Obama Opens Door to Cuba, but Only a Crack

WASHINGTON — In abandoning longstanding restrictions on the ability of Cuban-Americans to visit and send money to family members on the island, President Obama demonstrated Monday that he was willing to open the door toward greater engagement with Cuba — but at this point, only a crack.

The announcement represents the most significant shift in United States policy toward Cuba in decades, and it is a reversal of the hard line taken by former President George W. Bush. It comes as Mr. Obama is preparing to meet later this week in Trinidad and Tobago with Latin American leaders, who want him to normalize relations with Cuba and its leader, Raúl Castro.

Fidel Castro, the former Cuban president, responded in a column published later on Monday that the easing of restrictions did not go far enough and that real change in relations would only come if Washington lifted its long-standing trade embargo.

Mr. Castro’s response appeared on the Web site of Granma, the official newspaper of the Cuban Communist Party. “Of the blockade, which is the cruelest of the measures, not a word was said,,” he wrote.

He added: “The conditions are in place for Obama to use his talent in a constructive policy that ends something that has failed for nearly half a century.” The White House made clear on Monday that Mr. Obama, who campaigned on improving relations with Cuba, was not willing to go as far as normalizing relations, at least not yet. Rather, the steps he took were modest, reflecting the complicated domestic politics around Cuba and the unpredictability of the Cuban response.

This volatility on both sides of the Florida Straits has bedeviled every president since Kennedy, and even Mr. Obama, who has vowed to make greater use of diplomacy with enemies as well as allies, seems to have recognized the threat.

Instead of lifting the trade embargo with Cuba, enacted in the 1960s in an unsuccessful attempt to force a change in