Reports Urge Obama to Ease Policy on Cuba
Reports Urge Obama to Ease Policy on Cuba
A report by AS/COA's Cuba Working Group suggests the Obama administration to use its executive power to loosen U.S. policy towards Cuba to promote free-market activity in the island.
The Obama administration could — and should — use its executive power to circumvent Congress and loosen the decades-old embargo on U.S. relations with Cuba, according to two white papers circulated among foreign policy insiders this week by an influential Latin America think tank and a leading Cuban exile group.
The overlapping papers, pushed by the New York-based Council on the Americas and the Washington-based Cuba Study Group, call on the White House to do everything in its power to the ease the 60-year-old embargo in order to promote free market activity on the communist Island and Cold War-era adversary of Washington.
While the State Department so far has declined to comment on the documents, one official described the Council on the Americas as “influential” and told The Washington Times that the State Department does “appreciate their views.”
Circulation of the white papers coincided with a busy week of developments related to the ongoing tension in U.S.-Cuba diplomacy.
On Wednesday, a delegation of U.S. lawmakers, headed by Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont Democrat, announced that it had been unsuccessful in its attempt to secure the release of Maryland contractor Alan Gross, who has been imprisoned in Cuba since 2009.
Mr. Gross is accused of illegally bringing communications equipment to Cuba as part of a democracy-building program supported by the U.S. Agency for International Development. His detention remains a source of friction between Washington and Havana....
