The Trade Embargo with Cuba Should Be Lifted Now
It has been almost 50 years since events during the height of the Cold War prompted the United States to impose an economic embargo on Cuba. The USSR, whose military presence on the island precipitated these actions, collapsed 18 years ago and no longer poses a military threat.
Let’s explore the various historic and current reasons for the continuation of these restrictions:
National security: Cuba occupies a strategic location since it sits squarely in the path of maritime access to the Gulf of Mexico from the Atlantic Ocean. When Soviet missiles were located on the island (and only 90 miles from Key West), solid justification for an embargo existed and warranted such a responsible act of self-defense. This situation no longer exists and, although the Cuban leadership is brutal and worthy of our full criticism, the nation no longer presents a military threat to the United States. However provocative or belligerent the statements issued by the Cuban government may be, there exists no credible or even reasonable potential military threat from Cuba.
Geopolitical considerations: Cuba has a long history of being used as a pawn in larger geopolitical strategies. Spain, the Soviet Union and, more currently, Russia and Venezuela have all used Cuba as an opportunity to provoke and even attempt to threaten the US militarily. The Cuban regimes have, for the most part, acquiesced in these strategic moves in order to obtain the wealth and political power which accompanied them. Last year, when the U.S. sent warships to the Black Sea during the Russian invasion of Georgia, the Russians sent forces into the Caribbean to emphasize that they too could project force in our sphere of influence. Strategically, Cuba will always be of concern to the United States and we can anticipate that it will continue to be used as an opportunity to probe U.S. military and diplomatic strength, intentions, and resolve well into the future.
Human rights: There is a veritable litany of evidence and first-hand reports describing the brutality of the Castro regime. The barbaric treatment of the Cuban people, who have been denied even the most basic of human rights, is well known. It remains a mystery as to why many academics and progressive politicians persist in their ritual applause of Castro and his regime. Freedom House ranks Cuba as “not free” and lists in detail all of the areas where Cuban citizens are denied almost all of their personal liberties. Joining Cuba in this category are 42 other countries, including China, Egypt, Libya and North Korea. Cuba has the distinction of being the only “not free” country in the Americas.
Domestic politics: Mostly unspoken in public discourse, the importance of the Cuban-American vote in South Florida and in other important states such as New Jersey has engendered an almost religious adherence to the maintenance of the economic boycott. As a result, politicians have avoided any serious discussion of its merits. The Obama administration’s recent moves to ease travel restrictions represent a small crack in this almost solid position.
During the early 1980s I had a roommate whose family ran a convenience store in South Florida, and a big part of their business was selling “numbers” in the numbers racket. The numbers, he said, came out of Cuba. This was before the Florida Lottery was installed.
From that point on, the embargo seemed to me a strange thing. They were doing trade with us . . . but we weren’t doing trade with them.
Later, I happened to go into business with an ex-U.S. State Department diplomat who related a story about having a meeting scheduled with Castro at a time when Castro’s allegiances were up in the air. He, and his group, thought Fidel could be swayed to align Cuba with the U.S. because in 1959 Castro claimed to be anti-communist.
Long story short, he says he was prevented from taking the flight from New York to make that meeting. He maintains, to this day, that a CIA agent he had known and worked with camped out at his apartment and made it clear he wouldn’t be leaving.
I know this sounds like conspiracy weirdness. But again, it remains to me a very strange thing. And I still haven’t sorted it out.
Why are there so many “bad and mean” governments around the world? Why are all the bad people in power? Something’s wrong with this image. Looks like dog eat dog is the rule. Greed. Ego. Human beings are so imperfect they can mess up our paradise Earth . . .
Castro tried to kill us. I remember my mother stocking food in the ‘Cuba Cupboard’ and filling the bathtub with water, so that we would have something safe to drink after he nuked us. There’s plenty of time to normalize relations with Cuba after Castro, his brother, and their friends are all safely dead. Thanks, but it’s personal.
Cuban Economics Minister in 1961 estabilished an embargo against all U.S. products & business. His name? Ché Guevara, the documented murderer of 172 people by his own twisted hand and of thousands by official acts. The U.S. Congress stopped horsing around with these adolescent Bolshis in July 1963 and transliterated it right back at them.
Stop rewriting history. We’re Rome. They’re jerks. It’s their job to undo the ‘embargo’, not ours.
Cuba is a leading exporter of terror in Latin America, a stop-off point for drugs and the cause of much of mayhem in Central/South America over the years. There is no case for lifting of the embargo.
Only lift it when Cuba is truly free.
If the South African apatheid regime were still safely in power, and had consolodated their grasp by imprisoning or murdering all of their internal critics, would the same leftists in this country be arguing that we be should end our boycot of SA because it is counterproductive? It is impossible to have such moral double standards and yet have any element of morality in foreign policy at all.
