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Trump Is Weaponizing Long-Standing Restrictions on Freedom to Travel to Cuba

The administration is targeting travelers who criticize US policy.

The Trump administration has begun to weaponize long-standing restrictions on freedom to travel to Cuba, focusing on travelers who criticize the US policy of asphyxiating the Cuban economy and threatening a military attack.

The Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)—the arm of the Treasury Department that enforces US economic sanctions against other countries—has sent a “request for information” to the advocacy group Code Pink about its participation in the international humanitarian convoy that brought 500 people from more than 30 countries carrying an estimated 35 tons of food, medicine, solar panels, and other aid to Havana in March. As part of the convoy, Code Pink chartered a plane for 170 participants that also carried 6,300 pounds of medical supplies worth $433,000 arranged by Global Health Partners.

Treasury officials are demanding to know “everything you did while you were in Cuba, who went, how did you go, how did you pay for everything, all the receipts, the detailed description of everything you took for donations…what hotel did you stay in,” Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink, told The Nation.

Benjamin suspects the May 21 OFAC inquiry aims to quell dissent against President Donald Trump’s increasingly harsh approach to Cuba, which has triggered the worst humanitarian crisis on the island in memory. An American oil blockade imposed in January set off a chain reaction of daily blackouts, food shortages, water shortages, medical emergencies, and reported deaths. “I think it’s intimidation, totally, and we don’t want to be intimidated,” Benjamin said. “We’re telling all the people who went with us don’t be intimidated. Just use this as another spark in the fire to challenge this sadistic policy.”

Code Pink has started to compile the information requested by OFAC, Benjamin added. “We think we didn’t do anything wrong.”

Federal scrutiny of the trip has implications beyond one group’s mission to Havana. It’s another blow to Cuba’s already devastated hospitality industry—a major pillar of the economy—and represents an additional tool for turning up pressure on the Cuban government, according to experts in travel to Cuba. “This will certainly serve to chill travel to Cuba by well-meaning Americans who have every right under the current structures and categories to go to Cuba,” said Peter........

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