WASHINGTON: The U.S. government is exploring “several options” to increase trade and travel links with Cuba within the evolving normalization of relations, a White House official told EFE on Tuesday.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the expansion of people-to-people contacts through an agreement providing for regularly scheduled airline service has always been a goal for Washington, but nothing has been agreed yet and the parties have not set a deadline for reaching accord.
The Wall Street Journal reported earlier Tuesday that the U.S. and Cuban governments were working on an agreement that would allow the resumption of commercial flights before the end of the year.
While the U.S. economic embargo prevents Americans from traveling to Cuba as tourists, the White House has not ruled out the possibility of President Barack Obama’s using his executive authority to relax the restrictions, the Journal said.
The embargo can be lifted only by Congress, now under Republican control, but Obama has already used executive orders to ease limits on Cuban-Americans’ travel and remittances to the island.
The Obama administration hopes to entrench rapprochement with Cuba to such an extent that his successor would find it difficult to reverse the process, the Wall Street Journal said.
