Will Obama ease travel regulations?

For some time there has been talk of a review of Cuba travel regulations by the Obama Administration.

The talk is now spilling out, not exactly in the most organized way, indicating that action is forthcoming to allow more travel by liberalizing regulations, to allow flights to Cuba from the top three dozen U.S. airports that handle international flights, and to change regulations again to increase communication.

We’ll see if and when it happens. All the reports are loosely sourced, putting us (my guess) somewhere above the level of rumor. We haven’t seen the usual trial balloon technique of an Administration official describing with some precision the actions under consideration and the reasons for them. Bloomberg broke the story, the most detailed report so far appeared in the Herald, and a reason to take it all seriously is this single line, an aside, from the Washington Post’s venerable Al Kamen: “And look for Obama administration action, after Congress leaves town, to loosen travel restrictions.”

Given the possibility that restrictions on educational travel may be eased, Victor Johnson of the Association of International Educators reviews the recent history of these regulations. Cuba is the only country with which the United States restricts educational travel, he points out, and if President Obama changes this, he argues, it will not be a favor to Cuba, but to ourselves.