… and yet, travel opening presses forward

A “new” bill that removes legal barriers to all travel to Cuba (not just family-related visits) will be unveiled on Tuesday in the Senate, with a host of supporters rallying behind it. The bill has been proposed for the last two years, but died each time in Committee under the threat of presidential veto. This time, both Democratic and Republican leading Senators are backing the bill, and will be participating with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Human Rights Watch in a Capitol Hill news conference to launch it. 

As we discussed yesterday, leadership in Latin America has requested that U.S. policy toward Cuba change, and many analysts believe that the Obama administration should send a positive response on that issue to the region before the April Trinidad Summit. Lifting the embargo will certainly not be done by then (and indeed, Vice President Biden has affirmed that it is not on the administration’s to-do list), but perhaps the lifting of the travel ban will be the olive branch that Washington offers to Latin America.

The argument against such a move, documented in Jaime Suchlicki’s December 2007 Congressional testimony on the issue, addresses the potential problems with lifting the travel ban. They are:

If tourists are allowed to visit Cuba… tourists would have to obtain visas from the Cuban Interests Section in Washington; their travel would be controlled and channeled into the tourist resorts built in the island away from the major centers of population; and tourists will be screened carefully to prevent “subversive propaganda” from entering the island. 

Tourist dollars would be spent on products, i.e. rum, tobacco, etc., produced by state enterprises, and tourists would stay in hotels owned partially or wholly by the Cuban government. 

The Cuban government would be able to select which U.S. hotel chains will be allowed to invest in the island in joint ventures with the Cuban government. 

The economic impact of tourism, while providing the Castro government with much needed dollars, would be limited. Dollars will flow in small quantities to the Cuban poor; state and foreign enterprises will benefit most and a large percentage of the tourist dollars spent on the island will be sent abroad by the foreign entities operating hotels and nightclubs. 

A large influx of tourists into Cuba will have a dislocating effect on the economies of smaller Caribbean islands such as Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Bahamas, and Puerto Rico, as well as Florida; highly dependent on tourism for their well being.  Careful planning must take place, lest we create significant hardships and social problems in these countries.

These arguments, made over a year ago, are certainly still relevant, and they deserve consideration. Still, they might not be reasons to maintain the travel ban so much as reasons to make sure that the lifting of the ban is done carefully. No bill on the issue should be passed without accompanying measures that mitigate the associated risks, especially with respect to the final note on how the change might negatively impact other Caribbean islands.