After Obama won the presidency last November, the first stirring of voices against the nearly five-decades-old U.S. embargo against Cuba came from multilateral fora in Latin American and the Caribbean. (There was a non-binding vote in the UN condemning the embargo the month before Election Day, but that's happened for the last 17 years.)

But now, calls for an end to the embargo are gaining steam where it matters most: the U.S. Congress.

The post-election opening salvo came from the Caribbean Community of Nations (Caricom), which expressed hope that "the transformational change which is under way in the United States will finally relegate that measure to history.”

Then, South American leaders forcefully chimed in, calling the embargo "unacceptable." Some more radical heads of state even suggested that South American governments should cut diplomatic ties with Washington if Obama refuses to drop sanctions. (I don't think this threat was taken seriously.)

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who was the first regional leader to meet with President Obama, reportedly urged Obama to improve relations with the region's radical governments. Lula even offered Brazil as a mediator in the potential rapprochement, but this offer was seemingly dismissed by the State Department.

For its part, the Obama administration has moved timidly. Obama party fulfilled a campaign promise to rollback Bush-era restrictions that limited Cuban-American visits to the island and the sending of cash remittances. The rollback was included in the massive omnibus spending bill recently signed into law by the President (two Republican Senators temporarily held up the bill because of the Cuba provisions).

Vice President Biden made the administration's position clear while on a recent and brief tour of Latin America: He re-iterated the administration has no plans to lift the embargo. Biden repeated Obama's campaign pledge to use the embargo as leverage for reforms in Cuba. It's incomprehensible that the administration thinks this strategy will work after it has failed so demonstrably for nearly five decades. The statement came amid (unfounded) speculation that the U.S. was planning to announce the end of the embargo at an upcoming regional summit.

Even the normally tepid Organization of American States (OAS) has come out as strong advocate for Cuba. Its Secretary General, Jose Miguel Insulza, said Cuba should be re-instated to the OAS (it was suspended in 1962 for being Communist). Insulza made these comments ahead of the OAS's upcoming Summit of the Americas to be held April 17–19 in Trinidad and Tobago. It would seem that Cuba's re-admission to the OAS would be a first step toward ending U.S. sanctions.

Costa Rica and El Salvador recently announced the re-opening of diplomatic ties with the Communist government, meaning that the only country in the entire hemisphere that currently does not recognize Cuba is the United States. A series of influential U.S. foreign policy think tanks have recently published reports that unanimously call for a change of direction in this failed policy of isolation. None call for the unilateral end of the U.S. embargo, but they should.

Now, Congress has also jumped into the fray, and it is on Capitol Hill where U.S. Cuba policy is really decided.

On March 31, a bi-partisan group of Senators announced their support for a bill that would effectively end all travel restrictions to Cuba for U.S. citizens. The House has a nearly identical bill on the table with 120 co-sponsors. And today, April 3, a delegation of the congressional Black Caucus arrived to Havana to promote an end to sanctions.

Meanwhile, an array of groups is lobbying Congress for the end of the embargo, including business organizations, farm groups, policy NGOs, solidarity activists, the tourist industry, and many others.

The full-court press on the Obama administration will come to a head at the OAS-sponsored Summit of the Americas – at least privately. Not blocking Cuba's reinstatement to the regional body would be a positive first step. But as Insulza made clear, "Cuba’s fundamental problem is the U.S. embargo, not whether or not it belongs to specific organizations like the OAS."

Hopefully, Obama will get an earful on this issue in Trinidad.

Update 4/5/09: Administration officials announced the easing of the remaining Bush-era restrictions on family travel and remittances to Cuba. An anonymous official said, "The intent is to try to test the waters and see if we can get Cuba to move in another direction." Adding, "One way of getting the regime to open up may be to let people travel, increase exchanges and get money flowing to the island." The AP reports: "President Barack Obama plans to announce the policy change before the Summit of the Americas April 17-19 in Trinidad and Tobago..."

Update 4/6/09: My friend Al Giordano, who blogs at The Field, just made an incredibly important point that I hadn't thought of: In writing about the lifting of the final travel restrictions vis-à-vis the larger embargo, he writes:

The incremental approach to easing the obsolete embargo contains a hidden brilliance: Obama has convinced a majority of Cuban-Americans – long an obstacle to a healthier relationship between the two countries – that it’s in their self-interest to be able to travel and send money to relatives back on the island. And yet the policy will almost immediately be expanded not by Congress, but by the US Courts: the Constitution’s equal-treatment-under-the-law provisions will not tolerate, for long, a policy that extends those privileges to a single ethnic group. This will be the laudable Trojan Horse by which all US citizens, of all ethnicities, will then win, through an upcoming landmark court decision, in a venue that remains to be chosen, those same rights to travel to the Cuban island.

Let's hope so...

Update 4/8/09: The Black Caucus delegation returned from Cuba, where they met with both Raúl and Fidel Castro. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), who led the delegation, told a news conference back in Washington: "We believe it is time to open dialogue and discussion with Cuba." She said Fidel asked their advice on what Cuba can do to improve ties with the United States. The Cuban government has put the ball back in Obama's court. The President, a basketball enthusiast, should continue to reciprocate.