U.S.–Cuban Relations in the 21st Century: Summary of Recommendations

Summary of Recommendations and Recommendations

Independent Task Force Report
U.S.–Cuban Relations in the 21st Century

January 1999

Summary

Our recommendations come in five baskets. Under “The Cuban American Community,” we make proposals to increase contacts between Cuban Americans and their friends and families on the island. Under “The Open Door,” we propose additional measures to increase contacts between U.S. and Cuban citizens and to open the windows and doors to the world that the current Cuban regime has nailed shut. Under “Humanitarian Aid,” the third basket, we offer proposals to assist the victims of the Cuban regime, including both Cuban Americans and people still on the island. Our fourth basket, “The Private Sector,” sets forth criteria for a gradual introduction of U.S. economic activities in Cuba to support the recommendations in the first three baskets of proposals. A fifth basket of “National Interest” recommendations makes specific proposals for addressing particular problems that involve U.S. national interests. In general, most of these changes can be initiated unilaterally by the United States and will not require bilateral negotiations with the Cuban regime. The Task Force proposals go well beyond current administration policy with respect to people–to–people contact and humanitarian aid. However, in the case of the private–sector recommendations, the full implementation of these proposals requires changes in Cuban policy and law.

Some of us would propose more sweeping changes, such as unilaterally lifting the embargo and all travel restrictions; others vehemently oppose this step. We do not dismiss these debates, but we chose in this report not to engage in them. U.S. policy must build a bipartisan consensus to be effective. Therefore, we have consciously sought new common ground.

Recommendations

Basket One: The Cuban American Community

Cuban American remittances to friends, families, and churches in Cuba are estimated by various sources at between $400 million and $800 million annually. However measured, this is the island’s largest single source of hard currency. While it is perfectly normal for developing countries to receive remittances, in the Cuban political context, the dependence on U.S. dollars sent home by Cuban Americans is a humiliating badge of failure. Cuba has become a charity case, dependent on handouts from those it has persecuted, oppressed, or driven away by poverty.

Some voices in the United States argue that, by enhancing hard–currency holdings in Cuba, remittances prop up the current regime and prolong the island’s agony. This argument is not without merit, but, on balance, we disagree. First, we share a basic moral and humanitarian concern over easing the suffering of Cuba’s people. Moreover, the success of the Cuban American community is one of the most powerful factors in promoting change in Cuba. The transfers of money, goods, and medical supplies from Cuban Americans to friends, family, and religious communities in Cuba are helping create a new group of Cubans who no longer depend on the state for their means of survival.

Remittances from Cuban Americans help create small businesses in Cuba and allow hundreds of thousands of Cubans to improve their lives independent of government control. Furthermore, Cuban Americans will play an important role in the construction of a postcommunist Cuba. Their national and global contacts, understanding of market economies, and professional skills will give them a vital role as a bridge between the United States and Cuba when Cuba rejoins the democratic community.

Cuban American Community Recommendations

End Restrictions on Humanitarian Visits. We recommend an end to all restrictions on the number of humanitarian visits that Cuban Americans are permitted to make each year. The federal government should not be the judge of how often Cuban Americans, or any other Americans, need to visit relatives living abroad.
Raise the Ceiling on Remittances. Under current regulations, only Cuban Americans are permitted to send up to $1,200 per year to family members on the island. We recommend that the ceiling on annual remittances be increased to $10,000 per household and that all U.S. residents with family members living in Cuba should be permitted to send remittances to their family members at this level on a trial basis for 18 months. This policy should continue if the executive, in consultation with Congress, concludes at the trial period’s end that the Cuban regime has not enacted tax or other regulatory policies to siphon off a significant portion of these funds, and that this policy furthers the foreign policy interests of the United States.
Allow Retirement to Cuba for Cuban Americans. We recommend that retired and/or disabled Cuban Americans be allowed to return to Cuba if they choose, collecting Social Security and other pension benefits to which they are entitled in the United States, and be granted corresponding banking facilities.
Promote Family Reunification. Many members of the Cuban American community are concerned about the difficulty their family members in Cuba encounter in getting U.S. visas for family visits. While commending the efforts of the overworked consular staff in Havana, we believe it is important that Cuban Americans receive and be seen to receive fair and courteous treatment. We recommend that the State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) make every effort in processing requests at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana to insure that Cuban citizens wishing to visit family members in the United States face no higher hurdle in obtaining visas than that faced by family members in other countries wishing to visit relatives in this country. We recommend that State Department and INS officials meet regularly with representatives of the Cuban American community to discuss ways to expedite the determination of eligibility for family visits to the United States. Later in this report, we recommend an expansion of U.S. consular services in Cuba.
Restore Direct Mail Service. The 1992 Cuban Democracy Act grants the president the authority to authorize direct mail service between the United States and Cuba. We recommend that representatives of the U.S. and Cuban postal services meet to begin restoring direct mail service between the two countries.

