On December 17, 2014, President Obama announced that the United States would “chart a new course” on its Cuba policy. Starting in January 2015, and for the next two years, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) implemented a policy of further engagement with the Cuban people by easing, on five separate occasions, the regulatory framework for the longstanding US embargo of Cuba. These amendments made it easier for US-regulated travelers to go to Cuba for specific purposes, and created new commercial, humanitarian, and financial opportunities involving Cuba.

Originally published in Latinvex - June 21, 2017.