THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Thanks to the good offices of the Vatican, the US and Cuba will be taking some large steps to normalize relations between the two countries.

The U.S. will restore diplomatic relations with Cuba and expand travel and trade in the most sweeping changes to U.S.-Cuba policy in 50 years after President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro agreed to the outlines of a deal that freed American contractor Alan Gross and sent three Cubans convicted of spying back to Cuba.

"We will end an outdated approach that has failed to advance our interests,” Obama said in remarks from the White House. “These 50 years have shown isolation does not work, it’s time for a new approach.”

The deal – which was reached with the involvement of Pope Francis -- also involved the release of a U.S. intelligence “asset” who had been imprisoned for nearly 20 years, Obama said.

As a result, the U.S. will look at setting up an embassy in Havana – it severed contact in 1961 -- and possibly removing Cuba from the list of states that sponsor terrorism. And it will loosen restrictions on travel and trade with the country, making it easier for more Americans to travel there, and allowing them to bring back as much as $400, including $100 in alcohol and tobacco.

The moves are a repudiation of the hands-off stance and economic stranglehold the U.S. has employed against Cuba since Fidel Castro came to power in the 1960 – a policy the White House said “had failed to advance our interests.’

The moves stop short of lifting the economic embargo against Cuba – which only Congress can do – but Obama said he “looked forward” to talking with Congress about the possibility.

The move was immediately condemned by some of the staunchest anti Castro lawmakers from South Florida as a paean to the Cuban regime, even as Obama insisted he would continue to press Cuba on democracy and human rights.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called the decision to relax U.S. restrictions, “the latest in a long line of failed attempts by President Obama to appease rogue regimes at all cost.”

Naturally all the old Cuban "Moustache Petes" and their little stooge Marco are furious at the idea. Mostly because any steps taken will not restore their "hereditary" dominance of Cuba, with all their imagined privileges. And the Republican Congress is unlikely to repeal the embargo because they really don't care for business or free trade.