Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has already taken heat for saying that he would meet with Cuban (among other) leaders. iNow Obama is taking a stand on the longstanding Cuban embargo.
Obama’s campaign said Monday that, if elected, the Illinois senator would lift restrictions imposed by the Bush administration and allow Cuban-Americans to visit their relatives more frequently, as well as ease limits on the amount of money they can send to their families.”Senator Obama feels that the Bush administration has made a humanitarian and a strategic blunder,” spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in an e-mail. “His concern is that this has had a profoundly negative impact on the Cuban people, making them more dependent on the Castro regime, thus isolating them from the transformative message carried by Cuban-Americans.”
Many people within the United States feel that at best, the embargo has proven useless against the government of Fidel Castro and company and at worst is actually worsening the Cuban situation and fueling the fire of hate against the U.S. in the socialist island nation. What are the current sanctions?
Most Cubans in the U.S. can only visit the island once every three years and can only send quarterly remittances of up to $300 per household to immediate family members. Previously, they could visit once a year and send up to $3,000. The U.S. also tightened restrictions on travel for educational and religious groups.
Now changing the US policy on Cuba isn’t enough to get my vote but no the other presidential candidates have sought to ease the restrictions. So one point for Obama.
Via / Yahoo
