US eases Cuban travel, money restraints

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090413/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_cuba

Today President Obama lifted some of the restrictions placed on Cuba by the Bush Administration. This eases travel restrictions on Cuban-Americans and allows others to possibly to visit Cuba, but does not fully allow complete access for all Americans. This also allows Cuban-Americans to send money back to family in Cuba. This did not lift the trade embargo placed on Cuba either, yet it was a step in the right direction.

This issue actually applies directly to Bentley University in particular. A few years ago, Bentley was able to receive permission to enter Cuba for educational purposes. A group of students along with some professors were going to go to Cuba and take some international courses there. However, President Bush banned all travel to Cuba for any reason along with any type of money transfer to the country and the planned trip was cancelled.

This particular decision by the Obama administration was purely political. It does not allow free travel to Cuba, and does not remove the trade embargo. In essence, it simply gives Cuban-Americans the right to travel back to their home country and for them to send money to their own families. These basic rights should never have been taken away. It is simply designed to help Obama’s image within the immigrant populations and to separate him further from the Bush administration.

The Obama administration should use this as a stepping-stone and continue to improve U.S.-Cuba relations. Another stepping-stone could be to allow Cuban Diplomats to travel outside of Washington D.C. Currently, Cuban Diplomats are not allowed to leave the capital city. Eventually all travel restrictions should be lifted. Then, in time, the trade embargo should be removed too.

Cuba is slowly starting to become more and more capitalist. Cell phones are now allowed on the island. Part of this may be due to the fact Fidel Castro was replaced by Raul Castro. The easiest way to speed up this change is to allow Americans to enter the country. Once some American college students enter the country, Cuba will very quickly have to adapt to American culture. The easiest way to end Cuba’s communism is to immerse them with American culture. Once most Cubans begin to experience many American conveniences, communism will not last much longer. This will also greatly increase the U.S.’s “soft power” with Cuba. Cuba will also benefit in that their tourism industry will quickly become the most profitable industry in the country. It will actually have to build many more hotels in order to accommodate the large influx of tourists.

Cuba could one day become a valuable trade partner for the U.S. Since they have been missing many conveniences for many years, U.S. imports could become important to many Cubans. In addition, many U.S. agricultural lobbyists argue for an end to the trade embargo, because they hope that they can ship their products to Cuba too. Overall, the trade embargo only hurts the Cuban people and may do more harm than good in terms of trying to convince them to become democratic. It obviously has not done anything to convince Cuba to change their ways in the last 50 years. What will convince them to change in the next few years?