The Cuba Fallacy
Gross’s initial arrest in 2009 came amid a broader government crackdown on dissent, and recent events confirm that opposition leaders remain under siege. Earlier this month, a prominent Cuban dissident known as “Antúnez” testified before the U.S. Senate via video link, and then was promptly arrested and savagely attacked by Cuban security forces. According to the Miami Herald, Antúnez was “beaten and sprayed with pepper gas in a police jail cell,” before eventually being released.
How could the United States ever have warm relations with a government that would brazenly and brutally assault a democracy activist two days after he offered Senate testimony? For that matter, if the Castro regime really did want a better relationship with Washington, why would it engage in such nakedly hostile behavior?
Which brings us back to the much-maligned U.S. embargo. It is deeply unpopular throughout Latin America? Yes. Is it the largest barrier to a major thaw in U.S.-Cuban relations? No. The largest barrier is the Cuban regime itself, which refuses to implement the most basic political reforms or respect the most fundamental human rights. Indeed, for all the hoopla over Raúl Castro’s modest economic reforms — which Cuban dissident economist Oscar Chepe has described as “too little, too limited and too late” — his government is still among the most repressive on earth. When Pope Benedict XVI visited the island in March, a senior Cuban official told reporters, “We are updating our economic model, but we are not talking about political reform.”
Some embargo critics argue that American tourism and investment would topple the dictatorship or compel it to allow free elections. These critics don’t appreciate the nature of Cuban tyranny. If the Communist leadership doesn’t want political reform, there will be no political reform. Just ask all the European countries that have been sending tourists and investment to Cuba for many years. According to the European Union’s website, “The EU is Cuba’s largest trading partner, with a third of all trade, almost one half of foreign direct investment and more than half of all tourists coming from Europe.”
I cannot put it better than journalist Charles Lane did in a 1999 New Republic article:
There will be no meaningful thaw with Cuba, and certainly no democratic opening there, until a Cuban Gorbachev emerges. Meanwhile, perhaps we should make a standing offer to Fidel Castro: We’ll lift the embargo, provide massive aid to rebuild the island, and give back the U.S. base at Guantanamo if he’ll simply hold a free, multiparty, internationally monitored national election, just like the ones they have in every other Latin American country. Let him turn that offer down and then try to explain to his people, and the world, why he did.
Raúl Castro is not the Cuban Gorbachev. But when he (age 81) and Fidel (nearly 86) finally die, genuine political reformers may emerge and take power. Only then will a true U.S.-Cuban détente be possible.
This article is available in Spanish here.
“There will be no meaningful thaw with Cuba, and certainly no democratic opening there, until a Cuban Gorbachev emerges. Meanwhile, perhaps we should make a standing offer to Fidel Castro: We’ll lift the embargo, provide massive aid to rebuild the island, and give back the U.S. base at Guantanamo if he’ll simply hold a free, multiparty, internationally monitored national election, just like the ones they have in every other Latin American country. Let him turn that offer down and then try to explain to his people, and the world, why he did.”
Exactly right! This is precisely the approach that should be taken.
I continue to be ashamed of people from Western democracies who prop up Castro’s dictatorship via their tourist visits to Cuba. I think they do more harm than good. I wonder if Cuba would be free today if all the world’s countries had joined in the embargo from the beginning and adhered to it rigorously?
Though it seems that only the good die young, the evil Castro brothers cannot live forever. Their regime will eventually collapse, with or without a Gorbachev.
We should drop the embargo because embargoes almost never work and because this embargo has clearly not worked.
Dude, if you want the Cuban people to be inspired to dump Communism and move toward democracy (representative Republic even better, especially one with a Bill of Rights) then you want them to meet and interact with people who live in a free, democratic representative republic (aka the United States). Not Canada (not going to cut it), not any Euro country (not going to cut it) but the United States.
Dump the embargo now and let us get in there and enjoy spending time with the Cuban people and inspire them to dump their nasty form of government, which ever comes first.
Paul A’Barge wrote: “…if you want the Cuban people to be inspired to dump Communism and move toward…then you want them to meet and interact with people who live in a free, democratic representative republic….”
