President Barack Obama plans to abolish restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba, fulfilling a campaign promise, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
Obama does not intend to call for the lifting of the long-standing trade embargo against Cuba, which would require congressional action, the Journal said, citing an unnamed senior administration official.
The Obama administration is not considering any specific diplomatic outreach toward Cuba's communist government, the newspaper reported.
The removal of limits on family travel and cash remittances would allow Cuban Americans and Cuban emigres living in the United States to travel freely to the island, instead of once a year at present, and remove the current ceiling of $1,200 per person in cash remittances to family members in Cuba.
The U.S. president has authority to loosen these rules on his own, and the move is likely meant as a signal of a new attitude toward both Cuba and other Latin American countries that have pressed the United States to alter its policy, the Journal said.
Obama will meet with Latin American leaders at a hemispheric summit later this month in Trinidad and Tobago.
The U.S. Congress is currently considering bills that would lift the ban on U.S. citizens traveling to Cuba that was introduced with other sanctions in the early 1960s when Fidel Castro's revolution turned Cuba into a Soviet ally.
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