President Donald Trump’s June 6 National Security Presidential Memorandum on Cuba, upon implementation, could deprive over a million Cuban families of access to remittances from their relatives abroad. This was the conclusion of William M. LeoGrande, Professor of Government, and Marguerite Rose Jiménez, Adjunct Professorial Lecturer, both at American University, in their article in Huffpost.[1]
This Presidential Memorandum that was referenced in an earlier post “redefines ‘prohibited officials of the Government of Cuba’ expansively, potentially including almost a quarter of Cuba’s entire labor force. Cubans who are ‘prohibited’ are not allowed to receive payments from U.S. persons, and that includes remittances.”
“The [current] regulatory definition of prohibited officials was very narrow, limited to members of the Council of Ministers and flag officers of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. The new definition proposed [in the Presidential Memorandum] . . . includes hundreds of senior officials in every government agency, thousands of ordinary Cubans who volunteer as leaders of their local Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and—most importantly― every employee of the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) and Ministry of the Interior (MININT).”
This change is contrary to Trump’s stated policy of empowering the Cuban people by directing U.S. funds to them, rather than to the Cuban government. Remittances are the very best way to do that because the dollars go directly to family on the island, at a rate of about $3 billion annually.
Moreover, those remittances often are used as capital by Cubans to start and augment their private businesses and thereby improve the standard of living of their owners and employees and enhance the emerging private sector as a counterweight to the state-owned businesses. In addition, this proposed change could adversely affect Cuban-Americans if they are providing capital to their Cuban relatives on condition that the latter share profits with those in the U.S.
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[1] LeoGrande & Jiménez, Trump Policy Could Cut Remittances To A Million Cuban Families, HuffPost (June 20, 2017).
