To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
Revoke sanctions against Cuban exiles
Limit U.S. Cuban sanctions against individuals to Cubans located in Cuba. End the current sanctions that prohibit Americans' dealings with people located outside Cuba who, at any time since July 1963, were ever Cuban citizens or were resident or domiciled in Cuba. The sanctions don't contribute to U.S. safety or foreign policy, and are unlike sanctions against individuals from Iran, Sudan, North Korea, etc.
Why is this important?
We have discriminatory sanctions against every Cuban "national" who has left Cuba permanently if, at any time since July 1963, the individual was a Cuban citizen, or was permanently resident or domiciled in Cuba. Unlike all other U.S. sanctions, we block Cuban refugees' assets unless the U.S. Treasury Department has issued them a license. For example, a Cuban exile who becomes a Spanish citizen cannot eat at McDonald's in Madrid, open a bank or securities account at a U.S. bank's subsidiary in Barcelona, or be sent a gift from a cousin in the United States without a Treasury license. (A license unblocks Cuban exiles who have legally resided in the United States.) We should end this U.S. discrimination against Cuban exiles in third countries, which imposes huge compliance costs for U.S. subsidiaries abroad, angers countries with different policies toward Cuba, and which provides no benefit to U.S. sanctions policy. Limit U.S. sanctions against individual Cubans to people in Cuba now.