Cuba ia an authoritarian gulag state, and we gain nothing by trading with them. Besides, they are not doomed because the US does not have relations with them (funny, the old Castro Cuba argument was that the country was poor precisely because all of their economic activity was with the US, now it is turned inside out), they have relations with about every other country on earth and are still hopelessly poor. They are doomed because it is a gangster state.
With the end of the cold war Cuba has become irrelevant. The US embargo doesn’t accomplish anything useful and we should just treat them like any other country.
By the way they import sugar now – their only industry destroyed by collectivism. They do get some tourists of course, but why go to Cuba when you can go to Costa Rica or Panama or even the Florida Keys?
October 30, 2007
This is Congressman Ron Paul’s position on the issue which agrees with the postion as presented in this article
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Struggling for Relevance in Cuba: Still No Cigars
by Rep. Ron Paul
Since Raul Castro seems to be transitioning to a more permanent position of power, the administration has begun talking about Cuba policy again. One would think we would be able to survey the results of the last 45 years and come to logical conclusions. Changing course never seems to be an option, however, no matter how futile or counterproductive our past actions have been.
The Cuban embargo began officially in 1962 as a means to put pressure on the communist dictatorship to change its ways. After 45 years, the Cuban economy has struggled, but Cuba’s dictatorship is no closer to stepping to the beat of our drum. Any ailments have consistently and successfully been blamed on U.S. capitalism instead of Cuban communism. They have substituted trade with others for trade with the U.S., and they are “awash” in development funds from abroad. Our isolationist policies with regard to Cuba, meanwhile, have hardly won the hearts and minds of Cubans or Cuban-Americans, many of whom are isolated from families because this political animosity.
In the name of helping Cubans, the U.S. administration is calling for multibillions of taxpayer dollars in foreign aid and subsidies for Internet access, education, and business development for Cubans under the condition that the Cuban government demonstrates certain changes. In the same breath, they claim lifting the embargo would only help the dictatorship. This is exactly backward. Free trade is the best thing for people in both Cuba and the U.S. Government subsidies would enrich those in power in Cuba at the expense of already overtaxed Americans!
The irony of supposed free-marketeers inducing communists to freedom with government handouts should not be missed. We call for a free and private press in Cuba while our attempts to propagandize Cubans through the U.S.-government-run Radio/TV Marti have wasted $600 million in American taxpayer dollars.
It’s time to stop talking solely in terms of what’s best for the Cuban people. How about the wishes of the American people, who are consistently in favor of diplomacy with Cuba? Let’s stop the hysterics about the freedom of Cubans – which is not our government’s responsibility – and consider freedom of the American people, which is. Americans want the freedom to travel and trade with their Cuban neighbors, as they are free to travel and trade with Vietnam and China. Those Americans who do not wish to interact with a country whose model of governance they oppose are free to boycott. The point being: it is Americans who live in a free country, and as free people we should choose whom to buy from or where to travel – not our government.
Our current administration is perceived as irrelevant, at best, in Cuba and the message is falling on deaf ears there. If the administration really wanted to extend the hand of friendship, they would allow the American people the freedom to act as their own ambassadors through trade and travel. Considering the lack of success government has had in engendering friendship with Cuba, it is time for government to get out of the way and let the people reach out.
http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=11831
It is pretty strange taht Ron Paul seems to have a dislike for his own country. The man is a nutcase and an appeaser of dictators and oppressors.
It is necessary to have the best interest of Cubans in mind and that is freedom.
it would not be that strange that most of these
anti – war protestors are nothing but bigots and racists because of their disinterest of unfree people and their own selfishness.
The national motto of the anti – war people : Other unfree people does not deserve their freedom and liberty because they are not against
America.
Ron Paul ! , stop loathing freedom ! That can not
be any compromise with tyranny.
“Why should we single out Cuba for such extraordinary treatment?”
INO, it’s because the Cuban government stole property belonging to U.S. citizens, and until they settle up, we ought to keep an embargo on them.
“INO, it’s because the Cuban government stole property belonging to U.S. citizens, and until they settle up, we ought to keep an embargo on them.”
Hear Hear!
These are all good and reasonable arguments, but I really only have one thing to say: I want Cuban cigars goddammit, without having to become acquainted with smugglers or risking malaria in Panama. Cubanos or bust.
10 aircraft carriers complete the total and complete embargo of cuba. Problem solved.
Once again, however, all the emphasis is what the US has done wrong, should apologize and possibly atone for. All of which fits into President Obama’s apparent strengths. Where is Cuba’s onus? At what point do they admit the futility of the twisted regime they created? I say, don’t blink now.
