past 50 years.  However the single biggest thing that HAS kept them in power is the simple appeal to Cuban nationalism because of the hostile relationship with us.  Without that they'd be nothing but garden-variety Caribbean despots.  I really don't give a shit if they get a democratic government, I just want to see the hard-core Commie shit broken, and ending the embargo would do that.   

[thundley4]

I've wondered how such a small group of Cuban ex-patriots could have shaped foreign policy for so long. I don't understand the the embargo of Cuba, when we have dealings with countries that are far worse than Cuba.

[Eupher]

I've wondered how such a small group of Cuban ex-patriots could have shaped foreign policy for so long. I don't understand the the embargo of Cuba, when we have dealings with countries that are far worse than Cuba.

I'd say it was a way to save face after the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Wiki says, however, that the embargo came after the Castro regime expropriated properties of US citizens and corporations.

Maybe the Castro expropriation was the straw that broke the camel's back.

[DumbAss Tanker]

thundley, It has everything to do with voting leverage, at least in the past 20 years.  Nobody was going to get elected without Florida, and nobody was going to get Florida without the Cuban expats.  Changing dynamics in both teh Florida electorate and the Democrat Party took that off the table for Obama, and he had enough electoral votes to get into the White House without having to keep any promises his party ever made to the Cubans.

[thundley4]

thundley, It has everything to do with voting leverage, at least in the past 20 years.  Nobody was going to get elected without Florida, and nobody was going to get Florida without the Cuban expats.  Changing dynamics in both teh Florida electorate and the Democrat Party took that off the table for Obama, and he had enough electoral votes to get into the White House without having to keep any promises his party ever made to the Cubans.

It's amazing that a state as messed up as Florida could have ever been important to national politics.  I'm just basing that on all the strange news items that get posted in the lounge.

[TheSarge]

It would seem that the theme for the foreign policy stance of this administration is "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

[TheSarge]

I don't have a problem with ending the Cuban embargo.

We do business with China and other communist states every damn day.

Doesn't make it right.

[NHSparky]

And here we all thought Jimmy the peanut was the worse Presdent in the History of the United States

As I've told my mother the lifelong Democrat/BDS sufferer, "Obama is going to make Carter look good in about six months."

Of course she didn't believe me--that was right after she asked me where my monthly check to her was.

[NHSparky]

It would seem that the theme for the foreign policy stance of this administration is "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"

Nah--too cerebral.  Given the way B. Hussein has spread his ass cheeks for Iran, the Taliban, et al, it's more like, "BOHICA."

[TheSarge]

Nah--too cerebral.  Given the way B. Hussein has spread his ass cheeks for Iran, the Taliban, et al, it's more like, "BOHICA."

Nah BOHICA is what ALL of us are going to experience over the next four years IMHO