–Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own–
By Bernd Debusmann
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If votes in the United Nations serve as a gauge of global opinion, 98.9 percent of the world opposes the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba, a measure imposed 46 years ago to isolate the communist-ruled island and bring down its leaders.
It failed on both counts. As far as international opinion is concerned, the country that is isolated is the United States, not Cuba. In the latest of 17 successive U.N. General Assembly resolutions on lifting the embargo, Washington mustered only two allies — Israel and Palau, a Pacific island nation difficult to find on a map. It has a population of 21,000.
The Marshall Islands (pop. 63,000), which had voted with the United States from 2000 to 2007, unexpectedly and without public explanation broke ranks this year and abstained in the vote, a non-binding resolution taken a week before the U.S. presidential election.
The count — 185 countries in favor of lifting the embargo, three against — speaks volumes about a bankrupt policy stuck in the Cold War era.
Will that kind of America versus the world line-up change under Barack Obama? Not necessarily. The man who made history on Nov. 4 by becoming the first black to be elected president of the United States has promised to “ease” sanctions if Cuba took “significant steps toward democracy, beginning with freeing all political prisoners”.
He has not said what it would take for the United States to end the embargo, kept in place by 10 successive U.S. presidents, both Democrats and Republicans.
During the Cold War, when Cuba was a heavily-armed outpost of the Soviet empire just 90 miles (145 km) from Florida, a majority of Americans agreed with a hard line on a Communist government that violates human rights and holds political prisoners. That attitude has been changing since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
According to a Zogby poll taken a week before the election, 60 percent of Americans believe that Washington should revise its policies towards Cuba. In particular, 68 percent thought Americans should be allowed to travel to the island and 62 percent said U.S. companies should be allowed to trade with it.
If that happens, it won’t be soon.
Latin America in general and Cuba in particular are not likely to figure high on the agenda of a new president who is inheriting two wars and the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. American presidents tend to promise greater attention to southern neighbors but usually do not follow through.
“I’m not so idealistic as to think that the embargo will be lifted immediately,” Cuban dissident and writer Jorge Olivera told Reuters Havana correspondent Jeff Franks.
“But I expect better times as much for the United States as for Cuba. I don’t want to die without seeing an end to this conflict that began when I was born.”
Worth noting: Under a 1996 law, the president needs congressional approval to lift the embargo or to recognize any government that includes Fidel Castro, who officially stepped down in February, or his brother Raul, who took over from him.
STATIC AND COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE
In the past, the most fervent opposition to ending the embargo — the effects of which have punished the population for the actions of a leadership it did not elect — has come from the Cuban-American community in South Florida. But even this is changing.
“U.S. policy towards Cuba is at best static and at worst counter-productive, a source of increasing frustration to many Cuban Americans,” Jorge Mas Santos, chairman of the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), wrote late in October in a Washington Post opinion column that endorsed Obama.
CANF was set up in 1981 by Mas’s father, Jorge Mas Canosa, with the express aim of overthrowing the government of Fidel Castro. For years, the group exerted enormous influence on Washington policy makers — as well as on presidential candidates keenly aware that winning the White House without winning Florida is a very difficult undertaking. Obama won the state comfortably.
Cuban exiles, numbering around 650,000, account for just over a quarter of the total population of the greater Miami area. In the past, the Republican Party took the loyalty of most of them for granted — Cuban Americans have traditionally voted four to one for Republicans.
The three Miami-based Cuban American Republicans who serve in the House of Representatives — all supporters of the embargo — were re-elected. Their votes against changes Obama might propose once he takes office on Jan. 20 can be taken for granted.
Some of the most pointed criticism of the embargo has come not from Democrats but from conservative businessmen who resent the fact that American business has been kept out of Cuba while most of the world is engaged there.
In the words of Tom Donohue, CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce: “All you have to do is go over to Cuba and watch how the Spanish, the French, the Latin Americans and everybody else on the globe are building resorts or trying to invest, and we are sitting here with a 50-year-old policy that doesn’t work.”
The prime beneficiaries from an end to the embargo would be American agricultural exporters. “But just about every industry could benefit,” according to Donohue, “for the simple reason that there is such pent-up demand. Look at the cars they are running — Jack Kennedy was in office when half of them were sent down there.”
(You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com)
(Pictured above: Cubans in Havana watch Barack Obama on the news on November 4, 2008. REUTERS/Enrique de la Osa)
I am a Cuban American and I oppose the embargo. It has done no good as far as deposing Castro. Ths Cubans have nothing to sell, except cigars and tourism, so lifting the embargo would only help Cuba's economy marginally. Only if Cuban moves to a Chinese type of economy, and allows foreign investment in production facilities, will their economy be improved significantly.
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The embargo is childish and petty, its point now at best an anachronism. Ending it now is one more step towards returning to the family of nations.
Can anyone tell me how trade with many countries in Europe and other parts of the world changed the cuban government views on dissidents, political prisoners and the cuban people? The answer is none. People are still being persecuted and imprisoned for speaking their minds.
The only ones that will benefit from lifting the embargo will be the cuban government and the businesses that will trade with Cuba. The almighty buck is at work here.
