Despite its media billing as a substantive loosening of the United States' four-decade-long economic blockade of Cuba, a new bill passed by the US Congress will tighten the blockade by codifying restrictions on travel to the island and by prohibiting Cuban access to US credit financing for trade.
The Cuban government has said that last-minute changes brought into the bill by far-right anti-Cuban legislators largely undid the "good intentions" of the bill's drafters to end restrictions on US sales of food and medicines to Cuba.
"Let's get this straight", Cuban government spokesperson Aymee Hernandez told foreign correspondents in Havana. "What we see here is a cosmetic measure which, far from relaxing it, is in fact strengthening the embargo."
The new law has been heavily promoted by US agricultural and pharmaceutical companies keen to gain access to the Cuban market and has been guided through Congress by Republican leaders. President Bill Clinton has indicated that he will likely sign the bill into law.
But under measures included during final negotiations on the bill, Havana would be barred from gaining US credit for imports and would have to pay cash for US food and medicines, "and you know perfectly well that Cuba is a Third World country", Hernandez noted.
Cuba currently buys its food and medicines from far afield, including Europe and Asia, and pays premium prices. It would now need to also get credit from these regions to be able to buy US goods.
Under the new blockade regulations, Cuba won't be able to recoup money by exporting to the United States either, much as it would like to sell medicines such as its locally developed vaccines or food such as oranges and guava fruit, Hernandez said.
"If it is approved, it will only raise more obstacles for clean and unconditional trade between Cuba and the United States", Hernandez added. "The problem is not whether we can buy medicines from the United States, but the onerous conditions they impose for purchases."
The new bill also writes into law existing US travel restrictions to Cuba. Currently, the travel ban only exists in regulations; can therefore be more easily varied by the US government and more easily avoided by US citizens. The new law will make travel to Cuba for all purposes other than the negotiation of food and medical sales a criminal offence.
US opponents of revolutionary Cuba have hailed the new law. Florida Republican legislator Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, for example, said, "This agreement is much better for us than the current law. No credits for Castro and no tourism either."