A few points. Firstly, this is not a political blog, this is a travel blog. I will not be delving into the political situation surrounding the Cuban Embargo. Secondly, I will disclose that my mother is a Cuban national, born there prior to the ‘59 revolution, and who left shortly thereafter. I intend to be as unbiased as possible, however, those are the facts.
One of the most famous stories surrounding Cuban-American relations comes from the Oval Office itself. As it became clear that Castro was a Marxist, and the political situation across the straits of Florida degraded, President Kennedy called his advisor Pierre Salinger into his office, and ordered him to scour Washington D.C. for his favorite cigars. Shortly thereafter, Salinger reported that he had found the cigars. President Kennedy opened his desk drawer, and signed the presidential order establishing the embargo on Cuban products.
It is important to differentiate between the trade embargo and the travel ban. The trade embargo bans all American citizens from purchasing Cuban products (with very few exceptions), even abroad. So, if you cross into Canada, buy a Cuban cigar, and smoke it in Canada, you have broken the law. The law is administered by Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC), a division of the Treasury Department.
The travel ban is just that, forbidding Americans from travelling to Cuba, unless they fall under a general license, or are granted a specific license. The pretense of the travel ban is that no one can go to Cuba without aiding the Cuban economy, which is the purpose of the trade embargo. Even if you bought nothing, you would be required to pay a departure tax upon leaving Jose Martí Airport.
So, that brings us to a few questions:
Is the travel ban effective?
Well, yes. American citizens in large numbers do not go to Cuba because of it. Historically, Cuba was a primary travel destination for Americans before 1959. It was very close, yet provided a European flair (Havana is the most populous city in the Caribbean by far). In fact, travel posters used the slogan “So near, yet so foreign.” However, the idea of the travel ban was to stop money from flowing into Cuba. Of course, we’re the only country doing it. This is as if you decided you would boycott Starbucks in Seattle. That might be all well and fine, but everyone else would still go there.
Cuba is a popular European tourist destination. All of the major European air carriers fly there, and Cubana de Aviacíon, the Cuban national carrier, flies to Europe, Latin America, Canada and other places. Travel and tourism continues unabated there.
Should the travel ban end?
This is the difficult question. On one hand, is it a good idea to support, with American dollars, a regime that has a very spotty human rights record, and the most political prisoners in all of Latin America (including Venezuela, and Honduras, where there was just a coup d’etat)? Maybe not so much.
However, this policy is a bit on the hypocritical side, since there are no restrictions on travel to Sudan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Libya, Algeria, Pakistan, or Afghanistan. Now, some of those places, like Iran and North Korea, will be difficult to get into, because of visa issues, but arriving at JFK with a DPRK visa in your passport will get you at most some questioning about your purpose there and your take on North Korean Kimchi. No fine, no jail, nothing but a hourlong wait while JFK loses your bags. On the other hand, a Cuban entry stamp puts you afoul of the law in the United States. This seems a bit unbalanced. The US obviously has no more interest in supporting the North Korean regime than the Cuban regime, so why the inequality?
What would happen if a flood of American tourists suddenly descended on Havana? Would the government be forced to adopt market-based reforms to deal with the influx of tourism? Would the simple conversations that would take place between the average Cuban and the average American on the Malecón lead to Cubans asking for democratic reforms? Or would Varadero and Marianao become overrun with weekend getaway power couples with iPhones?
What’s going on right now?
The movement to drop the travel ban is gathering steam. The House Committee on Foreign Relations has scheduled a hearing, and the bill to end it has about 180 co-sponsors in the House, just 38 short of that necessary to pass the bill. The bill has a fair amount of co-sponsors on both sides of the aisle. However, opposition from South-Florida members of Congress is strong. And because of the LIBERTAD, or Helms-Burton Law, the President does not have the power to drop the travel ban nor the embargo, this must be done by Congress.
My opinion…
The travel ban should be rescinded. My family suffered at the hands of the Castro regime in its early days and was driven away from their home. This is fact. However, they have also suffered knowing that they are cut off from the country where they were born. The country where they buried their relatives. And this is true of all the Cubans that came after ‘59. That’s the one image, above all others, that I think of when I think of the travel ban. The number of unattended gravesites in Cuba, because those relatives had to leave. If for no other reason than that, the US Policy should be changed to reflect the freedom we have to travel to every other country.
-DD
