WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House received recommendations of a government working group on the resumption of remittances to Cuba, but he returned some of them so that work can continue on them and to guarantee that the money sent by Cuban Americans to their families on the island does not fall into the hands of the Cuban government, a senior US official said on Friday.
The president of United States, Joe Biden had asked the Treasury and State departments in July to report on how to allow the payment of remittances - a financial lifeline for many Cubans - without the Cuban government and military benefiting.
The Biden administration has imposed sanctions on Cuban officials and security forces in response to the repression of protesters in Havana in July.
Strict limits on remittances were imposed by former President Donald Trump, who rolled back the historic rapprochement that his predecessor, Barack Obama, oversaw between the United States and its former Cold War enemy.
Biden, who was Obama's vice president, had promised during the presidential campaign of 2020 to re-establish relations with the communist government of Cuba.
But relations have remained strained, especially since protests broke out in July amid a severe economic crisis and a surge in coronavirus infections at the time. Thousands of people took to the streets, angry about shortages of basic products, restrictions on civil liberties and the authorities' management of the pandemic, and dozens of people were arrested.
"We have received the recommendations of the State Department and Treasury Task Force on Remittances," the senior Biden administration official told reporters, although he declined to offer details on those ideas.
"We have returned some of them because... what the president has said publicly is that we are willing to resume remittance flows, but we want to make sure that... the Cuban military does not benefit from it," the official added.
The official said Biden has instructed his aides to develop a "third way" that is "tough on the regime and soft on the Cuban people." The administration is consulting with Democrats and Republicans, as well as the Cuban exile community, the official said.
Reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Trevor Hunnicutt, with editing by Frances Kerry.
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