Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the new rules will make it easier for Americans to visit Cuba.
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The Cuban government made no immediate comment.
The trade and travel changes will allow Cubans to open US bank accounts and authorize those living in the Unites States to earn a salary or compensation, the USA government said.
The visit will be the first to Cuba by a US president in 88 years. But an extensive foundation is being laid – Washington will soon award the first routes for commercial flights between the USA and Cuba, and it has already approved cruises and ferries between the two countries. After leaving Cuba late Tuesday, he will spend two days in Argentina, where the administration is trying to build a relationship with newly elected President Mauricio Macri after years of estrangement under previous governments.
He plans to take several more groups this year, especially since there is a growing interest and the U.S.is not allowing citizens to travel to Cuba independently with a people-to-people visa.
It will be “an opportunity for him to describe the course we are on, to review the complicated history between our countries”.
That means any Americans can legally go to Cuba after filling out a form asserting that their trip is for educational purposes instead of tourism.
The new regulations will reduce Cuba’s transaction costs in global trade as well as remove another irritant remaining between the US and Cuban governments.
Not enough is being done to help Cubans or to increase their incomes or technological connectivity, but that is an economic issue that Cuba and its people need to resolve, Gross said.
On Tuesday the Obama administration declared Americans no longer have to go through an organized group to travel. Matthew Borman of the U.S. Commerce Department said the embargo merely requires all commerce to be licensed by the U.S.; it doesn’t limit how generously those licenses are granted.
The White House hopes granting Cuba access to the dollar will spur changes from the Cuban government, including allowing foreign firms to hire Cubans directly and abolishing a 10% penalty on exchanging dollars, said Ben Rhodes, a deputy national-security adviser who led Mr. Obama’s rapprochement effort with Cuba. Travelers are not allowed to just head to Cuba for a beach vacation – yet.
Barack Obama stands with Raúl Castro before a bilateral meeting at the United Nations in September.
Gross told reporters he supported Obama’s trip to the country, and also the lifting of the trade embargo.
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“It remains very much a system of one party, a system in which you continue to have detentions of harassment of activists”, said Rhodes.
