Time for America to Be Relevant in Cuba

The administration should begin by ending its insistence that it will respond only to Cuba's complete conversion to democracy and free markets. Cubans surely would welcome incremental reforms that improve living standards, not to mention economic and political freedom. The administration's all-or-nothing posture is divorced from the reality on which our approaches to North Korea, China, Vietnam and other communist countries are based. It is a formula for irrelevance.

And Congress should increase American influence by building bridges rather than barriers to Cuba.

The administration has all but cut off individual Americans' contacts with Cuba. People-to-people and academic exchanges, family visits, religious and humanitarian programs, and travel by average Americans are nearly impossible -- if not illegal -- today.

President Bush's theory is that reduced travel cuts Cuba's hard-currency earnings and helps to "hasten the end of the Castro dictatorship." But his intelligence agencies certify that the dictatorship is unbothered: Cuban economic growth was 7.5 percent last year.

We should unite around a principle that Democrats and Republicans have long embraced, a principle that aided the West's success in the Cold War: American openness is a source of strength, not a concession to dictatorships.

It is time to permit free travel to Cuba, as provided in legislation we have introduced. Open travel would create a "free flow of ideas" that "would promote democratization," as dissident Oscar Espinosa Chepe wrote shortly after his release from prison in 2004. It would also bring humanitarian benefits to Cubans as family visits increase and travelers boost Cuba's small but vital entrepreneurial sector.

Electoral politics should not prevent us from reaching out to 11 million neighbors who have lived under communism for 48 long years.

Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) led a 10-member House delegation to Cuba in December.