It can restore flights, increase the value of remittances and allow group travel for educational or work purposes
Biden is not Obama. He was only his vice president, but he’s not Trump either. The Cuban government bitterly complained that it had not changed Trump’s restrictive policies drastically to end the Obama-initiated thaw. He hasn’t been able to say the same thing since Monday.
As Havana’s State Department itself criticized after the White House announcement, the package of measures that will restore flights to Cuban provinces will increase the value of remittances, allow for group travel for educational or work purposes, and even facilitate commercial operations. that “They do not change the blockade at all, nor the main measures of economic siege taken by Trump.” They are, in Havana’s opinion, “a limited step in the right direction” but have enraged the hard wing of the exile.
Among them is Democratic Senator Bob Menendez, with whom the White House claimed to have consulted, but who responded angrily. “I am dismayed to learn that they will allow group travel through tourism-like visits,” he said in a statement. “To be clear, those who think increased tourism will fuel democracy are living in denial. The world has been traveling to Cuba for decades and nothing has changed.
The Biden administration assures the Treasury Department will be responsible for auditing these group travel, which will only be allowed through travel agents to make them more controllable. The aim of the measures is to facilitate relations between exiles and their families by sending up to $1,000 a quarter in remittances, domestic flights that allow them to fly directly to the provinces and the ability to claim their relatives. More than 22,000 of those applications stalled in 2016 when Trump came to power. The Cuban delegation, which two weeks ago held the first migration meeting between the two countries in Washington since then, has expressly asked it to stop the flow of Cubans now seeking the border with Mexico.
If the small opening with Cuba can be explained for humanitarian purposes, it will be more difficult for the Biden administration to explain the lifting of sanctions against Venezuela that the Miami Herald newspaper announced last night. According to this statement, the White House would be willing to do so in return for the Maduro regime’s agreement to participate in the negotiations with the opposition, which will take place on an unspecified date in Mexico. Here too, the White House has told the newspaper that it is doing this in consultation with President-designate Juan Guaidó, who has conditioned the fragile negotiations – from which Caracas withdrew last fall – to continue the sanctions.
However, the war in Ukraine and the need to find new energy sources have led to a rapprochement with Venezuela in recent months that was unimaginable last year. The easing of sanctions would give Chevron’s oil company a license to negotiate a license for future operations in that country, though it would need another license to operate them.
Source: La Verdad
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