This is a meme being pushed by people who have no idea the pain and suffering caused by Cuba & their weaponry all over Latin America.
Any Republican who takes this stance is an idiot and I hope that Cubans in Miami (who lost everything when they were booted) would do all they can to defeat that person.
Let Cuba, and the other countries that receive a failing grade from Freedom
House, put forth more robust efforts to receive a passing grade. Then their
efforts can be rewarded.
Talk about governments being stupidly monolithic.
DWL: A good way of looking at it.
Ironic this piece appeared the day after the tea parties.
When do we get paid for the current value of the expropriated property they took in 1959?
When will be paid for the damage and crimes done by the Muriel boatlift criminals they sent here when we agreed to take some hard luck cases? They emptied thir prisons on us an we spent years chasing down the worst of them.
Why is everyone so anxious to trade with people who suppsoedly have nothing to trade with?
Why should the US be the one to say sorry? Thats what lifting the embargo would say. Cuba has been anti-American since Castro came to power. The missiles everyone remembers being placed in Cuba never would have been put there if Castro didn’t want them. So to say that the US is at fault is like saying the Cuban Missile Crisis was entirely the USSR’s fault. No nation that has control of its own borders would allow a number of missile sites to go up without their express permission. Castro gave permission to the USSR to place missiles inside Cuba’s borders, the soviets didn’t bully them into it. I’m sorry but until the Castro government falls and the next government tries to make amends for what they attempted to do, Cuba should stay under the embargo.
When can we expect the first Rush Limbaugh Cigar Tour?
19. Chris:
“Why should the US be the one to say sorry? Thats what lifting the embargo would say.”
Not really. It shows maturity and willingness to fix things. Look at Germany after WWII, are they trying to nazify the USA? The Marshall Plan, American investors and tourists have helped to create the Germany of today.
“What Embargo?” – On non-strategic goods it amounts to “PAY CASH” – something the Castro Regime will not, and likely cannot do. Extend U.S. Taxpayer Guaranteed trade credit to this regime, no thank you. -S-
I cannot agree with this article more; Poor Cuba needs some GOOD IMMIGRANT LABOR FROM MEXICO!
Yes, please lift the so-called trade embargo.
Right now, without it, the US is the 4th trading partner with Cuba.
During the “harsh” years of the embargo, Canada, Spain, Japan, Mexico, and many others traded with Cuba, the limit was that of credit.
It is Cuba’s Castrism that cannot afford a sudden lifting of the, again, so-called embargo.
Totalitarian regimes like those gripping Cuba, must have a pivot of hate. The Yankee Imperialism has been it for over half a century.
Without this pillar of hate, Castro’s Cuba perishes.
21VIVO: You forget that in the case of Nazi Germany,we first invaded it, destroyed nazism, and ONLY then did we resume normal relations(including marshall Plan aid).If you are implying we should do the same in Cuba,I,for one couldn’t agree more.
The US has been a major impediment to Cuba’s economic growth.
No resources, and Cuba has to struggle along with the minimal natural wealth it posesses.
I don’t think Castro’s cuba will fall like some of you would hope, but time will tell.
America has done a lot of wrong to many nations, and that is why they are the way they are today. I personally think Cuba is no exception, albeit, the nature of the regime is appallingly disrespecting of human rights.
#26:LT:Pre Castro Cuba had the second-highest standard of living in South America ,despite its”minimal wealth”.The main impediment to Cuba’s growth is Communism,which drove Cuba’s entrepeneurial and professional classes into exile.If the US had liberated Cuba the way it liberated Iraq,Cuba would be the Singapore of the Caribbean.
As a Brit,(I now live in the USA) I have been to Cuba, it was a package holiday, but very enjoyable, staying in Verradero, which was the area that Mr Sinatra & his mafia buddies used to frequent.
There is alot of apparent poverty over there, but that is not OUR problem.
What is our problem is making a big enough noise to get the government to treat their people better.
How do we do it?
Blackmail of course!
The government is greedy, like every despot in the world, money talks.
If & when they show that they are treating their people better, then the embargo will be lifted, & not because a few uncaring Yanks want to spend their vacation there, or have direct access to quality cigars, they must prove themselves & show proof of their doings.
By pumping money into any 3rd world country does not fix the problem, it just magnifies it.
Let the Yanks go there with all their free $$$’s & watch the Cubans fleece them, that’s OK, I have found that most American tourists have nothing to offer whichever country they decide to spend their money in, other than their money!
Hey! maybe we should fear for the Cubans if the Yanks are ever allowed to holiday there!!!!!
Yeah, bullcrap that Russia “poses no military threat”. Thats CRAP. Last time I checked, they still had nuclear missiles…