Cuba

Our Freedom to Travel Campaign, which started in 2001, is a public education effort that seeks a fundamental overhaul of U.S. policy toward Cuba, beginning with the repeal of restrictions on legal travel to the island.

We have sponsored more than two dozen delegations to Cuba – consisting dominantly of Members of the U.S. Congress and their staffs – for research trips that help policy makers understand how U.S. policy has failed and how Cuba is moving forward and conducting normal trade and diplomatic relations with virtually every other nation on Earth.

Our popular website, www.cubacentral.com, has more than 8,000 members and is an important source of news and information about Cuba and U.S. policy for journalists, policy activists, and concerned citizens.

The powerful arguments for changing U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba can be found in CDA’s publication, In Our National Interest: The Top Ten Reasons for Changing U.S. Policy toward Cuba, which has become a significant education and lobbying tool for the campaign to end the ban on legal travel to Cuba. This document is available for download at: www.thecubatopten.com.

If Barack Obama and Raúl Castro sat down for negotiations, what could they talk about? In its new report, “9 Ways for US to Talk to Cuba and for Cuba to Talk to US,” the Center for Democracy in the Americas urges cooperation in nine critical areas where Washington and Havana can work together, and build relationships of confidence and trust, by solving problems in both countries’ national interests. We recruited a team of scholars and experts to offer their ideas for U.S.-Cuba cooperation in military affairs, migration, energy, trade, academic exchange and other fields which could then produce the progress that has eluded our diplomats for five decades. A copy of this report and its recommendations can be downloaded here.

Sarah Stephens, executive director of the Center for Democracy in the Americas, testified before Congress on April 29, 2009 on the National Security Implications of U.S. Policy toward Cuba. To view her testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, click here.