ANSWERS TO YOUR CUBA QUESTIONS
YES, IT’S STILL LEGAL TO TRAVEL TO CUBA!
Yes, it is legal for Americans to travel to Cuba. The twelve categories of authorized travel to Cuba remain the same, the main difference after President Trump’s June 2017 announcement regards the people-to-people sub-category. Americans are no longer be allowed to plan their own people-to-people trips to our island neighbor, they must instead plan their trip with a travel agency that prepares their cultural exchange tour of the island, and a company representative must accompany them on their flight to Cuba. That’s about it! NO more self-directed people-to-people travel, and someone must hold your hand on the when you fly to the island. Support for the Cuban people is still allowed and permits travelers to travel to Cuba on their own, but it is difficult and time consuming to truly comply with this category. If the Treasury Department ever requests documentation of a “support for the Cuban people” trip, most travelers will have a hard time justifying their trip.
NO, WE HAVEN’T SUFFERED A SONIC ATTACK!
Apparently the “sonic attack” issue isn’t as serious this year as it was last year. According to the story we are being told by the Trump administration, someone in Cuba attacked two dozen American embassy employees causing irreversible damage to their hearing. The response by the Trump administration was to issue a travel warning. I can’t imagine why the Trump administration didn’t react more aggressively when two dozen American diplomatic personnel were attacked, according to them, in Havana by what would be the world’s most sophisticated sonic weapon.
In case you’re wondering, we don’t anything about the sonic attacks on U.S. embassy staff. We spend most of our time in Havana, and none of us has been affected by an acoustic weapon. The alleged sonic attacks on the staff of the U.S. Embassy in Havana have not involved any tourists or other visitors to the island. Cuba is probably one of the safest countries in all Latin America, where crimes against foreigners are rare and heavily penalized by the dictatorial government. Since we spend so much time in Cuba, it is also hard to believe that a government that is incapable of providing necessities like toilet paper, rice, or sugar for their population, somehow acquired the most advanced sonic weapon in the world. Cuba did not have diplomatic relations with the U.S. for over fifty years and doesn’t need sophisticated weaponry to break off relations. The simple detention or harassment of a few embassy staff members would be enough to create a diplomatic rift and provoke the U.S. into breaking diplomatic ties.
So, some on down to Havana, it’s perfectly safe, and let us prepare your custom tour of Cuba.
By Frank Gonzalez