WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have voted to keep restrictions on Americans seeking to travel to Cuba. That’s a setback to Obama administration efforts to ease the five-decade Cold War standoff.
The GOP-controlled chamber voted 247-176 to keep a Cuba-related provision in a transportation funding bill. The provision would block new rules issued in January that would significantly ease travel restrictions to Cuba and allow regularly scheduled flights for the first time.
The administration rules lifted a requirement that U.S. travelers obtain a license from the Treasury Department before traveling to Cuba. Instead, all that is required is for travelers to assert their trip would serve educational, religious or other permitted purposes.
The GOP provision is the handiwork of congressman Mario Diaz-Balart, a Cuban-American Republican from the Miami area.
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