New push underway to get Congress to end the Cuba blockade

[Judi Lynn]

New push underway to get Congress to end the Cuba blockade
by: Emile Schepers
June 14 2016

The Latin America Working Group based in Washington D.C is calling for a new push to get the U.S. Congress to end the blockade on trade with Cuba and the prohibition on travel by U.S. citizens to the island except for certain purposes.

Evidently, many people have the wrong idea that because President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro have met, the "Cuban five" are all back home with their families, diplomatic relations between the two countries have been restored and the U.S. has taken Cuba off its "State Sponsors of Terrorism" list that relations between the two countries are now normal.

In fact, the central element of the U.S. Cuba blockade, which consists of legislation passed by Congress that cannot be repealed by the president's executive action, is still in force. The most important items in that respect include the Toricelli Act, or Cuban Democracy Act, passed in 1992 and signed by President George W. H. Bush, and the Helms-Burton Act, or Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, passed in 1996 and signed by President Bill Clinton.

. . .

The blockade is enforced by a U.S. government agency, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which comes under the Department of the Treasury. This entity has continued to assiduously hunt down not only U.S. companies and individuals, but also ones in third countries, to block their trade with Cuba, all under the authority of the blockade legislation. This has caused a lot of friction between the United States and its allies and trading partners.

More:
http://peoplesworld.org/new-push-underway-to-get-congress-to-end-the-cuba-blockade/

[flamingdem]

1. There really isn't much more to do

until the blockade is ended.