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Time To Lift the Embargo on Cuba?
This is my first post on Ricochet — though I am a long-time lurker — and have come to greatly enjoy all the great personalities and the exchange of ideas.
To bring something a little different into the conversation, I would like to hear some of your ideas regarding the US embargo of Cuba.
My take is that if there was ever a good reason for it, the time has long passed and we should be looking to normalize relations with the island.
The day of the Castros will inevitably come to an end in the not-too distant future. Maintaining the present stance toward Cuba, which certainly bears no greater threat toward the USA than any other Latin American country (and probably less than some), seems only to impoverish Cuba and, in a certain sense, the USA as well.
I have been in Cuba legally, but was not even allowed to bring back a bag of their delicious coffee, let alone the cigars, which some of my friends asked me about.
I don’t want to say too much about my experiences just now because there are some potentially sensitive issues. Maybe some day, when conditions improve, I can do that.
Canadians are able to travel to Cuba without restrictions that I am aware of, which is a degree of freedom we Americans don’t enjoy.
What do you say, my friends? Group hug to all.
Image Credit: Flickr user Doug Wheller.
Published in General
A good example of why sunset clauses are such a good idea.
No sane member of Congress wants to be “that guy”‘ who champions a bill to drop the embargo, but all sorts of ’em would be totally willing to let the embargo quietly pass into the cold, dark night if there was a sunset clause on it.
Only in canoes.
Yes, Byron, ctlaw puts it very well. As to China: China has honest to goodness capitalism and to the extent it’s free they have a successful economy.
Richard O’Shea -We should have normalized relations years ago. When the first McDonalds opened in downtown Moscow, people would wait in line for hours to try a Big Mac. I think it cost them a week’s wages. It was the beginning of the end for the Soviets.
I met a young woman in Cuba who told me how her grandmother told her of taking the boat to Miami for a weekend of shopping – pre-1958. People have some memory of how it was. When Cubans come to the US they find even an average store in a medium-sized city has far more selection than they ever found on the island. There seems to be a demand for something better than the status quo. I think that, as in China, the government will eventually begin to respond.
Misthiocracy -A good example of why sunset clauses are such a good idea.
Oh, yes!
I’m having a little trouble responding in the normal way now – Some of the website’s famous glitchiness, I suppose.
Welcome to posting, Joel!
I’m inclined to lift the embargo, too, though it certainly is upsetting to think that the Castros will have managed to have escaped justice in this world (all the more reason to hope for it in the next).
If there were a way to offer lifting the embargo in exchange for some minor concessions (e.g., Gross’s release and perhaps that of a few Cubans), I’d be interested. Ideally, I’d prefer something that Raul would reject so that we could offer them again to whomever his successor is. If Raul does accept the conditions, all the better.
Perhaps not, but at least then Castro – rather than the U.S. government – gets the blame for keeping the the Cuban people cut off.
But if Cuba is already trading with other countries, why is life for the average Cuban so poor?
Just like the thugs ruling Venezuela, Argentina, Brazil, etc., get the blame for their countries’ problems rather than the US.
You must live in a different world than I do. In my world America is the bad guy — this is a known thing — the reasons are changed to suit the occasion. The notion that America won’t get the blame is laughable. This particular left wing love affair is based on true devotion and ideology — facts have not a whit of effect in how things are portrayed by our media.
Yes, exactly like that — that’s what I was trying to say — you just said it better and earlier (by seconds).
Did the deaths of Stalin, Mao, or the Kims end it in their countries?
The Castros and their friends need to be killed with extreme prejudice. Letting them live is incompatible with any positive future for Cuba.
The civilized world’s 20th century reluctance to kill leftist thugs nearly always comes back to bite.
If I remember right, diplomatic history is Claire’s specialty. I’d like to hear her thoughts on this embargo specifically and also on embargoes in general.
Before we nullify the Cuban embargo, we should all agree on what exactly the intended function was supposed to be. Was it to make the Cuban people unhappy with their government and apt to rebel? Or was it merely to limit Castro’s own funding, after he had stolen from his own people, so that he couldn’t afford advanced weaponry and a significant military?
Comparisons with China are not all too relevant. The Chinese leadership itself decided to shift to more open markets, and normalize relations with us.
Second, people forget that the rest of the world has no “embargo” on Cuba. Europeans, Canadians, Latin Americans etc. can trade mostly freely with Cuba and travel there.
Where is the evidence that any of this tourism or trade with Cuba has shifted power away from the Castros? Nowhere. They are just as powerful as before, and they arrest and murder people at will just as before.
“Normalizing” relations with communist dictatorships only…prolongs…their life. We “normalized” relations with the USSR and shipped them grain and corn to make up for their failing economy. And we added about 10 years to their existence. S.Korea tries to “normalize” relations with the North by setting up industries in “free trade zones” in NK. All it does is provide the Kims with hard cash to continue their buffoonery.
All the tourists that go to Cuba from Europe etc. provide the Castros with hard cash to continue their reign.
The problem with the US “embargo” is that it’s not followed by anyone else.
For me, only when the Castros are dead or renounce communism.
