South Florida Republican officials are pressing for tougher scrutiny of businesses that send goods or provide services linked to Cuba, the Miami Herald reported.
In Hialeah, Mayor Bryan Calvo has launched a Cuba Business Advisory Task Force to review more than 290 local firms that do business with Cuba, according to the report. Calvo said the task force will examine “potential cases that require further review,” stressing that being flagged does not imply wrongdoing.
The push comes as Washington increases pressure on Havana and amid heightened political attention to sanctions enforcement, the Herald said.
The mayors of Coral Gables and Doral, a Miami city commissioner, and several Miami-Dade officials, have backed the effort, which comes as members of Congress have urged federal officials to tighten oversight of Cuba-related licenses and authorizations issued by the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the newspaper said.
The businesses under scrutiny provide services ranging from shipping household goods, food, and medicine to processing remittances and arranging travel, the Herald reported. For many residents of Hialeah, the U.S. city with the largest Cuban diaspora population, these storefronts function as a lifeline to relatives as shortages of food, medicine, and electricity worsen in Cuba.
At the county level, Miami-Dade Tax Collector Dariel Fernández has begun a phased audit of Cuba-related businesses and has sent review letters to roughly 175 companies, the report said. Fernández’s office initially revoked the licenses of 20 firms but later reinstated 18 after paperwork was submitted.
Businesses are already receiving notices and, in some cases, have been given 30 days to respond, according to the Herald. Cubamax, a company that operates daily charter flights and ships goods to Cuba, said it was contacted by the city and maintained that its operations are heavily regulated and compliant, adding that most of its shipments are humanitarian aid, the report said.
Read more at the Miami Herald