MIAMI -- Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry is telling the Miami Herald that as president he would encourage "principled travel" to Cuba and lift the cap on gifts to its people.

The Massachusetts senator says that new measures announced by the White House last month to restrict travel and cap gifts to the country are nothing more than an election-year move by President George W. Bush.

The new measures include restricting family visits by Cuban-Americans to once every three years instead of the current once-per-year. There's also a $1,200-per-year limit on dollar transfers that Cuban-American families can send to the island.

Kerry tells the newspaper those rules only punish the Cuban people and not Fidel Castro.