Several issues to be considered:
1) Culture plays a role in whether such measures work or not. In some cultures, when things get bad enough, people will rebel (like happened in E.Europe). In some other cultures, like Korea, no matter how bad things get, people don’t rebel. Cubans seem to be way too “laid back” to be the rebellious kind.
2) All communist regimes reply for their survival on foreign trade. That is what makes or breaks them. When lacking cash, they barter. But there’s no way for them to exist if they don’t trade. That’s what eventually destroyed the communist regimes in E.Europe.
So blocking off trade works.
3) The problem, of course, is that trade and travel to Cuba aren’t “blocked”. It’s simply the US. The rest of the world has no problems.
Now, given that it doesn’t actually cost us anything to keep an “embargo” on Cuba, and it certainly doesn’t help the Castros, then I see no problem in maintaining it. Cuba isn’t so important to us as to “intensify” it, but I see no reason to help the Castros by giving them more cash.
http://hotair.com/archives/2014/09/06/where-could-cuba-go-to-recruit-spies-in-the-us/
Life is so poor for them because communism doesn’t work. You know this and I know this. But the embargo gives the Castro regime something external to point at and say “That’s the cause of our hardship.” Many Cubans accept that explanation as truth. Remove the embargo and at least some Cubans may decide that communism itself has been the problem.
We’ve had this embargo for two generations now and it hasn’t weakened Castro’s grip on the country, so what is the point of continuing it? How many decades of failure do we need before we try something else?
Every communist dictatorship always blames their hardships on an external force. It doesn’t have to be real. It’s not as if the people in these countries have access to external news.
In my Old Country, the communist regime always blamed the “embargo” for the hardships, even though there was no embargo at all, from anyone. In the Soviet Union they always blamed it on “foreign agents, saboteurs and wreckers”.
So this argument can’t hold water.
It hasn’t helped them either. Removing the “embargo” will only help the Castros maintain a grip on power. “Something else”? Sure. Lets try being more aggressive. But Cuba isn’t a priority, so it won’t happen.
AIG: ten more “likes”. Excellent responses — thanks.
Welcome to the fray, JoelB! Feel free to join us on the AMU (details on my profile page) to talk more about this…I had an elementary school classmate – in the late-1960s – whose family were refugee emigres from Cuba to northeast Ohio. This was culture shock for them and a learning experience for me.
Manny,
Just to stir the pot, what do you say to the theory that the “Cuban missile crisis” was brought on when the Russian leadership, perceiving a weak and inexperienced American president, decided to take advantage of the situation?
I think we cannot “normalize” relations with Cuba until Castro’s prisons have been emptied of all the political prisoners.
Anyone who has read Humberto Fontova’s articles about the Castros and Cuba would not visit Cuba. In fact, I do not think any U.S. citizens should visit Cuba except to liberate those prisoners.
First, welcome to Ricochet, and congratulations on a post that’s drawn so many interesting and intelligent comments.
You ask: Should we lift the embargo? I ask: What do we want to happen? If the objective is to make life more pleasant for Cubans, it’s probably a good idea. But if the objective is to help Cubans overthrow their dictatorship and — finally — get a democracy, lifting the embargo may not be such a good idea.
Now that you’re raised the issue of “Cuba” let’s have a serious conversation about what we want to happen there. Then let’s set out a strategy to accomplish that objective. And then we’ll know whether lifting the embargo now is a good, or a bad, idea.
In other words, let’s not make the usual Washington mistake of arguing about what route to take before deciding where we want to go.
Thank you for this, Mr. Meyer.
If only more Americans were willing to approach complex issues this way…
It’s interesting to me that you visited Cuba but don’t want to talk about it.
This isn’t a hot button issue for me. If the embargo were to end, I wouldn’t get too excited, mostly because we have relations with other countries that are bad actors.
But I tend towards maintaining the embargo. I figure that ending it will not benefit the ordinary Cuban, but will benefit the Communist elite in Cuba, whether the Castro brothers are around or not.
Making it easier for U.S. citizens to travel there doesn’t factor into my feelings on the issue. I’ve done some traveling outside the U.S., but have had no desire to visit dictatorships, simply because I have no desire to be under their jurisdiction. What I find particularly distasteful about visiting Cuba is how well they treat tourists in ways that are not available to the ordinary Cuban citizen. For example, that great coffee you bought, but couldn’t bring back to the U.S. Was that bought in a tourist store that is forbidden to an ordinary Cuban? I’ve read they have them.
Perhaps that’s one of the things you don’t want to talk about because of “sensitivities.”
If I had relatives there, I might go visit them. But I wouldn’t hang around after visiting.
You know what I want in Cuba? I want the Havana of the early part of the last century back; the Havana where Hemingway sat in bodegas sipping on rum and coke. I want cheap and abundant cane sugar. But most of all I want Freedom for the Cubans.
We say that the embargo doesn’t work; that communism makes the Cubans poor. I say that the embargo doesn’t hurt; that communists would still be poor without it. At the very least with the embargo in place we are clear that Cuba is ruled by communists, that they are evil and that they shouldn’t be supported.
Would that we were so clear about China.