New group, #CubaNow, tells Obama it's time to change Cuba policy

New group, #CubaNow, tells Obama it's time to change Cuba policy

By David Adams

By David Adams



MIAMI (Reuters) - A new advocacy group calling for the United States to

change its policy toward Cuba launched an advertising campaign on Monday

with posters on the Washington D.C. metro system showing President

Barack Obama and urging him to "stop waiting."



The metro ads by the group #CubaNow are designed to highlight economic

changes happening in Cuba. The group believes the 52-year-old U.S.

embargo against the communist-ruled island has not worked.



"It's time to bring the conversation on U.S.-Cuba policy into the 21st

century," said #CubaNow director Ric Herrero.



The group said its mission, unlike other Cuba policy groups, was

specifically focused on changing U.S. thinking about Cuba policy.



While the group opposes the embargo, it recognized that overturning it

in Congress is an uphill battle and other ways can be found to change

policy, such as allowing all Americans to travel to Cuba.



"There's plenty the President can do within his existing authority,"

said #CubaNow founding member Andres Díaz, a Cuban-born former Obama

administration official at the Department of Commerce.



#CubaNow was founded by a group of mostly younger generation Cuban

Americans. Herrero declined to discuss its funding.



The group's launch coincides with the fifth anniversary of Obama's 2009

steps allowing Cuban-Americans to travel freely to visit relatives in

Cuba as well as send remittances.



That policy shift helped "usher in more change in that time than had

been seen in the previous 50 years," the group said in a press release.



Herrero said the group, based in Miami and Washington, wants the White

House to take "new steps" to encourage Cuba's burgeoning private sector

which has emerged under economic reforms being slowly introduced by the

Cuban government.



Cuba announced new reforms on Monday loosening regulation of its largest

state-run companies including minerals, tourism and telecommunications.



The group's founding is part of a new wave of efforts to prod Obama into

taking bolder steps to engage the Cuban government.



It follows a February poll by the Atlantic Council which found a

majority of Americans support normalizing relations with Cuba.



In November, Obama told a Miami area fundraiser that it may be time for

the United States to "update" its policies toward Cuba.



"Blue jeans and rock'n roll brought down the Berlin Wall, so we have to

recognize that there is a new wave of energy pushing a new approach

toward U.S.-Cuba policy," said Alex Castellanos, a Republican political

strategist who is Cuban American.



(Editing by David Gregorio)



Source: New group, #CubaNow, tells Obama it's time to change Cuba policy

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