CFR says partially end Cuba embargo

Better late to the game than never, I guess from the Establishment pillar of our “bipartisan foreign policy establishment.” (BPFE, below.)

The Council on Foreign Relations has issued a formal paper calling for a partial end to our embargo of Cuba (Full PDF available at linked page).

Here’s the highlights, per Steve Clemons, who seems to be overselling this a bit, or more than a bit:

1. Permit freer travel to and facilitate trade with Cuba. The White House should repeal the 2004 restrictions placed on Cuban-American family travel and remittances.

2. Reinstate and liberalize the thirteen categories of licensed people-to-people “purposeful travel” for other Americans, instituted by the Clinton administration in preparation for the 1998 Papal Visit to Havana.

3. Hold talks on issues of mutual concern to both parties, such as migration, human smuggling, drug trafficking, public health, the future of the Guantanamo naval base, and on environmentally sustainable resource management, especially as Cuba, with a number of foreign oil companies, begins deep water exploration for potentially significant reserves.

4. Work more effectively with partners in the western hemisphere and in Europe to press Cuba on its human rights record and for more democratic reform.

5. Mindful of the last one hundred years of U.S.-Cuba relations, assure Cubans on the island that the United States will pursue a respectful arm’s-length relationship with a democratic Cuba.

6. Repeal the 1996 Helms-Burton law, which removed most of the executive branch's authority to eliminate economic sanctions. While moving to repeal the law, the U.S. Congress should pass legislative measures, as it has with agricultural sales, designed to liberalize trade with and travel to Cuba, while supporting opportunities to strengthen democratic institutions there.

Why is this only a partial end?

I don't hear Steve referencing the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (the Torricelli Law), for example. Wiki Cuban embargo for more details about what all the “Cuban embargo” involves.

Let’s be blunt.

Point 3: Our BPFE, not to be confused with BFE, will have a radically different idea on the “future of Gitmo” than a democratic as well as an authoritarian Cuban government.

Point 5: So, Cuba doesn’t get respect until it becomes a democracy?

Beyond that, there’s nothing about an apology for the U.S. propping up Bautista all those years, etc.

If I get time to browse the PDF in more detail this evening, I’ll write more.