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Embargo the embargo?
USA Today says the Cuban embargo hasn’t worked and it’s time for a new approach:
There is no question that Castro has inflicted economic hardships and widespread human rights abuses on his people. But the embargo has enabled Castro to scapegoat America for Cuba’s economic woes.
A better approach has long been evident: easing the U.S. embargo, allowing more trade and travel. There’s nothing like people-to-people contact to change regimes from the bottom up. In fact, it was a central U.S. policy toward former Soviet bloc countries.
Is it time to lift the embargo, or will doing so give Castro the last laugh?
back to top14 Comments to “Embargo the embargo?”
“But the embargo has enabled Castro to scapegoat America for Cuba’s economic woes.”
Oh, thank you, USA Today. That’s why we turn to you, for that compelling, in depth analysis. You really think so huh? Jesus!
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The difference between how we treat China vs. how we treat Cuba has got to be one of our nation’s top hypocrisies. (And it still frosts me how the usually pro-family American Exceptionalists insisted that we keep Elian Gonzales in the US rather than return him to his father in Cuba.)
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I understand the point of an embargo, but there are a couple of problems with it:
1. In order for it to be effective, everyone has to participate. It appears that the US is the only country that was willing to do it.
2. It doesn’t make sense when we trade with countries that have far worse human rights and political records than Cuba has. China comes to mind.
3. There are counterveiling (sp?) arguments that with more trade and involvement, the people of a country learn about freedom and democracy, and come to desire it (even demand it). It’s slow going work, but when it works it has a much better chance of success.
I just don’t think an embargo can work in today’s globalized world. It’s time for something different.
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Quite frankly, the “maybe…?” of it is rather ludicrous. Anlir’s spot on here.
Kristen, did USA Today have the best article on Cuban policy you could find? I mean seriously.
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In all the years of the embargo, I highly doubt that Fidel nor his brother/successor Raul ever went to bed hungry.
I think we should lift the embargo. It has isolated the USA more than it has Cuba.
Of course the island would be a “new” market for US products. I would not allow any purchases to be made by extending credit to the commies. Cash up front for you Viejo!
Comparisons between the Cubans and the ChiComms are bogus. In China upwards of 60% of the businesses and other property are in private hands. China is today a radish commie nation. Red only on the outside but super capitalist internally. The Chinese probably pay lip service to “that old time religion” but in Havana that creed is brutally enforced and those who fail to show up for the 2 Minutes Hate rally are probably arrested later the same day.
I agree that greater contact via tourism might be beneficial in the long run but I also feel that Americans in the short run would most likely be arrested on trumped up charges of spying and other nonsense just to get further concessions or ransom money (which “fines” for violating Cuban laws are tantamount to)
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#2 Frank in Phoenix. I had hoped not to revisit Elian’s controversy. Wasnt it the dad who contacted his Florida relatives and asked them to take in his son?
It was quite apparent that Elian’s dad was not speaking for himself alone. Someone compared him to a slave father who went north to bring his son back to the big plantation. In the background the plantation’s slavemaster was always there with only the best interests of the child at heart.
That Clinton and Janet Reno so eagerly did the bidding of a totalitarian nation continues to disgust me.
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Sawgunner,
The repression in China is notoriously bad! China has many thousands of political prisoners. The abuses just against Christians have been covered by WorldMag. We wont talk about Tibet. There may be some economic freedom in China, but there is little political, social or religious freedom in that country. China is a long, long ways from freedom and democracy.
I understand why business people “pooh-pooh” the abuses in China. Money is the bottom line to them, not freedom.
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Please don’t drop the embargo, where else will Canadians go for a quiet relaxing time in the sun without loud Americans. If only the Germans would join the embargo than it would be paradise.
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Agreed about the hypocrisy of trading with China and other communist/totalitarian dictatorships while shunning Cuba. As bad as Fidel and company are, let’s drop the embargo so the poor in Cuba can (maybe) receive the things they need (if they actually get it). What usually happens is the leaders get all they want or need, while the common people starve.
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The embargo is a political thing. We (America) knew the embargo was useless decades ago, but there is an important Cuban/American consticuency for the embargo.
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The “embargo” does not in fact prevent Cuba from trade with every other country in the world. But it does allow Castro to claim special persecution. We should treat Cuba like what it is — a small Caribbean island nation with few natural resources.
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CoyoteBlue, I agree. I’ve often wondered how the US would have dealt had Cuba been loaded with oil. A veritable Caribbean miniSaudi Arabia.
I’m sure by now it would have been our “most favored nation” as we proclaimed the People’s Republic to be just a few years AFTER the Tiananmen massacre.
Anlir,I actually read a good part of Harry Wu’s memoir of the years he spent in the ChiComm Laogai prison system. Repression is widespread in the Chinese mainland but at the same time life with this state capitalism model has been great for a majority of Chinese.
Odd how we dont hear Al Gore and others bewailing the Chinese massive output of carbon dioxide and other industrial wastes/byproducts.
By the way, the best picture of the hell of Castro’s regime is the wonderful book “Against All Hope” by Armando Valladares. Odd how during the entire Elian episode no one pointed out the horrors of Castro’s political prisons.
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Sawgunner (6): It was quite apparent that Elian’s dad was not speaking for himself alone. Someone compared him to a slave father who went north to bring his son back to the big plantation. In the background the plantation’s slavemaster was always there with only the best interests of the child at heart.
Frank: Elian was a mere child of 6 at the time. Not to take anything away from Mom’s noble effort to escape Cuba, but once his mother was dead, I think the boy simply belonged with his father, regardless of the regime under which his father lived.
Sawgunner (6): That Clinton and Janet Reno so eagerly did the bidding of a totalitarian nation continues to disgust me.
Frank: I can assure you, I was no fan of the Clinton administration. But isn’t it possible that what they did — reuniting the boy with his father — was right, even if you think it was for the wrong reasons?
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If we drop the embargo, the chances are very good that the standard of living for the average Cuban will increase, in given enough time, perhaps Castro — his or his brothers regime — will grow irrelevant.
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