U.S. Restores Commercial Flights to Cuba Cities Besides Havana, Suspends Money Transfer Limits

The U.S. will ease some restrictions imposed on Cuba during the Trump administration, including flights and money transfers.

According to Associated Press, the Biden administration, through the U.S. State Department, announced Monday that it will expand flights to Cuba, lift restrictions on remittances that immigrants can send to people on the island, and take steps to loosen restrictions on U.S. travelers to the Caribbean country.

Ned Price, a spokesperson of the State Department, said the latest move aims to support and provide Cuban people with greater economic opportunities, U.S. News & World reported.

"We continue to call on the Cuban government to immediately release political prisoners, to respect the Cuban people's fundamental freedoms and to allow the Cuban people to determine their own futures," Price added.

In a statement, the State Department said it will remove the $1,000-per-quarter limit on family remittances and will allow non-family remittances to support independent Cuban entrepreneurs. The department noted that the U.S. would also allow scheduled and charter flights to locations beyond Havana.

The State Department added that it will also move to reinstate the Cuban Family Reunification Parole Program, which has more than 20,000 applications backlog and boost consular services and visa processing.

According to Al Jazeera, officials released a few details on how the new policy would be implemented but said the steps would take effect in the coming weeks.

Officials React to U.S. Move to Ease Some Restrictions on Cuba

Several officials from the U.S. and Cuba have commented following the announcement of the Biden administration.

Cuba's foreign minister, Bruno Rodriguez, said in a statement that the decision from the U.S. does not change "the embargo" in place since 1962 and the "fraudulent" inclusion of their country on a list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Rodriguez added that it also does not change most of Trump's coercive maximum pressure measures that still affect the Cubans.

U.S. Senator Robert "Bob" Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, denounced the move of the Biden administration, BBC reported.

He said: "Those who still believe that increasing travel will breed democracy in Cuba are simply in a state of denial. For decades, the world has been traveling to Cuba and nothing has changed."

U.S. Senator Marco Rubio also criticized the move, claiming that it represented the "first steps back to the failed Obama policies on Cuba."

Former President Donald Trump's Policies on Cuba

The Trump administration implemented a number of economic sanctions on Cuba in 2016, following former President Barack Obama's move to ease the same rules.

The sanctions imposed by Donald Trump included the cancellation of permits to send remittances and the punishment of oil tankers traveling to the island.

Reports claimed that these sanctions and the pandemic contributed to an economic crisis in the country, prompting people to experience shortages of basic products, power outages, and rationing.

When he was still a presidential candidate, President Joe Biden said he would revert to the Obama-era policy that loosened decades of embargo restrictions on Havana.

This article is owned by Latin Post.

Written by: Joshua Summers

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