Inter Press Service

In addition, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Richard Lugar, has for the first time taken a leadership role in calling on the president both to lift all travel restrictions and to fully engage Havana diplomatically both bilaterally, on issues such as drug trafficking, energy, and immigration, and in multilateral forums, such as the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the International Monetary Fund, from which Washington has sought to exclude Cuba for decades.

At the same time, the U.S. business community, including the National Foreign Trade Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, have been calling for ending the embargo altogether. In a statement issued Monday, the Chamber said it was "very encouraged" by Obama's announcement but added that it "is only one step forward. …(U)ltimately, we would like to see an end to the Cuban trade embargo."

In this context, Obama's announcement fell short of the hopes of an increasingly broad coalition of groups and institutions that favours normalising ties with Havana across the board. Many groups thought that Obama would couple his announcement on easing restrictions on Cuban Americans with new orders that would facilitate scientific, educational, cultural and other kinds of people-to-people travel and exchanges of the kind that were initiated under former President Bill Clinton but subsequently frozen by Bush. The White House indicated that such a move was still under review.

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