U.S. allows unlimited visits to relatives in Cuba

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans with relatives in Cuba can send them unlimited cash and visit the island as long and often as they would like under new rules that fissured a nearly five-decade trade embargo on Thursday.

The rules, made effective immediately by the U.S. Treasury Department, fleshed out an announcement by President Barack Obama in April to ease U.S. trade restrictions imposed on Cuba after Fidel Castro's leftist revolution half a century ago.

Until now, Cuban-Americans had been allowed to travel to the island only once a year and were limited to sending only $1,200 per person in cash to needy family members in Cuba.

But now they can send as much money as they want to a larger group of relatives that includes aunts, uncles, cousins and second cousins, a reversal of a restriction introduced by the Bush administration in a bid to squeeze Cuba's communist government financially.

"That is something that will help a lot," said Enrique Gonzalez, a 64-year-old military retiree in Havana. "Despite the global financial crisis, the relatives will send a lot of remittances, which will help everybody here," he said.

But the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which has policed the trade embargo and fined Americans caught spending money in Cuba, said U.S. visitors could only spend $179 a day on trips to the island.

That is the same amount as the U.S. State Department's per diem rate for official visits. Previously, family travelers were allowed to spend just $50 a day.

Separate regulations issued by the U.S. Commerce Department doubled the value limit for gift parcels sent to Cubans to $800 per month and widened the allowed recipients. Non-monetary gifts could only be sent previously to immediate family members and they may now be sent to any individual or to independent religious, educational and charitable organizations in Cuba.

The Commerce Department also eliminated a 44-pound limit on personal baggage to Cuba and allows visitors to bring donated personal communications devices such as mobile phone systems, computers, software, satellite receivers and digital cameras.

But the loosening of the rules for Cuban-Americans did not affect a general ban on travel by American citizens to Cuba and tight restrictions on