By implication, you’re saying it’s the ignorance of the Cuban people who keep them from adopting a free and open form of government. That’s like blaming the rape victim. The Cuban people are subjugated by a ruthless dictator. The problem isn’t that they lack knowledge of other systems of government. The problem is that they lack freedom and liberty.
It is much easier to go through the motions for the Cuban government and blame all of their ills on the US. We provide them with an effective scape goat.
We didn’t have a trade embargo with the Soviets, waiting for Gorby to show up. Far from it, the US was providing massive amounts of food aid. Because of this, the position of the military hardliners were sufficiently weakened that Gorby was able to put his reforms into place. The US proactively made the situation in the USSR difficult to outright remove Gorby.
I honestly believe that if the Cuban government no longer had the US embargo, that a lot of social unrest would be properly directed at the cause of their problems.
Ultimately I have to ask…how long are we supposed to have this embargo? Until the Castro brothers are dead? Are we going to pretend that the entire government is going to fail without them? Its possible…Yugoslavia surely did…But what happens if the government doesn’t fall. Do we keep this going in perpetuity?
The embargo increases the size and power of the federal government and decreases freedom. So, yeah I would have to say scrap it.
No clue as to how the embargo decreases freedom. Presumably you’re referring to the Cuban people? Please explain.
I believe the US Embargo was transliterated by Congress in 1963 from “Economy Minister” (sic) Ché Guevara’s 1961 Cuban Embargo against the United States — and only after two years of frenzied but useless negotiating with the adolescent butchers. Now all the America-hating liberals call it the “US Embargo”.
That Bush made it harder for Americans to visit Cuba is a similar Liberal Lie.
I visited Cuba during Clinton’s reign just by following his gubmint’s rules. I downloaded his executive order on the subject and the Office of Foreign Assets Control rules. I went again under Bush. The letters had to be re-issued under new letterheads and signed by Bush because of the post-911 Cabinet Department shuffling. I put ‘em on the ‘puter again.
Like with the Rathergate documents, it’s simple to overlay the letters on each other and see that the letters are identical except for the letterheads, dates and signatures. So I again just followed the rules and visited Cuba to my heart’s content (via yacht). So much for “Bush did it!”
As long as the pansy Republicans, Libertarians and pseudo-conservatives let the yammering bolsheviks out-talk them, Liberal Lies go on the board as truths. I don’t see that changing — until after the meltdown. Long after.
Final note on “opening’ to Cuba. Hard as things are for small businesses to get carry-over loans and such, allowing investment in Cuba today would drain the banks in Florida overnight for quixotic, if not downright fraudulent, schemes for investment in Cuba by a whole range of players from gulls to gangsters. Cuba would see a slight bump up toward the Giancana/Traficante casino and whorehouse economy, but Florida would slide toward economic depression.
The patriarch of a Latino industrial family told me, “It took them 50 years to get down to where they are. It will take them a hundred to climb back up to where they were”. It’s time to simply say “Screw them. They shat on their plate, now let them eat it.” Because that’s exactly what the world will say about us when we don’t pull it out.
Tell me again how Nixon’s trip to China, and the US engagement with communist China made the world a safer place. Drop the embargo and Cuba will export communism even faster than it is now, and with ~25-45 percent of the US population embracing or sympathetic to the Marxist ideology it looks to me like Castro has been successful despite the embargo. So y’all jest wanna give up?
“Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.”
Amen brother! If China were still blacklisted by the US, we would have gotten our debt crisis under control a LONG TIME ago, because nobody else would have enabled our spendthrift ways. And frankly, the Chinese would probably be a lot less scary (and far less able to afford the scary military they have now) otherwise. The US should be able to pick its trading partners according to its own needs and ‘dis’ the bad players as it see fits.
the embargo hasnt accomplished anything and dropping it will continue to not accomplish anything.
Cuba is no longer a Soviet proxy. We no longer fear a world-wide communist conspiracy.
Kidnapping American aid workers and holding them hostage is an issue, but aside from that, how is it any of our business if the government oppresses its own people?
