President Barack Obama issued an executive order on Friday loosening more restrictions on US travel and money remittances to Cuba, a further step in his efforts to reach out to the people of the communist-ruled country.
The latest measures, which stop short of lifting a ban on tourist travel to the island by Americans, are aimed at developing "people-to-people" contacts by allowing more travel for college professors and students, artists and church groups.
The regulatory changes also allow all US international airports to apply to service licensed charter flights to Cuba. In addition, they allow "any US person to send remittances (up to $500 a quarter) to non-family members in Cuba to support private economic activity," but with the limitation they cannot go to senior Cuban government officials or senior members of the Cuban Communist Party.
"These measures will increase people-to-people contact; support civil society in Cuba; enhance the free flow of information to, from, and among the Cuban people; and help promote their independence from Cuban authorities," the White House said in a statement. "The president believes these actions, combined with the continuation of the embargo, are important steps in reaching the widely shared goal of a Cuba that respects the basic rights of all its citizens." In Havana, Cuban government officials were not immediately available for reaction.
Arturo Lopez-Levy, a Cuba expert at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, said the Obama measures could also help defuse the long impasse over Cuba's detention of US contractor Alan Gross.
Gross, 62, was detained in Havana in December 2009 and accused by Cuban authorities of illegally importing satellite communications equipment and of possibly spying. His detention without formal charges or trial has been a bone of contention between the two nations. Washington denies he was a spy and called again this week for his release.
The measures had been widely expected last year, following an initial relaxation of the US trade embargo by Obama in 2009, when curbs on remittances and travel by Cuban-Americans visiting family members on the island were eased. But further easing was delayed last year by what analysts said were Obama administration concerns that announcing the measures before last November's congressional elections could damage Democratic candidates in Florida, where the Cuban-American vote is especially powerful.
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