Basket Two: The Open Door

Since the passage of the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, U.S. law has recognized that spreading accurate and fair information about the outside world in Cuba is an important goal of American foreign policy. The lack of information about events in Cuba has also enabled the Cuban regime to persecute its own people with little fear that foreigners will come to their support—or, in some cases, even know what the Cuban government is doing. Whether through Radio Mart’, restoring direct telephone service, or promoting cultural and academic exchanges, the United States has consistently sought to increase the access of Cubans to news and information from abroad.

We believe the time has come to significantly upgrade and intensify these efforts. The Cuban people are hungry for American and world culture, for contacts with scholars and artists from other countries, for opportunities to study abroad, for new ideas and fresh perspectives. U.S. policy should encourage these exchanges and encounters through every available measure.

Open Door Recommendations

Facilitate Targeted Travel. Despite bureaucratic obstacles erected by both governments, the exchange of ideas remains one of the most promising areas for genuinely fruitful people–to– people contact. Since 1995, the United States has significantly cut the red tape surrounding academic exchanges. We commend that trend and urge the further reduction of restrictions on academic (undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate) and other exchanges. We recommend that, following a one–time application, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) grant a “permanent specific license” to all Americans with a demonstrable professional or other serious interest in traveling to Cuba for the purpose of engaging in academic, scientific, environmental, health, cultural, athletic, religious, or other activities. The presumption would be that these applications would normally and routinely receive approval. ₁

In 1994, Congress passed a Sense of Congress resolution stating that “the president should not restrict travel or exchanges for informational, educational, religious, cultural or humanitarian purposes or for public performances or exhibitions between the United States and any other country.” At the same time, congressional policy toward Cuba has increasingly focused on opening opportunities for meaningful encounters between American and Cuban citizens. Thus, we recommend that the OFAC grant easily renewable multiple–entry special licenses to travel agencies and nongovernmental organizations for structured travel programs available to groups and individuals for the purposes enumerated by Congress. Individual participants in such travel would visit Cuba under the organizing agency’s license.