Most Americans alive today do not remember why so many Cubans left their homes and fled to the US. Read about the real 1960s Cuba – Castro’s DCI hunted down and killed dissenters and their families; concentration camps filled – while the world press bragged about Fidel and covered up the atrocities. Read “Mercenary’s Tale: fighting Fidel Castro” and learn; look it up on Amazon. Why should we lift the embargo and reward a murderer?
Bill Heuisler
Bravo!!! I recommend reading Georgianne Geyer’s articles on http://www.uexpress.com for a better understanding of why Cuba won’t change until the Castros are gone. Fidel benefits too much from being a Latino who thumbs his nose at the Gringos, is not a Communist but is self-involved and self-serving, and lets the reins loosen a bit to bring in enough capital to keep things bearable.
Fidel Castro described his political views as “certainly Marxist, but not necessarily Communist”, at least, not in the sense of wanting to belong to the international communist movement nor to submit to the dictates of the USSR. Before the revolution he associated with Cuban Communist party, but he never joined it. Ultimately, Fidel was a Fidelist. It’s always been about him and his lust for power.
His brother Raul, on the other hand, was a doctrinaire Communist as was Che Guevara , and together they pushed Fidel to declare the “socialist character of the Cuban Revolution”. Fidel did this to strengthen his grip on power as he recognized in the Soviet communist model the tools and methods of the absolute power he craved.
I was about 16 when Fidel Castro’s forces turfed out the regime of Fulgencio Battista. Even as it was tottering on its last legs it could still despatch its secret police to drag two US journalists off a plane for criticising the soon-to-be-defunct regime.
In those days it was still a very rare thing for someone from the UK to go on ANY foreign holiday—exchange control and all that! So what we heard of Cuba was pretty much small beer. And then came the day when British Leyland, then a flourishing company, obtained an order to supply double-decker buses to Cuba. To say that set the cat among the pigeons puts it mildly. You see, the British criteria for recognising a regime differs quite markedly from that of the US. We are happy to recognise a givernment if it has effective control of the country; you seem to demand that it be politically kosher by the standards of the political Right!
So when Senator Barry Goldwater demanded that the shipment of those buses be stopped it aroused bewilderment and resentment in Britain. Bewilderment, because these were vehicles designed for use on the streets of a city, NOT for moving trops to the frontline! On that score, Senator Goldwater and others of his ilk were viewed as objects of contempt and ridicule. Resentment, because we had no intention of being looked on as an extension of the USA.
What of the future? Battista is a fading memory, unknown to all but those of Castro’s generation. Will tourism have any effect? As long as tourists are shielded from what life is really like, probably not. However, the more Cubans become acquainted with these overseas visitors, especially on an informal level, then there is hope. A curious monument(to someone from my country) is one called El Jardina de Diana Princesa de Galles.
I would not suggest that dropping the embargo would improve the lives of ordinary Cubans. But neither does keeping the embargo offer any hope of such improvement. The embargo seems to me a waste of effort and a distraction from what’s important. If we drop it, they’ll have to invent a new excuse for why things are so bad.
But then I am one of those in favor of burning Cuban agricultural products—-one cigar at a time.
Send mine sweeper tanks to Gitmo.
Tell the Castro bros they got 24 hours to release the American hostage, or 20,000 US Marines are gonna sweep across No Man’s Land and lay a can of whoop-ass on his pissant army.
Then we’ll see just how dedicated these bloodthirsty Marxists are to the cause of Global Communism.
Please….those candy stripers are at best worthless. Even under ObamaCare. Last I heard Chavez wasn’t doing so well.
Hmmm, then again, maybe they could be restricted to only doing business within the borders of Philadelphia….
Oops, this post was meant as a reply to Brutus. (Frankly I’m agnostic, but slightly inclined, toward invading Cuba).
Me, I’m just waiting for the entertaining spectacle that ensues when the Cuban regime falls and all those Miami Cubans start trying to claim their property back. Meyer Lansky’s heirs will be frantic! But seriously, Cuba poses no threat and we would do well to engage them, if for no other reason than to take all of their doctors to fill the demands created by Obamacare.
