White House assures senators: Budget bill won't force changes to U.S. policy toward Cuba

March 10, 2009

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson won assurances from the White House that it will not lift long-standing restrictions on imports into Cuba, despite provisions in a Senate budget bill that broached the possibility.

“As you know, the Obama administration had nothing to do with these or any other provisions of that bill,” Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner wrote in a letter to Nelson and Sen. Bob Menendez, who along with Nelson was concerned that the Cuba provisions would ease the U.S. embargo against the country.

“On the basis of these letters, and on the personal assurances provided by the Secretary of the Treasury, I have been assured by the administration as to the implications and enforcement of these regulations,” said Nelson in prepared remarks to the Senate.

The Cuba provision the lawmakers cited as the source of most of their concern would seem to lift restrictions on financing imports of U.S. food and medicine into Cuba, which would reverse rules by President George W. Bush requiring "cash-in-advance" payment. 

“Exporters will still be required to receive payment in advance of shipment and will not be permitted to export to Cuba other than through third-party banks,” Geithner wrote in his letter to the two lawmakers.

Another provision would make it easier to travel to Cuba under the guise of selling food and medicine in the country.  Geithner wrote in the letter that such travel would be limited, writing that only a “narrow class of businesses would be eligible, under a new general license, to travel to Cuba to market and sell agricultural and medical goods.”

A third provision in the budget bill pertaining to Cuba would restore travel rules permitting Cuban-Americans to visit relatives in Cuba once every 12 months.  The Bush administration imposed rules in 2004 that limited travel to just two weeks every three years and confined visits to immediate family members.

The latest movement toward freer travel to Cuba is an offshoot of President Barack Obama's campaign promise to allow Cuban-Americans to visit their families on the island more frequently. Obama is expected to allow Cuban Americans to visit more often, but he has yet to move on the campaign promise.

Nelson said he supports efforts to allow annual visits to relatives on the island. 

“While there has been disagreement within this body in the past over the most effective way for the U.S. to help the Cuban people, I believe that if there is to be a new strategy towards Cuba then it must come from our Commander-in-Chief, not from the tinkering of a few lawmakers inserting language in a must-pass appropriations bill without any opportunity for debate,” according to Nelson’s prepared remarks.

Letters -- Cuba Provisions in Omnibus Letters with Treasury

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