US Embargo on Cuba. Hurting or Helping?

[Vickey]

- History: The United States imposed an embargo on Cuba in February of 1962. This was an economic, commercial, and financial embargo limiting all trade between the US and Cuba. The main purpose of this embargo is to avoid any support to the Castro regime in Cuba. Castro is the dictator of communist Cuba.

- The International Trade Commission reported in the year 2,000 that the embargo with Cuba is depriving the United States of up to 1 billion dollars a year. Most of the harm from the embargo is also being done to the state of Florida.

- The American travel sector would also gain immediately from ending the travel ban, with an estimated creation of over 10,000 jobs for Americans. (US air carriers would receive the majority of these gains)

- The United States embargo is causing a 1.24 billion dollar loss in agricultural export.

- It has been 40 years since the United States began their embargo on Cuba, and they still maintain their current political regime. The embargo was meant to cause democratic reform in Cuba, and has so far failed. Even the fall of the communist Soviet government did not cause a change in the politics of Cuba.

- September 11 is proof that America needs to change their view on the embargo. Cuba is a proud supporter of terrorism in the US. Good relations with Cuba is paramount to public safety in the United States, considering that Cuba is located a mere 90 miles from the shores of the US.

- A majority of Americans do not favor the embargo.

Americans want to lift the embargo by a margin of 52-to-32 percent, according to a Cuba Policy Foundation poll conducted in 2001 by a nonpartisan independent polling firm. By a 63-to-33 percent margin, Americans believe lifting the embargo would be the most effective way to bring democracy to Cuba. And by a 63-to-24 percent margin, Americans want the U.S. to start a formal dialogue with Cuba now.

Pro-embargo lobbyists created and perpetuate the myth that Cuban-Americans in South Florida are opposed to any U.S. policy change. According to a 2000 Florida International University poll, a majority of Cuban-Americans living in Miami-Dade County – by a 52-48 percent margin – believe the U.S. should allow American companies to conduct at least some business with Cuba. By a 53-47 percent margin, a majority of Miami-Dade Cuban-Americans want the U.S. to lift the ban on travel to Cuba completely.

Even clearer majorities of Cuban-Americans in Miami-Dade want American companies to be allowed to sell food to Cuba (56-to-44 percent) and medicine to Cuba (66-to-34 percent).

In perhaps the most telling statistic, by an overwhelming 84-to-26 percent margin, Cuba-Americans in Miami-Dade believe the U.S. embargo against Cuba has failed

Translated from Source: www.cubavsbloqueo.edu






I believe that by establishing better relations and fixing the public affairs with Cuba now, the United States can guide them toward a steady and enduring democracy. The longer the US waits, the larger the risk that Cuba's post-Castro era will wind up being led by an equally oppressive regime. Whether this ends up being from the far-left, or from a new far-right regime, Cuba will wind up being tyrannized by a new government. The United States has been gaining little to nothing from not fixing relations with Cuba, and will continue to harm the people of both countries with its current policies. With the current economic problems in the United States, America should make a step forward in opening up it's trade with Cuba.




Sources:

http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_cuba.html

www.cubavsbloqueo.cu

http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/funfacts/embargo.htm

http://www.house.gov/mariodiaz-balart/news/columns/071104_nydailynewscuba.htm

C. Parr Rosson and Flynn Adcock of Texas A&M University

 

[Ck-2]

The United States needs to show other countries that they aren't going to go back on their word when they make a decision. Lifting the embargo would make the US look weak and that wouldn't help maintain it's image of power.

 

[Vickey]

Negotiating for peace is not a sign of weakness. There is clear evidence that the embargo on Cuba is doing nothing but causing more problems for the United States than it can ever hope to solve. Keeping it around for reasons as unnecessary as "because we said we would do it" will only show that the United States is run by arrogance and foolishness. If the United States stuck to every decision it always made, then it would have to follow through with many of the bad ones it has made in the past already. The US tried this during the Vietnam war, desperately clinging to terrible decision after terrible decision, only because they were too prideful to admit that they were acting on foolishness, and everyone knows the disaster that followed suit. Despite popular belief, the United States has no business meddling in the private affairs of Cuba and other countries. Decisions like continuing the embargo with Cuba are one of the many reasons our economy is doing so poorly right now.

 

[Eor]

The United States needs to show other countries that they aren't going to go back on their word when they make a decision. Lifting the embargo would make the US look weak and that wouldn't help maintain it's image of power.

The embargo has done nothing good. It's been 50 years and it has failed ever since it was set in place. Are you really suggesting that keeping a failed policy to protect image is smart foreign policy?

 

[Vickey]

The embargo was supposed to give the idea to other nations that doing things that are not in the United States best interests will keep you out of their good graces. This is why this foreign policy has been such a failure.