CUBA EMBARGO CONTINUES TO SERVE LITTLE PURPOSE

Published Jan. 18, 2007 in "The Oklahoma Daily"
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For close to 50 years, Fidel Castro has been the face of the Cuban government. Even after transferring responsibilities to his younger brother Raúl, the elder Castro remains an iconic and authoritative figure. He led the transformation of Cuba to a one-party socialist regime after overthrowing U.S. ally Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Since then, while maintaining a stranglehold censorship of the press and a tight grip on power, his government oversaw skyrocketing literacy rates, now at 97 percent, and health care.

Its infant mortality rate, shockingly, is lower than that of the U.S.

During that time, his government also nationalized all industry and commerce on the island, including the former holdings of American sugar and fruit companies.

This, as it so happens, is the root of the American trade embargo against Cuba, in place since 1961. Initially, it was intended as temporary retaliation against the seizure of American interests.

It continued to escalate until it reached the full embargo that was in place until 2000, when the U.S. Congress passed a law authorizing the sale of medicine and food to Cuba, to be used for humanitarian aid only.

This is one of the longest embargoes ever put in place by the United States, and it has numerous critics from disparate groups who claim the embargo has little justification, if any.

There are only a few nations with socialist governments left in the world. With the exception of Cuba ¬¬— and nuclear-happy North Korea — the United States maintains normal trade relations with all of them.

One of them, China, continues to be one of America’s most important trading partners, in terms of goods and revenue exchanged.

Even nations ruled by governments that the United States was openly at war with, such as Vietnam, now have normal trade relations with America. Cuba has never attacked the United States nor violated its territorial integrity. Indeed, it was the other way around, as shown by the ill-fated Bay of Pigs invasion of 1962.

Therefore, there is little basis for the embargo on the grounds of Cuba’s socialist, one-party government, as other such-governed countries have normal relations with the U.S.

Secondly, the embargo actually does not prevent the enrichment of Cuba from U.S. sources.

Many Cuban expatriates, particularly those with family still living in Cuba, regularly send remittances to their loved ones. It was so regularly done that the Cuban government legalized the U.S. dollar as a parallel currency to the Cuban peso. The dollar remained legal until 2004, when the Cuban government banned it to combat tighter U.S. restrictions.

Regardless of the embargo, thousands of Americans visit Cuba, many for business reasons. Their dollars, converted to pesos, continue to enrich the Cuban economy, effectively counteracting the embargo.

The embargo is lifted, temporarily, when U.S. humanitarian aid is sent to Cuba in return for Cuban agricultural products.

The embargo faces unending and almost unanimous international criticism.

The United Nations General Assembly regularly passes resolutions by calling on the United States to end the embargo. International ire is directed toward the embargo because parts of the statutes authorizing it also attempt to impact other nations’ interests.

Foreign ships, for instance, are banned from docking at U.S. ports within six months of docking in Cuba.

Furthermore, the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which aims to penalize foreign companies that do business in Cuba, is considered contrary to international law as national legislation that aims to meddle in the dealings of two other sovereign nations.

Several of the United States’ closest allies and trading partners, including Canada and Mexico, have taken steps to combat this law and protect the rights of companies headquartered in those nations. Critics of U.S. foreign policy continue to point to this embargo as evidence of American bully tactics and attempts to literally try to regulate the world.

The embargo, then, has little justification on account of past history or Cuba’s system of government.

It attracts a never-ending stream of criticism from the United Nations, religious figures and even America’s closest allies. Last, the embargo really hasn’t done what it was meant to do. The Cuban government has never been brought to its economic knees.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union readily stepped in to fill the trade void created by the embargo. After a few very desperate years immediately following the collapse of the USSR, the Cuban economy has stayed afloat thanks to a combination of economic flexibility and innovation. For example, thousands of Cuban doctors were sent to serve in Venezuela in return for Venezuelan oil.

The primary reason for the embargo surviving this long is strong lobbying from Cuban-Americans in the electoral-vote-rich and politically important state of Florida. Doing away with this embargo would remove one of the most glaring blemishes on America’s record of international cooperation and trade. U.S.-Cuba trade would likely remain as it does during the periodic lifting of the embargo — American food and medicines in return for Cuban agricultural products. A new market would be opened to American businesses which, according to numerous feasibility studies, stand to make huge gains from the potential Cuban market. Getting rid of a flawed embargo that’s not that effective seems a small price to pay to silence widespread international criticisms and to open up a vast new market for American businesses.

It ought to be done. American cigar aficionados would be the first to rejoice.