Word: embargoes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...long ago, Ricardo Herrero was one of Miami's Cuban-American hard-liners, an ardent supporter of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as well as the ban on U.S. travel to the communist island. But a half-dozen trips to Cuba during this decade have changed his mind about the latter. "There are no better ambassadors of American culture and American democracy than Americans themselves," says Herrero, 31. Many fellow Cuban Americans who've traveled there, he adds, have come to the same conclusion: they "always come back saying it was a completely eye-opening experience" and have "changed...
...reason is that while Cuban-American voters may still favor the trade embargo - though recent polls indicate support for that is fading fast, too, especially as more young Cuban Americans and recently arrived Cuban immigrants register to vote - they no longer see the travel ban as an inseparable component. In fact, they see lifting the ban as a way to throw a bigger ball into Havana's court, one that might oblige current Cuban President Raul Castro, Fidel's younger brother, to release more jailed dissidents or make other reform gestures...
...Like Azel, the Cuban-American delegation in Congress remains unmoved. For them, the travel ban, like the embargo, remains a valid foreign policy tool that denies resources to the Castros. "If we want to give the regime a lot of money to relieve the pressure, then we could have all the travelers in the world sitting in hotels smoking cigars or drinking Cuba libres," says Democratic New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez, who calls that rum-and-Coke drink "an oxymoron." He insists that lifting the travel ban will do nothing to "create democracy or respect for human rights...
...Freedom House, the D.C.-based Cuba Study Group and the Brookings Institute. The White House, careful not to alienate Menendez when it needs every Democratic vote on issues like health care reform, has yet to throw its support behind the bill. But despite Obama's backing of the trade embargo, many observers believe it will be hard for him not to sign a lifting of the travel ban given his own stated policy preference for engaging Cuba...
President Obama has pledged to thaw U.S.-Cuba affairs as a way to promote democracy on the island. Though he favors keeping intact the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, he eliminated restrictions on travel to Cuba for Cuban-American families, and his Administration is now in talks with Havana about improving immigration and postal service between the two countries. Erikson says the concert by Juanes, who lives in Miami, was a reminder of the "soft power tool kit" the U.S. should wield more often. "Obama needs to bring more of that kind of cultural diplomacy back into...