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The White House lengthens the process to decide whether to resume remittances to Cuba

The process to decide whether to reauthorize the sending of remittances to Cuba from the United States, banned for almost a year, has been lengthened after the White House rejected some recommendations on the subject, an official source reported this Friday.

The president of the United States, Joe Biden, in July ordered his government to identify possible ways to resume sending remittance payments to the island, a crucial source of income for Cubans that the Executive of Donald Trump (2017-2021) cut at the end of November 2020.

To comply with the guidelines of Biden, the State and Treasury Departments created a working group on remittances that has already presented its recommendations to the White House, revealed this Friday a senior US official, who requested anonymity.

However, the White House has ā€œreturned some“Of those recommendations to the working group, because it wants to”ensure that the Cuban military will not derive benefitsā€Of the sending of remittances, added the official in a telephone press conference with a small group of media, including Efe.

Achieving this objective is complicated, according to experts, given the broad control of the Cuban Armed Forces of the country’s economy, and therefore the evaluation process of the Government of Biden “It’s taking time”, in the words of the aforementioned official.

ā€œWe are exploring new and innovative options to try to bypass the regime and ensure that the benefits go directly to the Cuban peopleā€, Stressed the source, who did not offer an approximate time to complete the process.

The official stressed that Biden want to find one “Third way” with regard to Cuba, between the opening of the Barack Obama government (2009-2017) and the heavy hand imposed by Trump, especially after seeing the Cuban response to the anti-government protests of July 11 on the island.

After what Trump prohibited sending remittances to Cuba through companies such as Western Union, which concentrated the vast majority of shipments from the United States to the island, the only way that remains to get that money is the informal one, through travelers who carry currency in cash, a method complicated by the pandemic.

In addition to the issue of remittances, Biden in July ordered his team to analyze the possible transfer of more personnel to the US embassy in Havana, drastically reduced after, in 2017, several US diplomats suffered mysterious “health incidents “ that have been repeated in other countries.

The president also asked to clarify whether USA It can help improve internet stability in Cuba, which was restricted after the July protests, and that issue is still pending as well.

ā€œThe president has asked us to see what we can do to facilitate the connection between Cubans, and it is an issue that we are studying very thoroughly.ā€Said the aforementioned official.

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