Congressman Rodney Davis of Taylorsville sees President Obama’s recent visit to Cuba as preliminary work toward improving relations with the island nation.
The Republican made two visits there himself in the last decade. But Davis says he doesn’t expect a quick vote in Congress to lift the trade embargo. Instead, Davis says he anticipates further action is needed to lift the travel ban and to end a restriction that requires Cuban credit to purchase American products there.
And Davis says, even with increased tourism to Cuba, Americans traveling there would still pay a penalty when exchanging their money for pesos:
“And that Cuban tourist peso is money that only goes to government-run facilities so the regular Cuban person doesn’t benefit from that," Davis said. "We trade with other communist countries, but they don’t have dual currencies like Cuba has, and that’s one big step that I hope the president pushed. That’s one big step that I know I pushed when I was there.”
Davis says he’s happy the president is trying to expand trade with Cuba. But he adds, Cuban officials have yet to buy more US products since last year – when Obama first announced efforts to renew economic ties with the country.