The biggest embargo that Cuba faces is the embargo placed on the island by the Castro brothers and their pundits.
What has killed the cuban economy is not the embargo but the lack of a free economy driven by market forces.
Please read about the state of the cuban economy before Castro came into power and you will find that it was a prosperous economy.
Do not forget that when Hurricane Ike struck Cuba the US offered 5 million dollars with no strings attached to the cuban government and they refused, while the cuban people suffered in the aftermath of the hurricane.
What is the true embargo on the cuban people? The answer is the Castro brothers and their thugs.
Jorge M.
Lifting the embargo is not going to return freedom to the Cuban people or better their lives. Castro has used the US embargo as an excuse to why the Cubans live in a meager way. If he truly wanted to improve the lives of the Cuban people, he could have been trading with Spain, France, and others all along. But bettering the lives of the Cuban people has never been in his plans, not for the last 50 years. Total control of the island and the Cubans, that’s all Castro cares about. The Cubans won’t benefit from the embargo, because Castro will make sure of that; it will simply make things easier for him while he is in power.
The time is right to get over the past and stop being small minded and petty. Ever notice that the few countries we seem to have trouble with, are the ones that have stood up to us and won. Let them live without our colonial interference. Besides Florida and Mexico are getting urban and fetid.
The US wont trade with Cuba because it is an evil communist empire where assets have been nationalized and its people are oppressed?
What about VIETNAM? What about CHINA? What about RUSSIA? How many US Citizens died fighting those Communist countries? And now it’s “business as usual” because it is “good for business”. This is a good example of politicians talking out of both sides of their mouth, I think.
An embargo against Cuba is just plain stupid. However, as a professor in University said to me once, 20 years ago, “A Democrat can never end the embargo against Cuba, because they will be seen as soft on Communism. Only Nixon, a republican, or Regan, A republican, could have made peace with China and Russia, respectively”. I hope he is wrong, but I see nothing that would lead me to believe the contrary, even today.
Why not just lift the embargo? What an incredible symbol of American goodwill! America is a beacon of morality. America is a leader in the free world. Show the communist’s in Cuba that we are bigger than them. Heck, show the whole world that America is bigger than this 50 year grudge. The goodwill that the United States will derive from that simple act is unquantifiable. Just do it. Lift the embargo. Let’s all start fresh. Change. Try something different. Doing so would be a sign of strength, not a sign of “softness.” It may very well shame the Cuban regime to change it’s Communist ways. And it just might be good for the World. Sort of the way the tearing down of of the Berlin Wall was good not just for the two Berlins, but for the whole world. Yes, let’s stop. Let’s have a do over between America and Cuba.
The USA trades with Russia, China, Libya and even Vietnam, so why not open up trade with Cuba? It would make a lot of sense for Cubans and for Americans.
The failed policy of attempting to isolate Cuba because of Castro’s defiance of America’s political, financial and military hegemony in the Caribbean basin and Latin America is causing poverty and misery to ordinary Cubans and punishing the whole country. The USA’s moral authority in the world has been severely undermined by the proven lies of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq and the election of Obama is a clear signal that enough ordinary Americans have stopped believing their government’s propaganda. Time for a change in direction and in policy.
The majority of these comments are out of line and do not reflect the opinion of the American people. How quickly these people forget.
This communist regime stole from and nationalized privately and publicly held companies. Castro waited for the Havana Hilton to be complete before they took it. The Bacardi family had their distillery taken from them. The list goes on and on, not to mention the Cuban missile crisis.
There is no comparison to doing business with other communist regimes.
I’m sorry I just don’t get it. The argument is we can’t do business with Cuba, because they are Communist and violate human rights…right?
So why is it none of those factors matter as we do every sort of business with “Red” China? Oh sure you can say that China is not ninety miles away from Miami and that’s true, but China does hold the keys to our kingdom by floating a large part of our debt. And yes, they could shut us down by denying us spare parts for a lot of our military toys as well as our consumer products…come to think about it maybe we have the shoe on the wrong foot. Cuba can not hurt us in any way, but china could destroy our economy; so the best idea we have is embargo Cuba. I just don’t get it.
There seems to be a lot of irony in some of these comments. The U.S. certainly doesn’t pay it’s bills on time as well as many of our States. We only pay interest on never any principal on Treasury issued debt. People making $2500 a year in Cuba at least have access to some health care. Can we say the same for American workers earning minimum wage and working less than 32 hours a week? 8 million Americans Families are at risk of losing there homes while our government tells us there are 500,000 more unemployed this past month than previously thought. Our banks are being nationalized by the Congress and the Treasury. Manufacturing has long been crumbling and now our entire economy is accelerating into a free fall.
I personally think we have little room to criticize the policies of the Cuban government or the the virtues of Capitalism versus Communism. In fact, I believe we will become far more socialist in the coming years in order to meet the needs of the people. Precisely because of our our own governments corrupt activities, deregulating the financial industry and pursuing campaign contributions from those who reaped the obscene profits, the United States has lead the world into an economic catastrophe. Or are we somehow unaware of these facts? None the less,what great accomplishments of this stature can anyone attribute to Cuba?
