WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (IPS) - If U.S. President-elect Barack Obama wants to begin dismantling Washington's nearly 50-year-old trade embargo against Cuba, it appears he will have widespread support for doing so.

Not only have some major foreign policy heavyweights recently called for ending the embargo if, for no other reason, than to create desperately needed goodwill elsewhere in the Americas and beyond.

But major U.S. business groups also appear more enthusiastic than ever for pushing the incoming administration and the most Democratic Congress in some 20 years in that direction, although they concede the process may be more gradual than they would like.

"We support the complete removal of all trade and travel restrictions on Cuba," a dozen such business associations, including the politically potent Business Roundtable, American Farm Bureau Federation, National Retail Federation, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wrote, in a letter addressed to Obama Thursday.

"We recognize that change may not come all at once, but it must start somewhere, and it must begin soon," they added, noting that Washington's trade embargo and its long-standing efforts to isolate Havana for national security reasons during the Cold War have "far outlasted (their) original purpose".

The letter, which was drafted by Jake Colvin, vice president for Global Trade Issues of the National Foreign Trade Council (NFTC), is the latest in a series of public statements by prominent foreign policy figures and institutions in favour of easing, if not abandoning, Washington's efforts to isolate Havana.