If The US Thinks Cuba Is Too Dangerous For Diplomats, Why Did It Just Ease Its Travel Advisory For T [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

If The US Thinks Cuba Is Too Dangerous For Diplomats, Why Did It Just Ease Its Travel Advisory For The Island?
The State Department eased the level of its travel advisory to Cuba from “3” to “2,” putting it in the same category as France, Germany, and Spain.

Emily Tamkin
BuzzFeed News Reporter

Reporting From
Washington, DC

Posted on August 24, 2018, at 5:33 p.m. ET

The US State Department this week revised its advisory for travel to Cuba from Level 3 — reconsider travel — to Level 2 — exercise increased caution, raising a question: If the state of things in Cuba is good enough for Americans to travel there, why is it still bad enough to warrant a diplomatic rollback?

The change in the advisory, issued Thursday, is a partial reversal of last year’s warning to Americans not to travel to Cuba, and some involved in tourism hope it will reverse a decline in American visitors too — the Cuban Tourism Ministry’s commercial director, Michel Bernal, said in April that the number of US visitors in 2018 is only 56.6% of what it was in 2017.

But the change does nothing to bolster the US diplomatic presence in Cuba. President Donald Trump froze what had been warming relations under Barack Obama after diplomats were struck en masse by a still-unexplained illness initially blamed on “sonic attacks.” The US slashed its staff in Havana by around two-thirds, forbade US diplomatic families from moving there, and kicked 17 Cuban diplomats out of the United States. The president also banned US citizens from doing business with entities linked to the Cuban military and intelligence and security services.

But the allegation of “sonic attacks” was contentious, with many scientists scoffing at the idea. Earlier this month, 10 scientists published letters in the Journal of the American Medical Association criticizing the first medical review of the affected US diplomats in Cuba.

More:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emilytamkin/the-us-is-no-longer-telling-americans-not-to-travel-to-cuba

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