So Cubans who left to avoid being murdered in Castro’s Gulags are “Lansky’s heirs”? Another stalinist pendejo libel by a cretin who mispells his name:the correct spelling is B-R-U-T-O.
I thought all the evil communists would come take over the world if we dropped the embargo?
That’s not why the embargo was imposed, although pro-Castro sympathizers often use it as a strawman argument against the embargo.
The embargo was imposed to punish the Castro regime for confiscating the property of American citizens and businesses in Cuba. The embargo would be lifted when the Cuban government reimburses Americans for their stolen property. Castro ignored the embargo and confiscating even more property, including that of Cuban citizens, forcing hundreds of thousand to flee the regime. Castro was an expert at propaganda and used the embargo to polarize Cuban society as a means to cementing his grip on power.
The reason the embargo failed to collapse the Cuban economy in the 1960′s is because the Soviet Union undertook to subsidize the Cuban Revolution. When the USSR collapsed and the subsidies to Cuba ended in the early 1990′s, the Cuban economy nearly did collapse. What saved it was in large part the decision to open the county up to tourism.
Far from bringing change to Cuba, tourism helps keep the regime in power and prevents the democratic change the Cuban people long for.
Cuban embargo is a joke.
If you want to change Cuba open trade and drop in Starbucks and KFC and the rest of what constitutes American culture today.
Cuba will change, its debatable if its for the better, but to continue a ridiculous embargo with Cuba remains one of worlds great hypocrisy.
The embargo forbids Wal-Mart and General Motors from investing in Cuba.
The embargo does not affect Carrefour (big French multinational competitor of Wal-Mart) Tesco (big British ditto) or Toyota, Volkswagen, Fiat, Mercedes, etc. Yet those non-US Western companies have no investments in Cuba.
Cuba’s problem is that it has a communist government.
Why is that so difficult to understand?
Cuba’s problem is that it has a communist government.
Why is that so difficult to understand?
Because America must be found guilty. It is written in the Left’s agenda.
When arguing the utility and morality of the US embargo on Cuba, it would be useful for people to understand what it actually consists of. US companies and citizens are banned from purchasing Cuban products. US citizens are banned from travelling to Cuba except for what is called “purposeful travel”. That’s all. The embargo does not ban US firms from selling products to Cuba. Cuba imported over $300 million worth of US goods in 2011. Remittances of $1.4 billion were sent to Cuba from Cuban-Americans last year.
Does that sound like an onerous embargo?
Now how about the embargo the Cuban regime places on the Cuban people? Cubans are forbidden the freedom to travel outside of Cuba without special permission. Free speech and freedom of the press is embargoed by the Cuban government. Free labor unions are embargoed. Free elections and free political parties are embargoed by the regime as well.
The Cuban government like the US embargo as it is. It’s a convenient excuse for their 5 decade long failure to provide for the Cuban people. The internal embargo is the real cause of Cuban misery, not the US embargo.
Funny, but reading the first three paragraphs reminded me of Israel and Gaza.
If we want the island nation to become a democracy, we should drop sanctions and pursue a policy of aggressive engagement.”
Can’t the critics come up with something realistic based on facts.
Over the past four decades, every American president who has pursued a serious rapprochement with Havana — Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama — has been left shaking his head in frustration.
Just change names – Ramallah and Arafat/Abbas with Rabin, Peres, Bibi, Sharon and we end up with the same frustration.
Just stop the occupation and sanctions against Gaza and give into Abbas’ demands and all will be rosy in the Whitehouse garden.
What no one here has yet pointed out, with the exception of Kenneth @ 17, is that for over a decade the embargo has been selective. Cuba may import food and medicine frorm the US, but payments must be in cash.
As Cuba ran trade deficits in both 2009 and 2010 of around $6 billion, it is very prudent for the US to require cash payment. Cuba has a bad track record of failing to pay its debts. The cash requirement insures that Castro cannot con US companies by not paying for its purchases.
In 2010, the US was the 7th-ranked exporter to Cuba. And that after greatly reduced purchases in 2010 compared to the year before. What an embargo!