US relaxes slightly embargo on Cuban cigar imports

A new policy announced by President Barack Obama means that importing into the US Cuban tobacco products worth up to $100 will be legal, according to a story by Ben Geier for Fortune Magazine.

Under the new rules, US visitors to Cuba will be able to return with goods worth $400 including tobacco and alcohol worth up to $100.

Meanwhile, a Reuters News report made it clear that the new rules concerned personal consumption; not retail or commercial operations.

Writing for The Guardian, Dan Roberts, of Washington, and Rory Carroll, of Los Angeles, said that Obama and Cuba’s President, Raúl Castro, had spoken simultaneously on Wednesday ‘to confirm the surprise reversal of a long-running US policy of isolating Cuba, detailing a series of White House steps that will relax travel, commercial and diplomatic restrictions in exchange for the release of Americans and dissidents held in Havana’.

‘Though a formal end to the US trade embargo requires legislation in Congress, both Obama and Castro said they believed that such executive action was sufficient to significantly open up relations between the two countries and allow travellers and trade to flow relatively freely,’ Roberts and Carroll wrote.