This recommendation is formulated to facilitate a more open relationship between Cubans and Americans, not to support a Cuban tourism industry currently built on a system that prevents foreign employers from hiring and paying workers fairly and directly and denies Cuban citizens access to facilities designated exclusively for foreigners. When and if employers are able to hire and pay their workers directly, and when the system of “apartheid tourism” ends, we recommend that the United States consider permitting leisure travel.
Allow More Private Visits of Certain Cuban Officials to the United States. The United States currently denies visas for travel to the United States by Cuban officials who rank at the ministerial level and by the 500 deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power. Because of the positions they now hold and may assume in the future, many such individuals are among those we believe should have the opportunity to interact with Americans, to experience our system directly, and to witness the vigor and openness of our own public policy debate. We recommend that the United States lift its blanket ban on travel to the United States by deputies of the National Assembly and Cuban cabinet ministers, exercising a presumption of approval for applications from these officials for travel to the United States, except for those identified by the State Department who are credibly believed to have directly and personally participated in or ordered grave acts of repression that violate international law, or who represent a legitimate security concern to the United States. In making this recommendation we seek to encourage nongovernmental and private contacts such as those sponsored by U.S. academic institutions. We recognize that this recommendation risks greater penetration of the United States by Cuban intelligence agencies. We have confidence in the ability of U.S. national security agencies to guard against this threat, and we believe that the gains far outweigh the risks. Nevertheless, this danger must be carefully watched and adjustments in this policy calibrated accordingly.
Facilitate Cultural Collaboration and Performances by Americans in Cuba and by Cubans in the United States. Since the passage of the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act, there has been a significant increase in the number of Cuban artists, actors, and musicians traveling to the United States. Unfortunately, fewer U.S. performers have traveled to Cuba. These exchanges and activities are vital to any strategy to end the cultural isolation of the Cuban people. Through simplified visa and license procedures and other mechanisms, the U.S. government should encourage an increase in these programs. We applaud efforts to date to support such initiatives and recommend further that the United States encourage collaboration between American and Cuban artists and allow transactions for the creation of new cultural and/or artistic products. Cuban artists performing in the United States today are allowed to receive only modest per diem payments to cover living expenses. We recommend that Cuban artists performing in the United States be allowed to receive freely negotiated fees from their American hosts. Similarly, American artists performing in Cuba should be eligible to be paid for their work at reasonable negotiated rates.
Protect and Share Intellectual Property. Currently, Cuba systematically pirates significant amounts of U.S. cultural and intellectual property, ranging from Hollywood movies broadcast on Cuban television to computer software used throughout the island. Cuba refuses to consider paying for this illegal use of intellectual property, citing the U.S. embargo as an excuse. This creates an awkward situation for the United States. On the one hand, our interest in opening Cuba to outside influences leads us to encourage and even facilitate Cuba’s access to U.S. and other foreign films, cultural materials, and political and economic literature. On the other hand, the U.S. government cannot condone theft from U.S. citizens and corporations. Furthermore, we must ensure that Cuba does not become an international center for the illegal production and redistribution of pirated intellectual property. We therefore propose that the United States allow and encourage U.S. companies and artists to guarantee and protect their trademarks and copyrights and to negotiate permission for Cuba to use their products. We recommend that the U.S. government license and approve these transactions and authorize companies to spend funds obtained through these settlements for filming, recording, translation, or other legitimate cultural activities in Cuba. Likewise, we encourage both governments to regularize and comply with domestic and international trademark and copyright protection regimes.
Pioneer “Windows on the World.” Successful transitions to multiparty systems and market and mixed market economies in Eastern Europe, Spain, Portugal, and Latin America may offer constructive guideposts to help Cuba’s transition occur in as benign a manner as possible. To that end, the United States should pioneer the creation of a merit– based program for Cubans to study in American universities and technical training institutes. The program should also include sending professionals with technical expertise to advise Cuba in the development of institutional mechanisms that support the emergence of small businesses and private farms. In addition, we recommend that the United States Information Agency (USIA) invite Cuban government officials (except those excluded as defined in Basket Two, Item Two) and scholars for its programs that bring foreign citizens to meet with their peers in and out of government in the United States.

We further recommend that funds be made available from various public and independent sources, such as the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for Humanities, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Fulbright scholarship program, and from private foundations for university and other programs to support national, regional, and bilateral research activities involving Cuba. This includes support for new acquisitions by Cuban libraries. In addition, we recommend that the United States encourage and facilitate direct funding of in–country activities by private foundations so that their grant–making activities can include direct support to Cuban research institutions and community organizations. We recommend that the U.S. government consult with foundation officers and others with expertise in this field to determine a fair and feasible approach. We note with concern that some academic and other nongovernmental institutions, citing pressure from the Cuban government, have barred Cuban Americans from participating in existing exchange programs. Discrimination based on ethnicity or place of origin is a violation of U.S. civil rights laws. All organizations participating in exchanges or other activities with Cuba should state clearly that in compliance with U.S. law, they will not discriminate against participants based on age, race, gender, or national origin.
Permit Direct Commercial Flights. We recommend that the OFAC authorize and license direct commercial flights to Cuba. Current regulations authorize daily direct charter flights between Miami and Havana. It is not in the U.S. national interest that non– U.S. carriers capture the entire market of expanding travel to and from Cuba. We therefore recommend that American commercial airlines begin to open routes to Havana and perhaps other Cuban cities not only from Miami but from other major cities and hubs. We recommend also that the United States and Cuba negotiate a civil aviation agreement to this end.
Amend Spending Limits. Current regulations limit licensed travelers to Cuba to spending no more than $100 per day, plus transportation and expenses for the acquisition of informational materials, including artwork. We recommend that the OFAC impose this limit only on spending in state–owned enterprises and joint ventures.
Expand Diplomatic and Consular Services. The recommendations in this report will greatly increase demands on the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba. Current U.S. consular services in Cuba should not be limited to Havana. We recommend that the United States open a subsection of its Havana consular office in Santiago de Cuba, a step that will also increase our ability to fill the quota of 5,000 slots available for Cuban political refugees each year. We recommend that the United States negotiate a reciprocal agreement with Cuba that will allow each country to expand its consular services to accommodate increased contact between citizens of both countries.
Demand Reciprocity in Limitations on Activities by U.S. and Cuban Diplomats. At present, an imbalance exists wherein American diplomats in Havana are denied access to government offices, the courts, the National Assembly, the University, and virtually all official Cuban facilities other than the Ministry of Foreign Relations. The same is not the case in Washington, where Cuban diplomats freely walk the halls of Congress, meet with elected representatives, speak at universities, and otherwise have access to a fairly wide range of American governmental and nongovernmental representatives. We recommend that the United States and Cuba discuss a reciprocal widening of the areas of permitted activities for diplomats in both countries.

