White House renews trade ban on Cuba

Posted on Tuesday, 09.15.09
White House renews trade ban on Cuba
President Barack Obama extends the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba for
another year in a symbolic step used by past presidents.
By JUAN O. TAMAYO
jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald

President Barack Obama has signed a one-year extension of the law used
to impose the trade embargo on Cuba, disappointing those who favored
allowing the law to expire as a friendly nod to Havana while reassuring
others who oppose easing the sanctions.

The extension of the Trading with the Enemy Act (TWTEA) was largely
symbolic. While it was used by President John F. Kennedy as the legal
basis for slapping the embargo on Havana, another law would have kept
those sanctions in place even if Obama had not signed the extension.

Several groups that favor improved U.S. relations with Havana had urged
Obama to allow TWTEA to expire as scheduled on Monday as a signal to the
Cuban government that his administration was truly interested in
rapprochement.

Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Washington-based Center for
Democracy in the Americas, said that although the extension was indeed
symbolic, Obama had forfeited a chance to send a message to Havana and
the rest of Latin America that he was removing one of the foundations
for the U.S. embargo against Cuba.

``I am disappointed that President Obama has missed several
opportunities to do things that may not get any attention here in the
United States, but that would send a signal to the region,'' Stephens
said in a telephone interview.

Supporters of sanctions against Cuba argued, however, that the extension
confirmed that Obama is sticking by his promises to retain the trade
embargo, while removing restrictions on Cuban Americans who want to
travel to the island or send remittances to relatives there.

``People think he's a liar, but he's doing exactly what he has said --
changing travel and remittances but not the embargo,'' said Mauricio
Claver-Carone, director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action
Committee in Washington.

The extension is ``symbolic of the fact that the president supports the
current policies,'' Claver-Carone added in a interview.

Obama signed the one-year extension on Sept. 11, three days before TWTEA
was to expire on Monday. But the decision was not announced until Monday
morning. There was no immediate explanation for the delay.

``I hereby determine that the continuation for one year of the exercise
of those authorities with respect to Cuba is in the national interest of
the United States,'' he wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Adopted in 1917, TWTEA initially was applied to ``enemy countries'' only
after a formal U.S. declaration of war. In 1963. President Kennedy used
TWTEA against Cuba under a declaration of an ``international emergency.''

But in the 1970s, TWTEA was essentially overtaken by the International
Emergency Economic Powers Act. No new sanctions could be imposed under
TWTEA, but Cuba was grandfathered in, Washington attorney Robert Muse,
considered a leading expert on the legal structure and history the
embargo, told El Nuevo Herald earlier this month.

The 1996 Helms-Burton measure essentially turned the embargo into law
and set tough conditions for lifting it that amount to having a
democratically elected Cuban government, Muse added.

White House renews trade ban on Cuba - Cuba - MiamiHerald.com (15
September 2009)
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1233997.html