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End of the Cuba Embargo?

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  April 12th, 2009 at 09:54 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

Very possibly. From Fausta:

Cuba: U.S. Embargo to End?

The Fifth Summit of the Americas is coming up next week, on April 17-19 in Trinidad-Tobago. The Summit’s theme is “Securing Our Citizens’ Future by Promoting Human Prosperity, Energy Security and Environmental Sustainability.” It will be interesting to watch what the Obama administration has planned for the Summit regarding Cuba.

As readers may recall, last February the Lugar Report concluded that “progress could be attained by replacing conditionality with sequenced engagement, beginning with narrow areas of consensus that develop trust,” and recommended changing US policy towards Cuba. Following the report, in March the omnibus spending bill changed travel restrictions on American citizens with family in Cuba to once a year, and last week the Wall Street Journal reported that President Obama plans to lift U.S. restrictions on Cuba, allowing Cuban-Americans to visit families there as often as they like and to send them unlimited funds.

If you read up on the WSJ article, the Lugar Report, and the Cuban-American National Foundation’s white paper on the topic, one thing becomes clear: our Cuba policy is a mess, and it’s one that every President since Eisenhower has contributed to, usually because of domestic concerns. Fidel Castro had this amazing ability to seriously discommode American Presidents at every possible opportunity, and now it’s apparently Obama’s turn.

The problem here is that the President is going to have to somehow remove loosen restrictions on Cuban-American contacts without at the same time ending the embargo… which, in my personal opinion, can’t be done. And ending the embargo is going to be problematical, for two reasons; first, the generally rotten human rights record that Cuba has when it comes to political dissidents will make the normalization process awkward. Second, no American President wants to go down in the history books as the one who finally gave in and admitted that Fidel won. This is a larger issue than it looks, especially since the Castro regime has been taking advantage of this reluctance for decades.

Should we end the embargo? Well, we’ve traded with worst regimes, and I don’t think that the current system is doing what we want it to. Do I think that doing so will cause a stink? Very much so. Is it fair that most of it will slop onto the current administration? Not especially. Do I personally care?

After the embarrassing way that the CBC delegation reacted in their recent visit, not in the slightest.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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  • USNJIMRET

    Particularly if he can do it without a lot of fanfare, quickly. That is, early enough in his term that most will forget about it and resulting ‘issues’ may moderate or fail to arise.
    Nothing this Administration does should surprise anyone.
    Expect the unexpected as it were.

  • SteveLA

    moe

    Back in 2005 Louisiana inked a deal to supply $15 Million of agricultural products to Fidel Land, so there already was a leak in the dam. Europeans are already there.

    Won’t play well in South Florida, but Obama does not have to run again for 3 years, and with money in people’s pocket from opening up Cuba many will be forgetful.

    Who knows, given the success of Cubans who came to this country in the past, free enterprise and creating a moneyed class might help hasten the fall of the Communist in Cuba as it did in Poland.

  • IJB

    AFAIAC, you don’t put embargoes in place because you actually expect to change tyrannical behavior. (South Africa was a very specific, unique fluke – and it will never be repeated again.)

    You keep embargoes in place because it’s important to make the proverbial “statement” that “This regime is repugnant, and we will do nothing to aid them in their furthered existence. We won’t make money off the continued human misery of their populace, at least not when we have a choice about it.”

    By the same token, the people who want to lift embargoes should just be honest about it and stop insulting the intelligence of those of us who support them – eliminating embargoes will do absolutely *nothing* to better the lives of people in regimes like Cuba’s (it certainly will *not* lead to political reform). If your purpose is simply to make more money for domestic sectors and industries, and you don’t care how it’s done – then just be honest about that.

    But don’t put out the old shibboleth that “free markets will inevitably lead to political liberalization” – because the record has shown that that pretty much *never* happens, and it never will.

  • longwalker

    Cuba’s problem is that the country is broke. When the Soviet Union fell and Cuba’s sibsidy ended, Cuba’s exports were insufficient to purchase whjat it needed on the open market. After fifty years of Communist rule, Cuba, once one of the leading sugar producers, is now importing sugar.

    Cuba’s only source of “hard currency” is the money sent to their families by Cubas living in other countries, medical services provided to overseas visitors and tourists. What “lifting the embargo” means is the Democrats will be able to put Cuba on welfare in the name of providing jobs for Americans.

    The government will take tax money and send it to Cuba to use to purchase American goods. With a little smoke and mirrors, those Americans who directly benefit from the increase in trade with Cuba will be grateful while those who are hurt by the increased taxes will not realize what is happening.

    Something that I learned in studing taxation is that a small amount of money taken from a lot of people will not cause much of a response but that small amount from many people is equal to a very large amount given to a few people. The many will not notice but the few will be very grateful.

  • larryp

    this time a whole country–we a re paying for this. And generation not born paying for that rotten bucnh there to live high-on-the-puerco

  • http://www.publiusforum.com Warner Todd Huston

    I think Obama will end the policy. I don’t think he’ll see a downside to it.

  • rofusgooffis1

    We’ve tried almost everything with Castro. The guy is like a roach. He just won’t die. Maybe we can back door some progress with families going back to visit and bringing with them their stories of America, along with some consumer goods and cash to stimulate the Cubans appetite for more such things.

  • rofusgooffis1

    We’ve tried almost everything with Castro. The guy is like a roach. He just won’t die. Maybe we can back door some progress with families going back to visit and bringing with them their stories of America, along with some consumer goods and cash to stimulate the Cubans appetite for more such things.

  • GreyCloak

    Cuba is a great vacation land. They have plenty of beaches, Lacking restrictions, a Havana vacation is cheap. But even under today’s proclamations, only Cuban-Americans can enjoy the benefits. And maybe members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

    Cuba can buy our grain:

    John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said Cuba became the 46th largest export market for U.S. farm goods in 2002, leaping from 144th in just one year after buying $189 million worth of U.S. products.

    And, of course, new trade would provide opportunities for gambling, which was one of the reasons Castro turned out Bautista.

    More importantly, Cuba now has oil:

    If correct, Cuba’s oil reserves would be almost the same as those of the US – 21bn barrels, according to the Oil & Gas Journal – and nearly twice the size of Mexico’s – 11.7bn barrels.

    We are currently left out, while Russia as well as China and India are ready to drill.

    So … political blustering aside, why not?