Basket Three: Humanitarian Aid

The 1992 Cuban Democracy Act established regulations addressing the humanitarian needs of the Cuban population. Since then, the economic crisis has worsened. This basket of recommendations includes humanitarian measures that will help relieve the suffering of the Cuban people today while building the basis for a better relationship between Cuba and the United States in the future.

Humanitarian Aid Recommendations

Institute “Cash and Carry” for Foods and Medicines. We applaud the intention behind recent efforts in the Congress and the executive branch to facilitate the increased delivery of humanitarian aid to Cuba. Recognizing that a consensus is emerging to extend humanitarian aid to benefit the Cuban people directly, we recommend that the president accelerate and facilitate this process by eliminating all licensing with respect to donation and sales of food, medicines, and medical products to nongovernmental and humanitarian institutions such as hospitals, which are nominally state–run but are not primarily instruments of repression, while authorizing all necessary financial transactions for cash payments on a noncredit basis. We recommend that the State Department issue a specific list of repressive institutions that are to be excluded as potential aid recipients or buyers.3 To further facilitate donations and sales of food, medicines, and medical products, we recommend that the United States issue licenses to U.S. private voluntary and religious organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and businesses to operate distribution centers in Cuba.
Promote People–to–People Aid. We support American engagement with a wide range of civil institutions, particularly those in the private sector; e.g., the emerging church–run medical clinics and humanitarian institutions such as hospitals, which are nominally state–run but are not primarily instruments of repression. With the support and encouragement of the Congress, the administration has significantly widened the opening for Americans to launch humanitarian, people–to–people programs in Cuba. We encourage American local governments and nongovernmental organizations to “adopt” their Cuban counterparts, whether through church, hospital, school, environmental, or university programs. The United States should eliminate the need for licenses for humanitarian donations and shipments, including material aid and cash, and should grant a general license for related travel. We recommend that the United States impose no limit on the amount of material donations under such programs, while requiring a license for cash donations above $10,000 per year by any one American institution to its Cuban counterpart—with the exception of private foundations, for which we recommend waiving that limit and permitting the grant–making bodies to use their own institutional criteria to determine in–country funding limits. In the same spirit as that which underlies the Basket One recommendation regarding family remittances, we recommend the United States permit American families to adopt and send remittances to Cuban families of up to $10,000 per year.
Allow Cuban Americans to Claim Relatives as Dependents. Currently American citizens with dependent relatives living in Canada and Mexico can claim them as dependents for federal income tax purposes if they meet the other relevant IRS requirements. We recommend an amendment to U.S. tax laws so that American taxpayers with dependents who are residents of Cuba can also claim this deduction.
Provide Benefits for Families of Prisoners of Conscience. Under current law, the president may extend humanitarian assistance to victims of political repression and their families in Cuba. We recommend that the United States encourage our European and Latin American allies to join with us to provide support and assistance to family members who, because of their imprisoned relatives’ peaceful political activities, may find themselves denied access to jobs by Cuban authorities or who have lost the wages of an imprisoned spouse or parent. If it is not possible to deliver the funds to affected families in Cuba today, we recommend that the funds be paid into interest–bearing accounts in the United States and elsewhere, free of all tax, to accumulate until such time as the intended recipients can collect.