It is about time. That was the most stupid thing we ever did to a small country, which is our next door neighbor.
What did we accomplish, except get a 600 thousand Cubans to come to this country as refuges and we feed, clothed and housed them, when could have let them stay home and helped them build a good economy in Cuba.
We try to isolate Cuba and kiss the rear end of all the Chinese leaders.
Cuba could not beat Miami in a war and we let China walk all over us and no one has the guts to stop them from counterfeiting our patents and dumping goods on this country against the rules of the WTO. We also let ship any and all things here, but they do not our goods flow into China, and the idiot in Whitehouse calls that free trade.
Is it logical that the US invaded Iran thinking that it may have WMD instead of invading North Korea whose president declared that they had nuclear weapons? Is our foreign policy completely based on oil?
It seems odd that we are best friends with Viet Nam after having tens of thousands of Americans die in battle 38 years ago but we have been enemies with Cuba for almost 60 years - a country that has never fought us or even has the ability to fight us.
FREE CUBA FROM CUBANS IN MIAMI, CASTRO WILL FALL
The most horrific aspect of the embargo to Cuba and its people, is that it has been promoted by extreme right wing cubans, who benefited from the corrupt government of Batista. If these extremist hate their own people, imagine what they feel towards Latin America.
In South America and Ecuador in particular, we have new socialist governments, but we do not run away to another country to complain about the sutupidity of our presidents, we stay and fight to overhtrow them, to work for better days for our country and our people.
The social differences in the Cuba of Batista were so vast, that the wealthy were few and the poor and uneducated were the greater masses. Although I cannot excuse Fidel Castro’s dictatorship, Cuba is a country were its people have a education system far better than any Caribbean and Latin American country.
The embargo should be lifted, democracy will triumph and native Cubans, not those from Miami, should be allowed to govern themselves without the Catro regime.
OBAMA IS A HOPE OF TRUE DEMOCRACY AND THE END OF XENOPHOBIC REPUBLICANS REFLECTED IN THE CUBANS OF BATISTA.
Patricio del Salto
Ecuador
While we talk about dictatorships and ways of doing away with them, we treat some very nicely and then very harshly. On the apartheid regime in South Africa an embargo was imposed on the South African Gov. and it pressure help oust that very unjust regime. Now, you have Castro the longest reigning dictator who has his own people living in an apartheid society, where human rigths are constantly violated, where the citizen does non have any rights and everybody wants to seat and talk to him. I do not understand, dictatorship is dictatorship; call it right called left called Pinochet or call it what you want. Castro is a ruthless dictator whom has destroy his country and destroy his society. Do whatever you want he is still an inmoral and despicable dictatorr.
You, the USA citizens only see the Cuba affair from your country view. I am a Guatemalan citizen y can tell you that the Cuban people have a better life level than most Latinoamerican people (including Guatemala). The Castro regime have a majority support of cuban people, although they have not freedom, because they access health, education, that most latinoamerican have not. Our governments in Guatemala, 1954 ago, had been under USA government influence, causing poverty, lack of wealth and education, and genocide. Ten years ago, many cuban physicians have came to Guatemala, saving about 200,000 lives of people whithout medical assistance. Overall, the cuban people have dignity.
Peter, get your story straight. The U.S. has PAID RENT for Gitmo for over a century. It’s not our fault that the Castro regime doesn’t cash the checks. (o.k. so the rent is cheap)See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_ Bay_Naval_Base if you want more details.
As for the embargo, it’s the only thing that’s keeping the Emperor’s New Clothes on the Cuban Revolution. If we dropped it, the Cuban government would be scrambling for ways to keep the people under its thumb.
We’ve seen what rapproachment can do–What did they call it, “detente”?–that eventually cracked Eastern Europe & the Soviet Bloc. Maybe it’s time to try it closer to home….
to GARY - re embargo because Cuba Nationalized US Business interests.. ok how about getting off sovereign Cuban territory like Guantanamo Bay - which is occupied by the US illegally.
Of course when it came to US interests they always had higher priority like United Fruit in Guatemala in 1954..the list goes on..
Having worked in intelligence during the Cuban Missile Crisis and living in Miami since 1968, I look at the Embargo as domestic policy more so than a major foreign policy failure. It has been counter-productive and an afront to all freedom loving Americans.
Telling me, a Vietnam Veteran, that I can freely travel to the Peoples Republic of Vietnam and that I can go to jail for vacationing in Cuba is repulsive, to say the least. My Cuban-born American citizen wife feels the same!!!
We have made peace with Vietnam, China and Russia. The Bush administration is talking with North Korea and President Obama has stated he will engage in dialog with Iran. The charge that Cuba is a “Terrorist Nation” is laughable and the only justification we have for maintaining the embargo is the placation of a small, but influential, group of Cuban immigrants who lost their property in a revolution that was their own national affair. Our continued interest in that conflict’s outcome only hurts the Cuban people, serves nobody’s interest and indeed diminishes our moral standing as a nation. Its time the embargo was moved into the “old” category in our world stance. If President Obama is serious about taking our country in a new direction, the continuation of this unjust and mean-spirited policy should be put to an end.