Diplomacy: Rather than loosen sanctions, President Bush has recommended tighter restrictions.

From Associated Press
 

WASHINGTON -- President Bush's spokesman said today that U.S. trade with Cuba would "prop up an oppressive regime," turning aside calls from former
President Carter and some lawmakers who want economic restrictions lifted.

"The president believes that the trade embargo is a vital part of U.S. policy ... because trade with Cuba doesn't benefit the people of Cuba," White House press
secretary Ari Fleischer said. "It's used to prop up an oppressive regime."

The White House defended its hard-line stand as a bipartisan group of 40 lawmakers prepared to announce support for easing the four-decade embargo on Cuba.

"For over 40 years, our policy toward Cuba has yielded no results," said Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a House International Relations Committee member. "Castro
hasn't held free and fair elections, he hasn't improved human rights, and he hasn't stopped preaching his hate for democracy and the U.S.

"I think it's safe to say that our current policy has failed," Flake said. "It's time to try something new."

The House Cuba Working Group was to announce its Cuba policy review one day after Carter spoke in Cuba and urged the Bush administration to drop the
embargo. President Bush, who supports the embargo, plans to outline his Cuban policy next week.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said after a meeting with Bush today that the United States and Cuba "must tear down the barriers that do exist." He
praised Carter for visiting Cuba.

Bush himself stood by his hard-line Cuban policy Tuesday.

He was asked whether Carter's current visit in Cuba, in which he has met with President Fidel Castro and dissidents as well, had changed his Cuba policy. "It doesn't
complicate my foreign policy, because I haven't changed my foreign policy," Bush said.

"That is, Fidel Castro is a dictator, and he is oppressive, and he ought to have free elections, and he ought to have a free press, and he ought to free his prisoners,
and he ought to encourage free enterprise."

Bush twice has recommended tighter restrictions on Cuba, not loosening the embargo, including making unauthorized travel to the island by American citizens more
difficult.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who also met with Bush today, seem to back up the president. "Dialogue helps, but I would not be overeager too early," he
said.

"We're saying just the opposite: The best way to undermine Fidel Castro would be to lift the travel ban, allow private financing of agriculture sales to Cuba," Flake's
spokesman, Matthew Specht, said Tuesday.

Many farm-state lawmakers have sought to knock down the trade embargo. A law enacted two years ago allows grain sales to Cuba but is made much less effective
by a bar on public or private financing of the sales. America's competitors readily sell their products to Cuba, often providing credit and subsidies.

However, an effort to include an easing of relations with Cuba was deleted from this year's farm bill, which Bush signed Monday.

"Ending the Cuban embargo is a bipartisan issue," said Sally Grooms Cowal, who was U.S. ambassador to the Caribbean nations of Trinidad and Tobago during the
administrations of the first President Bush and President Clinton. She is now president of the Cuba Policy Foundation.

"The embargo denies Americans the right to trade and travel and has not brought freedom and prosperity to Cuba," said Cowal in a statement. "For 40 years, the
embargo has failed to lead to political and economic reform in Cuba. When a policy this old fails to produce the intended results, it is time for a new policy."

The Cuba Working Group has 20 Republicans and 20 Democrats committed to lifting the travel ban, allowing normal exports of agriculture and medical products
and improving human rights for Cuban citizens.

In the Senate, Sens. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Pat Roberts, R-Kan., have led the charge for an easing of U.S. restrictions on trade and travel.

The Cuba Policy Foundation, said spokesman Brian Alexander, "is a centrist organization that shares the U.S. goals of freedom and prosperity for the Cuban people.
We just don't believe U.S. policy has served to advance those goals, and we do believe it has had a negative impact on the U.S. economy and does not prepare
Cuba for a peaceful and stable transition" to a free society.

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