<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by christep:
Way off topic, but what gives the US government the right to restrict what a foreign citizen does when they are outside the US? (Assuming no international laws are breached) Do they check your passport to see if you have been to Cuba or Libya (or N Korea, Syria, ...)? If it is OK to go there, why does it matter whether it is on the same ticket or not?
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But the US does have control over the domestic aviation industry and can impose a lot of different regulations on them. You are a non-US citizen and want to go to Havana, have at it. But just don't use a US domestic airline on the same ticket. The government couldn't care less who goes to Cuba who isn't a US citizen because the US government isn't responsible for them. But as long as it does maintain responsibility for domestic carriers, it can freely impose such restriction. I expect the policy would be the same if you tried to fly lax-pek-hkg-tpe-lax or lhr-tlv-cai-ruh-lhr. But I have no idea. I am so brainwashed by Big Macs, SUVs, large hats, and Starbucks that I have no clue what the more civilized Eastern world would do.