After Republican politicians criticised the music stars for visiting Cuba, US officials say they did have a right to be there.
U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband rapper Jay-Z walk as they leave their Hotel in Havana
The couple at the start of their trip to the island
A trip to Cuba by pop diva Beyonce and her hip-hop star husband Jay-Z was not illegal, the US Treasury department has insisted.
Beyonce and Jay-Z celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary in the capital Havana last week.
The trip had come under criticism from Republican politicians who questioned whether the couple was breaking an embargo forbidding US citizens from visiting the country.
But senior Treasury official Alastair Fitzpayne said in a letter to the concerned Republicans, that the couple’s controversial trip was part of a cultural exchange and did not violate the economic embargo imposed on the island by the US.
“It is our understanding that the travellers in question travelled to Cuba pursuant to an educational exchange trip organised by a group authorised by OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) to sponsor and organise programmes to promote people-to-people contact in Cuba,” Mr Fitzpayne said in the letter.
CUBA-US-BEYONCE
The couple photographing the crowds who came to see them
Last week, Republican representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida sent a letter to Treasury official Adam Szubin, director of OFAC, requesting information on the type of licence Beyonce and Jay-Z received before travelling to Cuba.
“As you know, US law expressly prohibits the licensing of financial transactions for ‘tourist activities’ in Cuba,” the pair wrote.
Crowds gather outside of the Saratoga Hotel in Havana waiting for U.S. singer Beyonce and her husband rapper Jay-Z
Cuban fans wait to see the couple
Images of Beyonce and her husband walking around Havana surrounded by hundreds of fans stoked controversy in the US.
Under the embargo established against Cuba in 1962, US citizens cannot go to the island and spend money without permission from the government.
Mr Fitzpayne said OFAC “adheres strictly to the requirement in the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 that no licence be issued to travel to Cuba for tourist activities, as defined in the Act”.
US citizens are not allowed to travel to Cuba purely as holidaymakers. However, they can get licences to go there on the grounds of academic, religious, journalistic or cultural exchange trips.
The so-called “people-to-people” licences were reinstated under the Obama administration.
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