USA announce further reductions in trade sanctions on Cuba

The United States announced on Friday a new package of trade reductions involving Cuba, in an initiative that President Barack Obama saw a "huge step forward" in the normalization of relations between the two countries.

When has a Presidential Directive 12 pages, Obama announced a "comprehensive approach" of his government to promote closer ties with Cuba, so that the opening "is irreversible."

Furthermore, the document states that the US government does not intend to seek a regime change on the island.

This is the sixth round of changes to the legal rules and regulations governing US trade sanctions against Cuba since the two old adversaries re-established diplomatic relations last year.

Washington may authorize licenses for the import of certain pharmaceutical products of Cuban origin, as well as allow joint initiatives in the field of medical research.

Also removed the limits to the "monetary value that authorized travelers can import from Cuba to the United States as hand luggage."

The Treasury Department also announced that it will issue a permit to allow "persons subject to US jurisdiction to provide services related to the security of civil aviation to Cuba", a theme that was considered extreme sensitivity in Washington.

However, the Presidential Directive signed by Obama puts the priorities of the White House relations from government to government, the expansion of bilateral trade and also promoting the approach of Cuba to various international financial institutions.

"Do not seek regime change in Cuba," he wrote the president on page 7 of its Directive, in the chapter on the promotion of human rights.

In December 2014 Washington and Havana surprised the world by announcing the start of a historic process of rapprochement after half a century of disruption and distrust.

Both countries formally re-established diplomatic relations in 2015.

In the Directive, Obama said the approach was necessary to put "an end to an obsolete policy that has failed to defend US interests."

Now both countries are engaged in a "normalization process", in which case the US is to dismantle the huge legal tangle that determines the sanctions against Cuba.