Basket Four: The Private Sector

Private–sector, for–profit business activity in Cuba by U.S. individuals and corporations raises a number of difficult issues. To take one example, Cuban labor laws currently require foreign investors to contract Cuban workers indirectly through the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, a violation of internationally recognized labor rights. While there are some minor exceptions to the rule, the overall result of these requirements is that the foreign investor pays several hundred dollars per month per worker, but the worker receives no more than a few dollars per month. By allowing the Cuban state to control which Cubans have access to coveted jobs with foreign investors, the system reinforces the Cuban regime’s control over the lives of the Cuban people.

Until a complete settlement of the claims resulting from nationalization of private property in Cuba is reached, U.S. investors in Cuba could conceivably end up buying or profiting from nationalized property and find their titles or earnings challenged under international law by the original owners. Many trademark and other intellectual property problems involve the two countries. Cuba’s insistence that most foreign investment take the form of joint ventures in which the Cuban government often retains a controlling interest is another serious problem, as is the incompatibility of Cuba’s legal and financial arrangements with U.S. trade policy.

In formulating our recommendations about private U.S. business in Cuba, we once again try to walk a middle way. These recommendations open a door for Cuba progressively to escape some of the consequences of the embargo—to the extent that the Cuban government gives Cubans the right to own and operate their own enterprises, allows foreign companies to hire Cubans directly, and begins to respect basic internationally recognized labor rights. The recommendations will make clear to the Cuban people (as well as to other countries) that the chief obstacle to Cuba’s economic progress is not U.S. policy but the Cuban government’s hostility toward private property and independent business, its control of the economy and investment, its persistent appropriation of the lion’s share of the wages of working Cubans, and its unwillingness to allow companies to pay fair wages to their employees or permit them to engage in free collective bargaining.

Private Sector Recommendations

Begin Licensing Some American Business Activity. We recommend that four limited categories of American businesses receive licenses to operate in Cuba. The first category—already eligible for licensing—can generally be described as newsgathering or the procurement of informational material. The second category relates to supporting licensed travel, including transportation to and from Cuba and services to assist the private sector, such as paladares and bed and breakfasts, in capturing the business resulting from increased licensed travel. (Examples of this type of business are guides and Internet registries that provide information for foreign visitors about private restaurants, bed and breakfasts, car services, and other private services available in Cuba.) The third category includes activities related to distribution of humanitarian aid and sales. In the fourth category are businesses that facilitate activities related to culture, including the production of new cultural materials, the purchase and sale of artworks and other cultural materials, and the verification of Cuban adherence to intellectual property rights agreements. These four categories, in our judgment, provide such clear benefits that we recommend the U.S. government begin licensing private businesses to operate in all these fields, each of which involves primarily activities that support objectives clearly specified in U.S. law. The U.S. government should routinely license business operations in Cuba restricted to these four areas and allow the transactions and support services necessary to conduct them.
Condition Additional American Business Activity. Beyond these limited areas, a number of groups have looked at how to structure U.S. business relations in Cuba without reinforcing the status quo. One of the best known is a set of guidelines known as the Arcos Principles. Drawing from these and similar efforts such as the Sullivan Principles in South Africa and the MacBride Principles in Northern Ireland, we recommend that American businesses demonstrate that they can satisfy three core conditions before being licensed to invest in Cuba for activities beyond the four specified above: the ability to hire and pay Cuban workers directly and not through a government agency; a pledge by the company to respect workers’ internationally recognized rights of free association; and a pledge by the company not to discriminate against Cuban citizens in the provision of goods and services. (The final condition is designed to counter the practice of “tourism apartheid” in which certain foreign–owned and –operated facilities do not allow Cuban citizens to use their facilities, even when they have the money to pay.) We would also encourage U.S. investors—indeed, all foreign investors in Cuba—to provide reading rooms, classes, Internet access, and other on–site facilities so that their employees can enjoy wider access to the world. If Cuba should change its labor laws to make compliance with these principles easier, it would then become much easier for U.S. companies to invest. For a specific business license to be approved, however, it is enough for a particular company to demonstrate that it can satisfy the three criteria listed above.

If and when Cuban law is changed to facilitate compliance with the core principles outlined above, or if Cuban authorities begin to grant exemptions and waivers on a routine basis, we would recommend that Congress and the executive consider broader application of such licensing. In all cases, licensing a business to operate under these provisions would in no way reduce the risk of incurring Helms–Burton penalties for trafficking in confiscated property.

