Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/possible-cuba-policy-changes-spark-debate Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript The Obama administration is expected to ease travel and financial embargoes with Cuba in broad policy changes that have sparked debate between those in favor of starting a dialogue with Cuban leaders and those who advocate continuing the restrictions. Analysts probe the policy issues. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. RAY SUAREZ: For more on that trip and where U.S.-Cuban relations might be headed, we get two views. Alfredo Duran is vice president of the Cuban Committee for Democracy, a nonprofit organization advocating dialogue with Cuba. And Mauricio Claver-Carone is director of the U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee, which advocates keeping the embargo and other sanctions in place.Mauricio Claver-Carone, you just heard Congresswoman Lee. It's been a while since American elected officials have had high-level contacts with Cuba's rulers. Was there anything useful about the trip, in your view? MAURICIO CLAVER-CARONE, U.S.-Cuba Democracy Political Action Committee: Actually, you know, I think it's a lost opportunity. You know, currently in Cuba, you have individuals, like Dr. Oscar Biscet, spending 25 years in prison, Afro-Cuban. This is a modern-day Nelson Mandela in Cuban prisons.You have Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, also Afro-Cuban, 40-year-old, who's spent 20 years in prison already and has been on a hunger strike since February 17th, practicing civil disobedience, a modern-day Dr. Martin Luther King.And yet these members of the Congressional Black Caucus, which are supposed to promote racial diversity, have gone into this country which 60 percent, 70 percent of which is Afro-Cuban or of mixed race, and have decided to ignore these Afro-Cuban leaders, have decided to simply meet with this minority ruled of individuals, Fidel and Raul Castro and the five or six individuals that control this country with an iron fist, of which are in the racial minority in this country there, and ignore the plight of everyday Cubans.What could have been a great progress is — you know, at the end of the day, regardless of what these individuals do, in Cuba, there will be a bottom-to-the-top approach, similar to Poland with Walesa, Havel in the former Czechoslovakia, Mandela in South Africa.They missed that opportunity. And, instead, they chose to go for a top-down approach with a handful of power-hungry individuals.