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As Trade Restrictions Crumble, Airbnb Offers Rooms In Cuba
As reported by the Associated Press, and carried by the Washington Post, one major move toward normalized relations between Cuba and the United States has been made not by diplomats, but by entrepreneurs. Airbnb has opened its crowd-sourced roomfinding service to Cubans and Americans, such that American tourists visiting Havana can book space in private homes — as of today.
From the article:
“We believe that Cuba could become one of Airbnb’s biggest markets in Latin America,” said Kay Kuehne, regional director for Airbnb, the website and mobile app that allows users to book rooms in more than 1 million private homes around the world. “We are actually plugging into an existing culture of micro-enterprise in Cuba. The hosts in Cuba have been doing for decades what we just started doing seven years ago. ... Because of continuing restrictions under the U.S. embargo, the company’s Cuba listing will only be available to U.S. travelers visiting under one of 12 U.S.-government approved categories of legal travel, ranging from professional research to religious activities.”
There is no constitutional authority for the federal government to prohibit us from visiting Cuba and spending money there.
-jcr
Technically there is no travel ban. You are just prohibited from spending money or receiving gifts in Cuba without a government license.
From United States embargo against Cuba
The current regulation does not prohibit travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba per se, but it makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have transactions (spend money or receive gifts) in Cuba under most circumstances without a US government Office of Foreign Assets Control issued license.[21] Since even paying unavoidable airfare ticket taxes into a Cuban airport would violate this transaction law, it is effectively impossible for ordinary tourists to visit Cuba without breaking the monetary transaction rule.
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This has been possible for a while- the rooms were just listed under "Key Largo, Florida" on Airbnbs website. Then, when you read the details, it became clear that this was actually a room in Cuba.
If history is any guide, the lodgings for such tourists will be available with young willing women and conveniently pre-bugged for you. According to FBI, Cuban intelligence actively recruits Americans with methods including blackmail...
If you dance with the devil, then you haven't got a clue...
Cue-in the knuckle-dragging simpletons sincerely equating Castro (Peace be Upon Him) with Bush (spit) or Lavrenty Beria with Joe McCarthy, to tell us, how the US is "worse" than a regime headed by the same Dear Leader for 50 years.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.