US-CUBA
Key Congressional
Committee Votes to Lift Travel Ban
By Jim Lobe*
WASHINGTON (IPS) - In a major
victory for anti-embargo forces, a key
Congressional committee voted here
Wednesday to lift restrictions on travel
by U.S. citizens to Cuba.
If passed by both houses of Congress,
the Travel Restriction Reform and Export
Enhancement Act will also ease
restrictions on U.S. agricultural
exports to the Caribbean island that
were imposed by former President George
W. Bush.
"I am proud to say that today, the House
Agriculture Committee took a courageous
vote to end the short-sighted and failed
policy that limits American
agriculture's access to the Cuban
market," said Democratic Rep. Collin
Peterson, the chairman of the
Agriculture Committee of the House of
Representatives who, along with a
Republican colleague, Rep. Jerry Moran,
was the bill's chief sponsor.
"An unprecedented coalition of
agriculture, business, religious and
social organisations have endorsed (the
bill), and today's vote demonstrates
that Congress is ready to change our
nation's approach on this issue," he
added.
"We have tried to isolate Cuba for more
than 50 years, and it has not worked. As
it has in other countries, perhaps
increasing trade with Cuba will
encourage democratic progress."
The bill, which was approved on a 25-20
vote that broke mainly along party
lines, will now go to the House
Democratic leadership which will decide
whether to send it to the House floor.
Sources on Capitol Hill told IPS they
believe the decision is likely to be
affirmative and that a floor vote could
take place by the end of July.
If it passes, the bill, entitled "The
Travel Restriction Reform and Export
Enhancement Act", would go the Senate
where pro-embargo forces – mainly
Republicans, but also a handful of
anti-Castro Democrats – are in the
minority but can resort to a number of
procedural moves that could delay or
even prevent a vote from taking place.
Still, supporters of lifting the travel
ban and facilitating more trade with
Cuba were jubilant about Wednesday's
Committee vote, depicting it as a major
breakthrough in the decades-long battle
to end the 49-year-old embargo.
"A committee that comes from a
pro-trade, pro-business, and politically
very centrist perspective has now called
on Congress to lift the ban on travel,"
said Geoffrey Thale, a Cuba specialist
at the Washington Office on Latin
America (WOLA).
"That's an important political message
in itself to the Senate, certainly to
President (Barack) Obama, and also to
the Cuban government, which last month
opened a promising dialogue with the
Cuban Catholic Church," according to
Thale, who noted that two political
prisoners have recently been released
and a number of others have been moved
to detention facilities closer to their
homes. "This should encourage that
dialogue," he added.
"We commend the House Agriculture
Committee for favourably reporting (the
bill)," said Jake Colvin, vice president
for Global Trade Issues of the National
Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), a lobby
group representing more than 300 major
U.S.- based companies engaged in
international business.
"Today's vote is the first step towards
a more rational foreign policy towards
Cuba, and one that the business
community strongly supports," he added.
He noted that the NFTC, as well as the
U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the
National Farmers Union, has included the
bill on their scorecards for rating
lawmakers on their legislative records
before the November elections due its
importance as the only major
trade-related bill on which the House
will have voted this year.
That will add to pressure on
pro-business incumbents – mostly
Republicans – to vote in favour of the
bill if and when it reaches the floors
of either house.
U.S. farmers have been eager to increase
their exports to Cuba since then
president Bill Clinton relaxed the
embargo in 1999, and Congress followed
with its own reform bill the following
year. Despite severe conditions imposed
on their sale and shipment to Cuba by
the Bush administration, however,
exports continued to climb during his
administration. Since 2000, more than
four billion dollars in agricultural
goods have been sent to Cuba.
Under the Peterson-Moran bill, the Bush
conditions would be substantially eased.
Cuban importers, for example, would no
longer have to pay for the goods in
advance of their actual shipment. In
addition, U.S. banks, which were barred
by Bush from handling such transactions,
may now participate in their financing.
"Prior to the embargo, the United States
accounted for nearly 70 percent of
Cuba's international trade. Cuba was the
seventh-largest market for U.S.
exporters, particularly U.S. farmers and
ranchers," noted Bruce Josten, executive
vice president of the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, in a letter to lawmakers
before Wednesday's vote.
He cited a March study by Texas A&M
University that found that "easing
restrictions on agricultural exports and
lifting the travel ban, as proposed by
(the bill), could result in up to 365
million dollars in additional sales of
U.S. goods with a total economic impact
of 1.1 billion dollars and create 6,000
new jobs in the United States."
Like the business sector, the U.S.
tourism industry has tried for years to
ease the ban on travel. First imposed in
1961, the ban was lifted under President
Jimmy Carter, only to be re-imposed by
his successor, Ronald Reagan.
Clinton, who sought to encourage
"people-to-people" exchanges, eased the
ban, only to be reversed by Bush, who
also severely limited the frequency of
visits that Cuban Americans could make
to the island to visit their families.
At various times under Bush, majorities
in both houses of Congress approved
provisions in larger bills that would
have denied funds to the Treasury
Department to enforce the travel ban.
But each time the administration and
anti-Castro lawmakers succeeded in
having those provisions deleted before
final passage of the underlying bills.
In that respect, the Peterson-Moran bill
marks the first- ever "free-standing
bill" to end the travel ban, and most
political observers believe that
majorities in both houses will vote for
it if given a chance to do so.
In the upper chamber, however, several
influential senators, including Majority
Leader Harry Reid and Democratic Sen.
Robert Menendez, have opposed lifting
the ban and may resort to procedural
methods to prevent it from reaching the
floor.
Still, anti-embargo forces, who have
been disappointed by Obama's failure so
far to take more aggressive steps to
ease the embargo, said the Committee's
action gave them hope that Washington's
approach toward Havana was indeed
changing.
"The U.S. needs a new Cuba policy, and
the Peterson-Moran bill is a decisive
change in the right direction," said
Sarah Stephens, executive director of
the Center for Democracy in the
Americas.
"By increasing food exports and
repealing the travel ban, this
legislation will provide more jobs for
Americans and Cubans, and move our
country from 'helpless bystander' to
supporting Cubans as they debate and
decide the future for themselves."
*Jim Lobe's blog on U.S. foreign policy
can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/. |
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