‘Congress cannot remain idle’ on Cuba, says Diaz-Balart
WASHINGTON, D.C. – There’s a lot to like about what has happened since Presidents Obama and Castro declared their intentions to restore diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba.
Forget that stuff the hardliners say that President Obama is the worst negotiator since Neville Chamberlain, and start by remembering what Cuba’s government agreed to do and has already done.
As a result of the December 17th agreement, the Cuban government freed 53 political prisoners. They released a spywho worked for the CIA who they’d held for nearly two decades. They agreed to joint talks on human rights and have already met with U.S. diplomats to develop a framework for those negotiations.
They’re acting on a pledge to increase Internet access and cut costs while opening hundreds of new cyber cafés that will be available to public. Direct phone service between our countries is being restored. Alan Gross is home and, as Southwest Airlines might say, he’s free to roam around our country.
And there’s more progress in the offing as diplomats on both sides work on opening embassies, exchanging ambassadors, and forging potential agreements on matters from civil aviation and telecommunications to extraditing fugitives from justice in both countries.
The Cuban people like what has happened so far. Changes in U.S. policy are already responsible for an uptick in travel by Americans to the island, generating more business for the private entrepreneurs who run the growing number of restaurants, beds-and-breakfasts, and tourism-related services, like the taxi and chauffeur company operated by our friends at Nostalgicar. An economic forecast published by Translating Cuba estimates that this new activity will produce an additional increase in Cuba’s GDP by a half-percent.
Small wonder that a Fusion/Univision poll conducted in Cuba last month found that “A near-unanimous majority — 97 percent — say that better relationship with the U.S. would benefit Cuba.”
Xinhua, the official press agency of the People’s Republic of China, thinks so too. In a news analysis it published this week, Xinhua said, “As Havana aims to normalize relations with Washington, it is inevitable for the island state to carry out political and economic reforms.”
The enthusiasm for closer relations among Cubans is matched by measurably growing interest among Americans to visit the island. Sojern, a marketing firm in San Francisco, found a 360% increase in on-line searches for Cuba travel the day after the December 17th announcement. The survey also found that online searches for travel to Cuba from the United States “shot up 184% in the first three months of this year,” compared with the same period in 2014.
Sojern’s findings are consistent with another poll released this week by YouGov and financed by Airbnb, which began offering rentals in Cuba in March. The survey, conducted April 23-24, found that thirty percent of Americans are planning or would consider a holiday to Cuba within the next two years. Among Latino Americans, the number reaches 40%.
With Airbnb open for business in Cuba, and with robust demand for existing charter services kindling a growing desire among U.S. airlines for regularly scheduled commercial routes, contact between the people of the United States and Cuba is likely to blossom.
That is precisely what U.S. religious leaders are praying for. The promise of closer relations is already being fulfilled by pastors from places like Utah, who are seeing the beginnings of a religious renaissance on the island.
The visual evidence of their pastoral work is compelling. Is it possible, however, that off-camera the Episcopal Diocese of Utah’s Bishop and ten other Episcopal Bishops also made time for “snorkeling, cigar factory tours, salsa dancing lessons, and other obvious tourist activities”?
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (FL-25) seems to think so. Diaz-Balart, who serves as chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee which funds the U.S. Transportation Department, won approval this week for provisions blocking the new flights and ferry cruises to Cuba made possible by President Obama’s reforms. We don’t expect the bill to pass both Houses of Congress, and it would likely face a presidential veto if it did.
Nonetheless, Diaz-Balart called President Obama’s lifting of restrictions on people-to-people travel “an obvious attempt to circumvent the tourism ban.” He went on to say, “allowing cruises to dock in Cuba would violate both the spirit and the letter of U.S. law.”
“Under these circumstances,” he declared, “Congress cannot remain idle.”
Yep. With so many things moving in the right direction, and with U.S. companies now eying Cuba as an export market for fertilizers, now would be just the time for Congress to shake off its lethargy and act.
God help us.
(From Cuba Central)
