WASHINGTON — President Clinton does not oppose a Republican plan to relax sanctions to allow sales of food and medicine to Cuba but is concerned about an initiative to limit presidential powers to manage embargoes, the White House said Tuesday.
Republican leaders in the House of Representatives brokered a compromise early Tuesday to relax U.S. sanctions on Cuba to allow unfettered food and medicine sales but no private or government financing would be allowed on the food sales.
"We haven't seen the details of the agreement," said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart. "We are not opposed to allowing things like food and medicine to go to Cuba as long as it is for the benefit of the people, not the benefit of the Castro government. That's a long-standing policy."
But, he said, included in the legislation is a provision to limit the president's ability to manage embargoes and foreign policy and "those are concerns we will have to try to work out if the bill moves through the Senate."
"As it has been reported to us, the restrictions as we understand it are very very cumbersome, but we'll take a look at it," Lockhart said.
The agreement would end five weeks of behind-the-scenes fighting among Republicans and allow a vote on exempting food and medicine from unilateral U.S. embargoes. Cuba would be the major beneficiary but Iran, Libya, Sudan and North Korea would be affected as well.
If approved by Congress, it would be a significant change, politically and economically, in U.S. sanctions imposed in the early 1960s in hopes of ousting the Fidel Castro government.
Cuba would face greater restrictions on financing than other nations, which would be denied U.S. government credit but could seek private U.S. financing. The ban on U.S. financing for food sales to Cuba reflected the sensitivity of dealing with the Communist island 90 miles from Florida.