After Bush: A new Cuba policy?

John McCain supports a tight US embargo. Barack Obama says he'll loosen it.

By Matthew Clark

from the July 23, 2008 edition

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Staff writer Matthew Clark talks with CSMonitor.com's Pat Murphy about reporting on the Monitor series 'Cuba: Winds of Change.'

Monitor staff photographer Alfredo Sosa and staff writer Matthew Clark show how Cubans try to make ends meet.

What changes might a new US administration make to its Cuba policy?

Sen. John McCain (R) of Arizona supports keeping the tight travel restrictions and limits on remittances that President Bush added to the US trade embargo with Cuba. He said in May that to soften the restrictions "would send the worst possible signal to Cuba's dictators." His stance resonates with the traditionally conservative positions of the Cuban-American community in and around Miami – a key voting bloc in an important swing state that usually votes Republican.

But Cuban-American attorney and embargo law expert Pedro Freyre says that a younger generation of Cuban-Americans is far less dogmatic than their elders. This generation doesn't remember fleeing their homeland during Castro's revolution.

Mr. Freyre points out that Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D) of Illinois got a standing ovation at the Cuban-American National Foundation when he proposed lifting sanctions on Cuban family remittances and visits to the island. "Obama is making significant inroads," he says. "The dynamics are changing very rapidly."