Basket Five: The National Interest

National Interest Recommendations

Conduct Military–to–Military Confidence–Building Measures. Both Presidents Bush and Clinton have stated that the United States has no aggressive intentions toward Cuba, and the Pentagon has concluded that Cuba poses no significant national security threat to the United States. We believe, therefore, that it is in our national interest to promote greater ties and cooperation with the Cuban military. We believe the more confident the Cuban military is that the United States will not take military advantage of a political or economic opening, the more likely it is that elements of the Cuban Armed Forces will tolerate or support such an opening and the less justifiable it will be to divert public resources from social needs to maintaining a defense force far beyond the legitimate needs of the nation. We believe this process should proceed on a step–by–step basis with many of the initial contacts through civilian agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental. We also believe it would be useful for the United States to encourage an opening of relations between militaries in other nations that have carried out successful transitions from communist regimes to democratic societies, such as those in Eastern Europe and, where appropriate, in Latin America. We also recommend that the Pentagon and State Department initiate conversations with the Cuban Armed Forces and others to reduce tensions, promote mutual confidence–building measures, and lay the basis for the improvement of relations in the future should Cuba move toward a democratic transition.
Probe Areas for Counternarcotics Cooperation. Cuba sits at the center of a substantial drug trade in the Caribbean Basin. Its neighbor to the east, Haiti, has recently emerged as a major port for cocaine transit from South America to the United States. Despite the outstanding indictments against some Cuban officials for alleged drug trafficking, the Cuban state has both the geographical and the institutional resources to help America fight the war on drugs if the Cuban regime chooses to do so. In recent years, the United States and Cuba have cooperated on a limited case–by–case basis in counternarcotics efforts in the Caribbean Basin. We recommend that the appropriate U.S. government agencies test Cuba’s willingness to take serious steps to demonstrate its good faith in furthering cooperation in the counternarcotics arena, while protecting the confidentiality of U.S. intelligence sources and methods. We note that Cuba still harbors individuals indicted in the United States on serious drug trafficking charges. Clearly, limited cooperation in this area will depend on a demonstrated willingness by the Cuban government to address this issue seriously.
Institute Routine Executive Branch Consultations with Congress and Others on Cuba Policy. We recommend continued and enhanced bipartisan consultations by the executive branch with Congress and with a broad range of leaders representing political, social, and economic groups in the Cuban American, humanitarian, religious, academic, and cultural communities. As we have seen in U.S. policy toward Central America, and throughout most of the post–Cold War era, a bipartisan consensus between Congress and the executive is a precondition for sustaining a long–term, successful U.S. foreign policy initiative.
Form a Working Group on the 21st Century. When people in both the United States and Cuba talk about the future relationship between the two countries, they often speak of the “normalization of relations.” In fact, the United States and Cuba have not had “normal” relations since the United States intervened to end Spanish rule in 1898. Since the current Cuban regime came to power in 1959, it has employed a formidable propaganda machine to cloak Cuban nationalism in a banner of anti–American rhetoric. Cuban schoolchildren are taught to view the Cuban revolution as the only legitimate guarantor of national sovereignty and to regard the United States as a constant threat to Cuba’s independence. However opposed the United States has been and remains to the present Cuban government, the American people have no interest in intruding upon Cuba’s sovereignty, independence, or national identity. As Cuba inaugurates its second century of independence, we recommend that the Council on Foreign Relations or another similar private institution convene a binational working group of scholars, policy analysts, and others to begin working out an agenda for a new relationship between the United States and Cuba in the 21st century, analyzing a range of complex bilateral and regional issues, including the resolution of outstanding property claims; the status of the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay; the implications for the Western Hemisphere of the restoration of a Cuban sugar quota; the impact on the Caribbean economy of resuming normal bilateral trade relations; Cuban participation in the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI) and the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA); prospects for Cuba’s reentry into the Organization of American States (OAS); and the integration of Cuba into the international financial system.

Follow–up Steps

These proposals represent a beginning of what we hope will become a growing bipartisan policy toward Cuba. We believe that responsible officials and interested individuals and groups should monitor the effect of these recommendations, should they be implemented, and after a reasonable period of time assess whether changes, modifications, and additional steps are warranted.

Endnotes

Note 1: Current regulations require all individuals wishing to travel to Cuba (with the exception of journalists who may travel without government preclearance under a “general license”) Back.