US clamps down on Cuba tours
WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, CMC – United States authorities have begun disrupting tours for American travelers on “people-to-people” trips to Cuba. The US Treasury Department said it has renewed only a handful of the one-year licenses required for the tours this summer, with dozens more renewals still pending.
As a result, several of the entities awaiting renewals already have cancelled or delayed planned “people-to-people” tours.
An estimated 10,000 Americans visited Cuba in the past year under the 140 licenses for “people-to-people” travel issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), in charge of enforcing US economic sanctions on Cuba and other nations. Cuban-Americans travel under separate family reunification licenses.
The “people-to-people” trips, akin to cultural or educational travel, are required by law to foster “meaningful interactions” between the visitors and Cubans.
(Details in Full News section)
CMC/2012
Email to a friend
Print version
Plain text
