Washington (CNN) -- President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced plans to normalize diplomatic relations with Cuba
and ease economic restrictions on the nation, an historic shift he
called the end of an "outdated approach" to U.S.-Cuban relations.
Obama said he's
instructed Secretary of State John Kerry to immediately begin
discussions with Cuba to re-establish diplomatic relations, and that the
U.S. will re-open an embassy in Havana. The administration will also
allow some travel and trade that had been banned under a decades-long
embargo instated during the Kennedy administration.
"Neither the American nor
Cuban people are well-served by a rigid policy that's rooted in events
that took place before most of us were born," Obama said.
"I believe we can do more
to support the Cuban people, and promote our values, through
engagements. After all, these 50 years have shown that isolation has not
worked. It's time for a new approach."
Speaking at the same time as Obama from his own country, Cuban President Raul Castro lauded the move.
"This expression by
President Barack Obama deserves the respect and recognition by all the
people and I want to thank and recognize support from the Vatican and
especially from Pope Francis for the improvement of relations between
Cuba and the United States," he said.
Obama's announcement comes as both nations have released political prisoners in a show of goodwill, with American Alan Gross headed home
on "humanitarian" grounds from Cuba early Wednesday morning. In a
separate swap, a U.S. intelligence source held for 20 years was released
in exchange for three jailed Cuban spies.
Obama said he and Castro spoke Tuesday
in a phone call that lasted about an hour and reflected the first
communication at the presidential level with Cuba since the Cuban
revolution.
But some Republicans are
warning the move will only strengthen the Castro regime in Cuba, which
has long been accused of human rights abuses and is listed by the State
Department as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Rubio: Obama is the worst negotiator
Obama said Wednesday he has instructed Kerry, however, to review Cuba's place on the State Sponsors of Terrorism list.
Alan Gross back on U.S. soil
Wednesday's announcement
that the U.S. will move toward restoring diplomatic ties with Cuba will
also make it easier for Americans to travel to Cuba and do business
with the Cuban people by extending general licenses, officials said.
While the more liberal travel restrictions won't allow for tourism, they
will permit greater American travel to the island.
Cuban-Americans in Miami testy
While only Congress can
formally overturn the five decades-long embargo, the White House has
some authorities to liberalize trade and travel to the island. And Obama
said he plans to "engage Congress in an honest and serious
conversation" on lifting it.
Rubio: Cuban leaders are incompetent
In an effort to boost
the nascent Cuban private sector, the President will also allow expanded
commercial sales and exports of goods and services to Cuba,
particularly building materials for entrepreneurs and private
residences, and allow greater business training, as well as permit
greater communications hardware and services to go to the island.
Richardson: Prisoner release is 'huge'
Other announced changes
permit U.S. and Cuban banks to build relationships and travelers to use
credit and debit cards. U.S. travelers will be allowed to import up to
$400 worth of goods from Cuba, including $100 in alcohol and tobacco --
even Cuban cigars. Remittances by Americans to their families back in
Cuba will also be increased to approximately $2,000 per quarter.
Senior administration
officials and Cuba observers have said recent reforms on the island and
changing attitudes in the United States have created an opening for
improved relations. U.S. and Cuban officials say Washington and Havana
in recent months have increased official technical-level contacts on a
variety of issues.
While the release of
Gross drew widespread bipartisan praise, Republican lawmakers on
Wednesday criticized the overall move to thaw relations as ill-advised.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, called the easing of economic restrictions "inexplicable" in a statement.
"Appeasing the Castro
brothers will only cause other tyrants from Caracas to Tehran to
Pyongyang to see that they can take advantage of President Obama's
naiveté during his final two years in office. As a result, America will
be less safe as a result of the President's change in policy," he said.c
Rubio promised that as
incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Western
Hemisphere subcommittee he'll "make every effort to block this dangerous
and desperate attempt by the President to burnish his legacy at the
Cuban people's [sic] expense."
Administration
officials, however, stressed the moves were not being undertaken to prop
up the Castro regime, but rather to encourage further reforms on the
island.
"None of this is seen as
a reward. All of this is seen as a way of promoting change in Cuba
because everything we have done in the past has demonstrably failed,"
another senior administration official said. "This is not the U.S.
government saying Cuba has gotten so much better. It is still an
authoritarian state and we still have profound differences with this
government."
"But if we hope for
change with Cuba, we must try for a different approach. And we believe
that considerably more engagement with the Cuban people and the Cuban
government is the way to do that," the official said, adding that the
United States "will not for a moment lessen our support for improvement
in human rights."
To that end, Cuba has
agreed to release 53 political prisoners from a list of names provided
by the United States. At least one of the prisoners has already been
released. Havana has also agreed to permit significant access by its
citizens to the Internet and allow the International Committee of the
Red Cross and United Nations human rights officials back on the island
for the first time in years.
Talks between the U.S.
and Cuba have been ongoing since June of 2013 and were facilitated by
the Canadians and the Vatican in brokering the deal. Pope Francis — the
first pope from Latin America — encouraged Obama in a letter and in
their meeting this year to renew talks with Cuba on pursuing a closer
relationship.
For a President who took office promising to engage Cuba, the move could help shape Obama's foreign policy legacy.
"We are charting a new
course toward Cuba," a senior administration official said. "The
President understood the time was right to attempt a new approach, both
because of the beginnings of changes in Cuba and because of the
impediment this was causing for our regional policy."
Sen. Jeff Flake,
R-Ariz., and Rep. Chris Van Hollen, Gross' Maryland congressman,
traveled on the plane with Alan Gross and his wife, Judy, according to
government officials.
The group of members left at 4 a.m. ET Wednesday from Washington for Cuba.
Gross was arrested after
traveling under a program under the U.S. Agency for International
Development to deliver satellite phones and other communications
equipment to the island's small Jewish population.
Cuban officials charged
he was trying to foment a "Cuban Spring." In 2011, he was convicted and
sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempting to set up an Internet
network for Cuban dissidents "to promote destabilizing activities and
subvert constitutional order."
Gross' lawyer, Scott
Gilbert, told CNN last month the years of confinement have taken their
toll on his client. Gross has lost more than 100 pounds and is losing
his teeth. His hips are so weak that he can barely walk and he has lost
vision in one eye. He has also undertaken hunger strikes and threatened
to take his own life.
With Gross' health in
decline, a bipartisan group of 66 senators wrote Obama a letter in
November 2013 urging him to "act expeditiously to take whatever steps
are in the national interest to obtain [Gross's] release."
The three Cubans
released as a part of the deal belonged the so-called Cuban Five, a
quintet of Cuban intelligence officers convicted in 2001 for espionage.
They were part of what was called the Wasp Network, which collected
intelligence on prominent Cuban-American exile leaders and U.S. military
bases.
The leader of the five,
Gerardo Hernandez, was linked to the February 1996 downing of the two
civilian planes operated by the U.S.-based dissident group Brothers to
the Rescue, in which four men died. He is serving a two life sentences.
Luis Medina, also known as Ramon Labanino; and Antonio Guerrero have
just a few years left on their sentences.
The remaining two — Rene
Gonzalez and Fernando Gonzalez — were released after serving most of
their 15-year sentences and have already returned to Cuba, where they
were hailed as heroes.
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