Traveling to Cuba is Easier than Ever. Will that Change if a Republican Becomes President?
Traveling to Cuba is Easier than Ever. Will that Change if a Republican Becomes President?
"[Obama administration officials] really want people to be engaging with the people of Cuba — eating at private restaurants, meeting with entrepreneurs," says AS/COA's Alana Tummino.
It’s the holiday season, which means you’ve probably headed out of town. Or perhaps you’re prepping for an upcoming trip, or contemplating when and where you might take your next one.
If so, Cuba might come to mind: One year after President Barack Obama announced he had begun the process of normalizing relations after half a century of official hostility, travel to the island nation has become easier than ever.
Americans are still technically forbidden from traveling to Cuba as tourists — it would take an act of Congress to formally lift the ban. But since the start of 2015, the American government is allowing individuals to travel there, so long as the purpose of their trip falls loosely under one of 12 broad categories....
...It’s clear Cuba has become a partisan political issue. But how did it happen?
It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly when opinions on America’s policy toward Cuba grew polarized — or why, exactly, hard-line supporters of the embargo tended to vote reliably for Republicans.
The embargo was first put in place by a Democrat, President John F. Kennedy, during a period of heightened tensions with the newly communist nation. It was originally put in place to starve the Cuban government of cash and, with any luck, hasten its demise....
...These politics, taken together, cemented the notion that supporting any loosening of the embargo amounted to political poison. "It was a third rail of politics that no one wanted to touch, because they worried the gains wouldn’t be as big as the potential risks," said Alana Tummino, head of the Cuba Working Group at the Americas Society.
The Helms-Burton Act determined Clinton’s Cuba policy for the remainder of his time in office, and President Bush was of course not eager to shift the needle. But in the meantime, views within the Cuban-American community were evolving....
