Obama and Castro hail historic breakthrough for US-Cuba relations - as it happened

“This does not have to be a relationship that is frozen in time, an Obama administration official has told the Times’ Ernesto Londoño.

The kicker, as the Guardian’s Dan Roberts (@robertsdan) learned from a senior official, is that Fidel Castro was not involved in the negotiations.

Alan Gross has returned to US soil after about five years in a Cuban prison, CBS’ Charlie Kaye and wires report.

The Obama administration has released a factsheet on its new policies, which you can read in its comprehensive entirety at this link here. For a much briefer version check out the summary below.

Diplomacy with Cuba

• Re-establish diplomatic relations severed in 1961.
  
• Restore a Havana embassy for “high-level exchanges”, including about US-Cuba migration.
• Have talks with Cuba about issues such as migration, human rights, trafficking and counternarcotics; “engagement will be critical when appropriate”.

New regulations

• Departments of Treasury and Commerce will change their policies.
• Travel policies will “increase people-to-people contact” – ie relaxed travel.
• Remittance policies will “enhance the free flow of information” – ie telecoms and internet should have more freedom to operate in Cuba.
• “Persons must comply with all provisions of the revised regulations; violations of the terms and conditions are enforceable under US law.”

Travel

• Expanded rules for travel, including more widely available visas for family, government employees, journalists, researchers, religious groups, humanitarian groups, import/export employees and others.
• “The policy changes make it easier for Americans to provide business training for private Cuban businesses and small farmers and provide other support for the growth of Cuba’s nascent private sector.”

Remittances

• “Remittance levels will be raised from $500 to $2,000 per quarter for general donative remittances to Cuban nationals (except to certain officials of the government or the Communist party).”
• Remittance forwarders will no longer require a specific license.

Commerce, exports and imports

• More goods will be authorized for export, such as building materials and agricultural equipment.
• Licensed Americans will be allowed to import $400 worth of goods, but no more than $100 of tobacco products and alcohol combined – yes that means cigars.
• “US institutions will be permitted to open correspondent accounts at Cuban financial institutions.”
• US credit and debit cards will be permitted for use by travelers to Cuba

Internet and technology

• More tech will be allowed into Cuba, including software, hardware and telecom systems
• Telecoms will be allowed to build infrastructure for internet and phone service between the US and Cuba

Even more diplomacy

• The US and Cuba will try to clear up the unresolved maritime boundary in the Gulf of Mexico, and will include Mexico in the talks.
• President Obama has told secretary of state John Kerry to review Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, which has been its status since 1982.
• The US will not oppose Cuba’s participation in the 2015 Summit of the Americas.

A quick look at the key developments so far.

• Cuba has released American Alan Gross from prison after nearly five years of captivity following his arrest on suspicion of espionage.
• The US will return three Cubans convicted of spying in 2001, members of the so-called Cuban Five and Wasp Network.
  
• President Barack Obama will deliver remarks at 12pm ET that overhaul US-Cuba relations after decades of estrangement and embargo. Senior administration officials have said he will restore diplomatic relations and a Havana embassy, as well as ease travel and telecom restrictions.
• President Raul Castro will give a simultaneous speech on Cuban TV at 12pm ET. Cuba has relaxed its strict economic policies and quietly cooperated with the US in backroom talks over the past year or so.
• Alan Gross will deliver a statement at 1.30pm ET, alongside members of Congress who flew to Cuba to retrieve him. His health is in dire condition, his family and lawyer have said.
• Members of Congress have lashed out at the president for “vindicating a dictator”, and have signaled they will oppose any attempt to lift the economic embargo that has handicapped Cuba for decades. Obama requires Congress’ approval to lift fully the embargo.

The Guardian’s Dan Roberts continues to provide backroom details of how negotiations developed – with an assist from Pope Francis.

Obama does have some congressional support – high profile members of Congress are reportedly on board the flight with Gross, and some Democrats have been urging these changes for some time.

Washington watchers are starting to gauge the wider ramifications of Obama’s foreign policy moves in the past few years.

Cubans in Havana reacting with happiness tempered by skepticism, Jonathan Watts reports for the Guardian.

Cubans are still waiting for confirmation from their government. Many have yet to hear the news.

Frank Reyes, a teacher in Havana, was surprised and pleased to hear about the release when contacted by the Guardian.

“It sounds good, but that’s the first I have heard of it. There was nothing on the morning news. We are always the last to know because we don’t have access to a real internet service. I guess they will tell us later. We have to wait it’s not like other countries.”

As we talked, he switched to the Telesur TV channel, where a flash came up on the screen “Cuba frees Alan Gross” and a reporter said this could be a step towards the lifting of the embargo.

“That will be good,” said Reyes. “There has been a lot of pressure on the US. It may be paying off.”

In Havana, mobile phone news messaging services have sent out an alert that President Raul Castro will give a speech at noon to make an “important announcement on relations between Cuba and the United States.”

Republicans will not be alone in their anger at the president – some Democrats are towing an almost identical line.

Obama needs Congress to make major changes to the embargo; otherwise his actions will be limited to areas of travel, some trade and points around the edges. The total could still be significant, but the embargo itself would stay in place.

Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican from Florida and critic of the Obama administration – and a politician considering a run for president in 2016, has launched into a tirade against the president on Fox News.

“First of all we’re all glad Mr Gross will be back with his family. He’s not a spy, not a criminal, he’s a hostage. I’m not in favor of the process in which is release was acquired. It sets a dangerous precedent and puts a price on every American abroad.”

“I think they will entail things like normalized diplomatic relations and the opening of more commerce and trade with a dictatorship

“It’s absurd, and it’s part of a long record of coddling dictators and tyrants by the Obama administration.”

Rubio criticizes the administration for not getting Cuba to concede political points, like free elections.

“There is not support” [in Congress] for the embargo to be lifted. “That’s all they have to do to lift the embargo, they have to become a democracy.”

“They’re not just benign Cuban spies … these Cuban spies were involved in providing information to the Cuban government that [cost] the lives of Americans.”

“Barack Obama is the worst negotiator as president since at least Jimmy Carter.”

The release of Gross and apparently sweeping changes in US-Cuban relations come after months of quiet backroom talks and tacit cooperation.

CBS’s Margaret Brennan points out that rapprochement has been in the works on some level for over a year.

The turn toward mending old bridges also follows a string of editorials in the New York Times, dating as far back as a 2012 entry titled “Release Alan Gross”.

Far more recently, the Times published “Cuba’s Economy at a Crossroads” just days ago, in October “Obama should End the Embargo on Cuba”, and in November an editorial titled “A Prisoner Swap with Cuba”. An excerpt from “End the Embargo”:

Mr. Obama should seize this opportunity to end a long era of enmity and help a population that has suffered enormously since Washington ended diplomatic relations in 1961, two years after Fidel Castro assumed power.

Cuba is building a seaport, a major project that will be economically viable only if American sanctions are lifted.

Fully ending the embargo will require Congress’s approval. But there is much more the White House could do on its own. For instance, it could lift caps on remittances, allow Americans to finance private Cuban businesses and expand opportunities for travel to the island.

It could also help American companies that are interested in developing the island’s telecommunications network but remain wary of the legal and political risks. Failing to engage with Cuba now will likely cede this market to competitors. The presidents of China and Russia traveled to Cuba in separate visits in July, and both leaders pledged to expand ties.