July 25, 2019 - Issue: Vol. 165, No. 126 — Daily Edition116th Congress (2019 - 2020) - 1st Session

[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E997-E998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  LET ALL U.S. CITIZENS TRAVEL TO CUBA RESTORE THEIR RIGHT TO TRAVEL--
                               H.R. 3960

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. JAMES P. McGOVERN

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, July 25, 2019

  Mr. McGOVERN. Madam Speaker, I am proud to introduce today H.R. 3960, 
the Freedom for Americans to Travel to Cuba Act of 2019, along with my 
colleagues, Representatives Tom Emmer (R-MN), Kathy Castor (D-FL), Rick 
Crawford (R-AR), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Darin LaHood (R-IL), Jose Serrano 
(D-NY), Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA), Donald Beyer, Jr. (D-VA), and Denver 
Riggleman (R-VA). I'm also proud to stand with my good friend, Senator 
Patrick Leahy, who will be introducing this bill in the Senate on 
Monday with 45 bipartisan cosponsors.
  This bipartisan bill addresses an issue I care very deeply about--the 
right of American citizens--my constituents--to travel freely anywhere 
in the world. Freedom of movement, freedom to travel, the basic right 
of any U.S. citizen to choose freely where they can go in this world 
has always been a fundamental part of being an American.
  Foreign governments might choose to deny our citizens a visa. They 
might restrict where Americans can go when they arrive inside a foreign 
country. But the U.S. government and the U.S. Congress should not be in 
the business of imposing restrictions on our own citizens.
  Yet this is what Congress has done to U.S. citizens when it comes to 
only one country for the last 60 years--Cuba.
  Americans can travel to China, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Russia, Iran 
and Syria--each with human rights records arguably as bad or worse than 
Cuba's and, it should be noted, each of these countries also support 
Nicholas Maduro in Venezuela. And until just recently, Americans could 
even travel to North Korea.
  This is an anachronistic policy, left over from the Cold War and 
proven to be ineffective at leveraging change by the Cuban government. 
The only people it harms are American citizens and those in Cuba 
striving to create innovative economic alternatives to state-controlled 
enterprises.
  Ironically, continued efforts to further restrict the right of 
Americans to travel to Cuba have had devastating consequences for 
Cuba's fledgling private sector--the very people the United States aims 
to help--which had grown to be approximately 30 percent of Cuban 
economy as a result of more Americans traveling to the island during 
the last Administration.
  Madam Speaker, I believe that the American people are our very best 
ambassadors; that they reflect the democratic values, curiosity, and 
innovation that make our country so great. Congress should not be in 
the business of denying them their own rights.
  Congress stripped away this basic right, and only Congress can 
restore it. It's past time for us to do so. I urge all my colleagues, 
on both sides of the aisle, to cosponsor this bipartisan bill and 
ensure its passage in the 116th Congress.
  I include in the Record an opinion piece by Chris Sabatini entitled, 
Trump Doubles Down on Failed Cuba Policy, which was published in The 
New York Times on July 24, 2019.

                [From the New York Times, July 24, 2019]

                Trump Doubles Down on Failed Cuba Policy


    the cuban autocracy remains a nagging reminder of united states 
                   impotence in rooting out communism

                       (By Christopher Sabatini)

       The Trump administration's effort to bring about the end of 
     Cuba's repressive government by squeezing the island's 
     economy promises only more suffering for Cuban citizens, who 
     are already struggling under Fidel Castro's failed economic 
     project.
       The White House is hurting the very people--ordinary 
     Cubans--it claims to support. Not only are their potential 
     sources of independent income (and, with it, political 
     independence) drying up, so is their access to food--and 
     their hopes for the future.
       For decades, the Cuban autocracy has been a nagging 
     reminder of United States impotence in rooting out Communism. 
     Washington's embargo on Havana was tightened by Congress in 
     1992 and 1996--with the unintentionally ironic titles of the 
     Cuban Democracy Act and what's known as the Cuban Liberty 
     Act.
       This pressure has always come with tough talk from 
     Republicans, who like to claim that the Castro government's 
     time is up. John Bolton, the national security adviser, is 
     the latest hawk to spew this empty rhetoric.
       Yet more than 58 years of isolating Havana has shown that 
     the strategy doesn't follow any logical theory of regime 
     change, even if it plays well in South Florida. Isolation has 
     only reinforced the Cuban government's effort to make its 
     citizens economically dependent on the Communist state.

[[Page E998]]

       There was a brief break in America's hard-line approach 
     when, in December 2014, President Barack Obama announced a 
     loosening of the embargo and the normalization of relations. 
     President Trump reversed course and rolled out many of the 
     past, failed sanctions against Cuba, plus some new ones.
       Those have included restricting Americans' travel to 
     officially approved group trips with cultural organizations, 
     ending the allowance for American cruise ships to dock in 
     Cuban ports, plans to reduce to $1,000 the amount of money 
     that Cuban-Americans can send to Cuba every three months, and 
     allowing United States citizens to sue foreign companies over 
     the use of property expropriated by the Castro government (a 
     provision suspended by Republican and Democratic 
     administrations since it was passed in 1996).
       By the White House's own admission, these policies will 
     reduce by half the number of American tourists visiting the 
     island. That number last year was 600,000. American tourists 
     had been helping to support the private restaurants, shops 
     and the approximately 20,000 Airbnb's that have sprung up in 
     recent years.
       Support for Havana from the regime in Venezuela, another 
     target of the Trump administration, has been halted, 
     compounding Cuba's economic troubles.
       Shortly after he was inaugurated as president of Venezuela 
     in 1999, Hugo Chavez, threw the struggling Cuban economy a 
     lifeline, sending 100,000 barrels of oil a day, half of which 
     the Cuban government sold on the world market for hard 
     currency. As partial payment for the cheap oil, Cubans 
     provided intelligence and military support to Mr. Chavez and 
     to his successor, Nicolas Maduro, to help them consolidate 
     their corrupt, autocratic project.
       But as Venezuelan oil production plunged in recent years, 
     and global prices fell, Cuba's life-support system dried up 
     to between 20,000 and 50,000 barrels per day, as of April.
       The Trump administration has seen the weakness of these two 
     economies as an opportunity to push for regime change in both 
     countries.
       The first target was Mr. Maduro, hoping his fall would 
     bring democracy to his country and thus bankrupt the Cuban 
     regime, finally bringing it to its knees. Now, as 
     administration officials face their failed, overhyped efforts 
     to topple Mr. Maduro, they have changed their focus: they are 
     blaming Cuba for Mr. Maduro's survival--rather than Mr. 
     Maduro for the Cuban government's survival.
       Cubans--and the Cuban leaders--have been through worse. 
     American restrictions on trade and travel to Cuba are minor 
     compared to the difficulties they faced after the collapse of 
     the Soviet Union, during which the Cuban economy contracted 
     by more than one third. Even then, with food, electricity and 
     hope all in short supply, the Castro government survived.
       Today, Cuba's leadership, under Raul Castro's handpicked 
     successor, Miguel Diaz-Canel, is once again rallying the 
     island nation's citizens to tighten their belts, for example 
     by promoting hutia, a local rodent, as a source of protein. 
     And other authoritarian powers, like China and Russia, are 
     more than willing to throw even just a bit of economic help, 
     and lots of anti-American ideological support, which didn't 
     exist during the post-Cold War period.
       The Trump administration's strategy will fail, as it has in 
     the past, and ordinary Cuban citizens will continue to bare 
     the brunt of a misguided American policy. When will American 
     leaders finally learn the lessons of history?

                          ____________________