Posted on 03/07/2009 7:48:46 PM PST by Libloather
Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold
US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo
Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
The Observer, Sunday 8 March 2009
President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.
The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of "Yankee" cooperation.
The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.
"The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome," said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added.
**SNIP**
Cuban exiles in Florida, a crucial voting bloc in a swing state, sustained a hardline US policy towards Havana even as the cold war ended and the US traded with other undemocratic nations with much worse human rights records.
To Washington's chagrin, the economic stranglehold did not topple Fidel Castro. When Soviet Union subsidies evaporated, the "maximum leader" implemented savage austerity, opened the island to tourism and found a new sponsor in Venezuela's petrol-rich president, Hugo Chávez.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
What a dangerous Commie fool Obama is.
He is guaranteeing that Florida will vote GOP in 2010 and 2012 .
The people of Havana, and elsewhere in Florida have not forgotten their families back in Cuba. They have not forgotten Elian Gonzales, either. Eric Holder, perpetuator of that miscarriage of justice, sits at the right hand of the Grand PooBama .
The Grand PooBama, the great defender of Human Rights, but when it suits his commie agenda.
“extradition of Weather Underground members.”
You’re kidding, right?
It will probably include AMNESTY for convicted cop killer Joanne Chesimard, and the rest of Obama and Bill Ayers’ BFFs residing in the Commie paradise.
I was being facetious, not exactly kidding.
Awesome. This is the best thing for Cuba and US.
Trade will liberate Cuba and piss off a minority voting bloc in South Florida.
FYI
The new Anheuser-Busch InBev has a 45% share of the Cuban market.
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