Published on : Saturday, June 8, 2019
The Trump administration enforced new travel restrictions on Cuba with effect from Wednesday, June 5. The new restrictions forbid cruise ships from travelling to Cuba, along with educational and cultural trips, known as people-to-people trips, which are the most common type of visits made by U.S. citizens to Cuba.
According to the Cuban government, this year alone over 250,000 Americans visited Cuba between January 1 and April 30. Under the people-to-people designation, the cruise ship lines Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian havel said that they will postpone travel to Cuba, which will affect about 800,000 bookings.
Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said, “Cuba continues to play a destabilizing role in the Western Hemisphere, providing a communist foothold in the region, and propping up U.S. adversaries in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua by fomenting instability, undermining the rule of law, and suppressing democratic processes.”
The new restrictions come after last April’s execution of what is known as Title 3 of the 1996 Helms Burton Act, which allows U.S. citizens to sue anyone in the world for using property that the Cuban government expropriated after the Cuban Revolution.