To the Editor:

Re “Cracking Down on ‘Veiled Tourism,’ U.S. Announces Cuba Travel Restrictions” (news article, June 5):

Having just returned from a trip to Cuba, I was dismayed to learn of the Trump administration’s new restrictions on travel there.

My visit was sponsored by a League of Women Voters of Florida program called Sisters Across the Straits. It is based on the belief that exchanging views helps support Cubans’ independent thinking and promotes our country’s goals, while restricting contact keeps Cubans ignorant of our values and policies. This is especially true in a country where the information people get from newspapers and television is tightly controlled by the government.

For example, one day our guide, a young woman who was a student at Havana University, remarked several times when talking casually about current events, “I never knew that.” We had scheduled meetings with Cubans, but our casual conversations with others, such as our taxi driver, the cook at the private house where we stayed, and a farmer in a currency exchange line, were equally memorable.

Don’t we want to encourage such exchanges?

Cynthia Coulson

Riverside, Conn.