The US Treasury Department has unveiled a series of changes to over half a century of travel and trade bans on Cuba, saying it is “one step closer to replacing out-of-date policies.”
The changes open up technology exports, long banned on national security grounds, and also allow Americans to bring home small amounts of Cuba cigars if they have visited the island.
Visiting still won’t be trivially easy, however, as the US will only allow visits for business reasons or as part of officially government approved “supervised group trips.”
In practice, Americans have been traveling to Cuba for years irrespective of the ban, with an estimate of about 100,000 going annually. Experts say that the new “group trips” only restriction will likely be ignored by most people.
