U.S. Lawmakers Seek to Change Cuba Travel and Shipping Rules

By Patricia Zengerle and Matt Spetalnick

WASHINGTON, July 23 (Reuters) – A U.S. Senate committee on Thursday permitted amendments that may finish restrictions on journey by Americans to Cuba and ease some commerce boundaries, advancing efforts to implement President Barack Obama’s rapprochement with the communist island.

By an 18-12 vote, the Republican-controlled Appropriations Committee backed a measure that may ease journey limits, making it the primary laws to cross any congressional committee to facilitate normalization of relations.

Four Republicans joined 14 Democrats to approve the modification.

The committee later handed different amendments, by voice vote with out objections, to a Financial Services appropriations invoice to permit personal financing for U.S. agricultural gross sales and elevate restrictions on ships that decision at Cuban ports.

Attaching the amendments to the appropriations invoice boosts the chance they are going to come up for a vote within the full Senate. To turn into legislation, a model of the invoice with the amendments should cross the House of Representatives.

“This is a primary step by the Senate to dismantle a failed, discredited and counterproductive coverage that in 54 years has failed to attain any of its aims,’ stated Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy, a long-time opponent of Cuba sanctions.

“These votes were not about the repugnant policies of the Castro regime, but about doing away with unwarranted impediments to travel and commerce imposed on Americans by our own government,” he stated.

Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro introduced on Dec. 17 that they might transfer towards regular relations between the previous Cold War foes for the primary time in half a century. Cuba opened its embassy in Washington on Monday.

The coverage faces robust opposition within the Republican-majority Congress. The half-century-old U.S. commerce embargo stays in place and solely Congress can elevate it.

The measures had been handed a day after a closed-door assembly on the White House with dozens of Cuban Americans and teachers and enterprise leaders with an curiosity in Cuba who assist Obama’s coverage of engagement.

U.S. officers advised the group that the administration has no plans to announce new measures relating to Cuba and continues to be refining rules introduced in January to ease journey guidelines and monetary and banking adjustments.

“The administration feels they have gone as far as they can right now,” stated one one that attended. “They want to broaden the base of stakeholders … create the space for others, including Republican members of Congress, to take steps.” (Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, extra reporting by Idrees Ali and Matt Spetalnick in Washington and David Adams in Miami; Editing by Dan Grebler and Steve Orlofsky)