White House Tightens Travel Limits, Financial Squeeze on Cuba

The Bush administration Thursday pledged to further limit U.S. travel to Cuba while spending millions to promote democracy on the communist island, moving to mollify Cuban American critics who said the president risked losing exile support if he did not fulfill promises to get tougher on Fidel Castro.

The proposals to strengthen sanctions, from a report by a presidential commission headed by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, will become U.S. policy immediately, officials said.

The allocation of the money -- $59 million over the next two years to help families of dissidents and to evade jamming of U.S.-sponsored radio and television transmissions for Cubans -- does not require congressional action, officials said.

“It is a strategy that says we’re not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom, we are working for the day of freedom in Cuba,” the president said after a White House meeting with Powell and other members of the commission. He created the panel last fall amid complaints from Cuban Americans that the U.S. was letting the problem of the Cuban president fester despite Bush’s election-year promises in 2000 to take a hard line against him.

That year, Bush won the support of more than 80% of the nearly half a million Cuban Americans who voted in Florida -- a state he won by only 537 votes.

Some recent polls have indicated concern among Cuban American voters over the administration’s approach to Cuba, even as Democrats are laying aggressive plans to peel away some of Bush’s exile support.

Thursday’s announcement, coming a month after senior White House political advisor Karl Rove delivered a speech to Cuban Americans in Miami assuring them of the president’s position, showed that Bush does not intend to let Democrats exploit exiles’ complaints of administration inaction.

Specifically, the policy announced Thursday would restrict the “remittances” that Cuban Americans send to family members on the island -- specifically prohibiting money from being sent to Cuban officials and Communist Party members.

The U.S. will also restrict family visits to once every three years -- reduced from once a year -- and reduce the sum that licensed visitors are allowed to spend to $50 a day from $164. The goal, officials said, is to limit the cash that flows to Castro’s government.

The announcement drew praise, albeit tepid, from one of Bush’s most vocal exile critics.

“It’s three years into the administration, and we finally know this president’s policies on Cuba,” said Joe Garcia, executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation, an influential exile group. “We’re pleased that he’s given us some of what we’ve asked for, but he needs to implement it now.”

Thursday’s announcement brings into focus an election-year debate that could alter the course of U.S. policy on Cuba, with the major presidential candidates offering starkly different views.

On Wednesday, presumptive Democratic nominee John F. Kerry appeared on the Spanish-language TV network Univision and embraced easing travel restrictions to the island -- a position that most exile leaders consider a unilateral concession that would help Castro.

Asked by network anchor Jorge Ramos whether he thinks all Americans should be able to travel to Cuba without restrictions, Kerry said, “Yes.”

Kerry did say he would not lift the longtime embargo against the country, and took the offensive on Bush’s Cuba policy.

“He promised on Cuba that he was going to be tough on Castro, that he was going to crack down on travel, that he was going to help the dissidents,” Kerry said, according to a Univision transcript. “All of those promises have been broken.”

Cuba, however, has proved to be a touchy topic for the Massachusetts senator: He was quoted in the Boston Globe in 2000 deriding the embargo as a result of the “politics of Florida” and has struggled to craft a coherent stance.

And although Thursday’s announcement could be a turning point for Bush’s relationship with Cuban Americans, there were signs that the issue remained touchy for him as well.

Even as Powell and Roger Noriega, assistant secretary of State for Western Hemisphere affairs, gave their full blessing to the report and its recommendations, Powell’s top aide was quoted in a magazine interview this week chiding the embargo.

“Dumbest policy on the face of the Earth,” said Larry Wilkerson, Powell’s chief of staff, according to an account in the current issue of GQ. “It’s crazy.”