Some had expected U.S. to retaliate for dissident crackdown

                                                            By Mary C. Murray
                                                        NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT

                           HAVANA, May 20 — The Bush administration failed
                           Tuesday to apply new sanctions against the Cuban
                           government, dodging pressure from Miami’s
                           radical Cuban-American community to punish
                           Fidel Castro for a recent crackdown.
                                  MANY HAD expected the White House to announce
                           new restrictions Tuesday, timed to coincide with the
                           anniversary of Cuba’s independence from Spain. Instead,
                           President Bush recorded a 40-second radio greeting that
                           expressed little more than sympathy for the plight of ordinary
                           Cubans:
                                  “My hope is for the Cuban people to soon enjoy the
                           same freedoms and rights as we do. Dictatorship has no
                           place in the Americas. May God bless the Cuban people,
                           who are struggling for freedom.”
                                  The message went out at 9:30 a.m. over the airwaves of
                           the U.S. government’s Radio Marti, when most people were
                           either at work or in school. There’s no way of knowing just
                           how many Cubans heard the president’s message.
                                  Despite Havana’s systematic jamming of the 24-hour
                           broadcasts, since its start in 1985 Radio Marti has
                           represented an alternative source of information to Cuba’s
                           state-controlled media.
                                  Expectations that Bush would make a new policy
                           statement on Cuba seemed logical after senior White House
                           officials spoke about a strong response to Castro’s arrests in
                           mid-March of 75 political dissidents.
                                  Options ranged from placing new limits on the amount
                           of money Cuban Americans could send to relatives on the
                           island to stopping the 30 weekly direct charter flights that
                           bring exiles home on humanitarian visits. Current U.S. law
                           permits Cuban Americans to make one humanitarian visit
                           and send $1,200 to family members a year.
                                  Both measures would harm U.S. financial interests and
                           Cuban families, says Nelson Valdés, a Cuba specialist and
                           academic at the University of New Mexico.
                                  “Ending flights to Cuba will hurt, first of all, the Miami
                           airport and the Miami charter companies precisely at the
                           moment when the airlines are having problems,” Valdés
                           said.
                                  Family remittances, hard to regulate, are an important
                           source of income for many Cuban households. Cuban
                           economists estimate that travelers hand-carry more than half
                           of the $1 billion sent home annually — circumventing U.S.
                           legal limits that are more easily enforced when the funds are
                           sent through Western Union or other agencies.
                                  Some Castro foes also reportedly urged the Bush
                           administration to suspend all export licenses to U.S.
                           companies selling agricultural products to Cuba. That would
                           anger food giants such as Cargill and Archer Midland as
                           well as small food producers for whom every new market
                           counts.
                                  To date, the island has made purchases exceeding $187
                           million since late 2001, according to the U.S.-Cuba Trade and
                           Economic Council, which monitors business traffic between
                           the two countries.
                                  Just Monday, Cuba bought $4 million worth of corn and
                           wheat from an Iowa farmer cooperative.
                                  Although the Bush administration showed restraint
                           Tuesday, last week the State Department expelled 14 Cuban
                           diplomats for engaging in “unacceptable activities” — a
                           diplomatic phrase for espionage.
                                  Florentino Batista, the former deputy consul at the
                           Cuban Mission in Washington, denied being a spy and
                           charged the deportations were “politically motivated.” Some
                           analysts agree with Batista, seeing the expulsions as a slap on
                           the wrist for Castro’s crackdown on the U.S.-supported
                           dissident movement.