Should the US trade embargo against Cuba be lifted ?

[doc_bean]

Well should it ?

[Don Corleone]

Frankly, I don't know why Europeans obsess with the US trade embargo on Cuba. Cuba has plenty of trading partners, including US allies Canada, UK and Israel. We never enforced a global embargo against them, we cut off our own trade with them. Cuba's economic woes have very little to do with the US itself.

That being said, the embargo is ridiculous. It's a money maker for Cuban-Americans and Castro....the only parties that can reliably provide American currency in Cuba. It never served it's original purpose and it's a big plank in the eye of how one small but vocal and well organized lobby can control American policy.

Much as with China and the former Soviet Union, free trade can only help the US to promote the superiority of its system and encourage the local population to press their leader for market reforms.

The US does business with plenty of people that we find distasteful (including Syria and Iran).

Edit: I should add that the reason I find European opposition to the US trade embargo on Cuba surprising is that it is in your best interest that we continue it. It makes your goods and services more attractive and you can command a better price for them. You can also leverage the diplomatic advantage (if there are any) of working with Cuba while we sit on the sidelines pouting.

[drone]

Yes. It's pretty stupid and petty, really. I guess the whole point of it was to topple Castro's regime, and we all see how well that worked. :rolleyes: Now we are faced with having a country with a regressed economy waiting to be pillaged when the communist dream finally unravels. Corporations, mafiosos, and banana-republic dictator wanabees are all just waiting in the wings, I'm sure.

[danfda]

Of course it should be lifted.

[The Black Ship]

Of course it should remain:duel:

[Xiahou]

It's probably worth sitting on until Castro bites it, then it should be seriously re-examined. :yes:

[Devastatin Dave]

I say yes, Clinton needs some fresh Cuban cigars, his currently supply is getting fishy.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Lift the embargo on Cuba when Castro lifts his embargo on human rights.

[Joeokar]

Lift the embargo on Cuba when Castro lifts his embargo on human rights.
I agree with this

[AntiochusIII]

Lift the embargo on Cuba when Castro lifts his embargo on human rights.Noble as it sounds, that does set a certain unachievable standard for many a government in our world, good sir.

Hence the punishment (blessing?) on Havana's markets is a moral hypocrisy but a strategic -- political -- act: after all the efforts spent, could there be anything close to reconciliation without humiliation? Nothing particularly demeaning or unusual at all, I'd say.

That is, of course, not implying that I particularly agree with the embargo.

[doc_bean]

Lift the embargo on Cuba when Castro lifts his embargo on human rights.

Two problems with this line of reasoning:

1. Lots of countries with a worse record than Cuba regarding human rights don't have a trade embargo and often are even considered 'freinds', like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

2. The embargo makes the average person suffer more, it makes the population even poorer. If human well being is what concerns the US than they are achieving the exact opposite :juggle2:

[Moros]

Yes. Morally they should. But from an Europan economic view; go on!

[Ronin]

the embargo is the biggest thing castro´s regime has going for it right now....

take it away and the dictatorship would be gone inside 5 years...castro or no castro.

so....do away with it and stop being petty already!!!:book:

[Oaty]

Well I voted no, When Castro took over, he also took many Ameerican businesses in the conversion of communism. So no it will never happen. Of course the US was pretty anticommunist at that time, but there were a whole lot of factors leading up to the embargo. The first post does'nt really state the reasonings behind the embargo.

[Samurai Waki]

Yeah, but Cuba is rather pseudo-communist now, sort of like China, and I'd say their human rights records are about on par as it stands with Castro in charge. Castro actually benefits from an American Embargo in that he can appeal to the many many different corporations within the European Market and pick and choose which ones he finds suitable and which ones he doesn't, without any applied pressure from Market Liberals. If the US were to lift the embargo (and Cuba accepted) the American market would be capable of applying enough pressure to break down the system and require a readjustment of trade negotions, which would of course, be heavily in favor of the United States.

[Goofball]

Lift the embargo on Cuba when Castro lifts his embargo on human rights.

I agree.

And we should keep the embargo on trade with China until they start respecting human rights as well.

Oh...

Wait...

Never mind...

[Louis VI the Fat]

I've never quite understood leftists Castro-apologizers. Everything about him goes against anything I stand for. I instinctively mistrust, nay, abhor, any head of state parading around in military uniforms. Even more so when they've ruled for nearly fifty years. All the more so when they torture, murder or force into exile political dissidents.

Castro is a second-rate, power-hungry, dictatorial scumbag. And nothing more.

For those apologists who really dig him for being a pain to every US administration since Kennedy, I propose you do the Louis test to distuingish between a decent democracy and a dictatorship:
go to the middle of the busiest Washington town square and shout 'Bush is the anti-Christ! Down with capitalism!' while burning an American flag.
I'd say you'll end up with a $35 fine for hampering traffic.

Now go to Havana and do the same....
You'll end up with a ticker-tape parade and an honorary Cuban citizenship.

Leaving that poor attempt at a joke aside, now go to Havana and call Castro a communist pig while burning a Cuban flag and see what happens next...


And yes, I do see that most of you here who want to lift the embargo wish to do so out of a sense of realism, not out of any particular sympathy for Castro.
I do however, personally, have moral problems with a bussiness-as-usual attitude towards dictatorships.

[Louis VI the Fat]

I see the reason in the arguments that have been brought up against a trade embargo. As I'm not sure I disagree with them, I shall not leave them unanswered:
1 There are other dictatorships whom America (or the rest of the west) does do trade with. Many of which are far, far worse than Cuba.
2 After nearly fifty years of an embargo, we should *cough* perhaps not entirely exclude the possibility that the embargo hasn't shortened the life-span of Castro's regime one bit.
3 The embargo hurts the poor, not the guys at the top you're aiming at.


As to the first objection, well, for a start, two wrongs don't make one right. Also, I think we'll come to regret the partnership we have with some of those friendly dictatorships. Yet, thirdly, sometimes, those partnerships are a strategic choice for the lesser of two evils. Nobody complained when there wasn't an embargo on Stalins' SU in 1941.
Despite those three counter-arguments, I am however not convinced of my own opinion that business as usual with dictatorships is wrong. In the long run, economic progress and empowerment and the creation of a vast middle-class may prove more valuable for Chinese freedom than embargoes.

As to the second objection: well, Gah! Castro can't live forever. A human life-span is finite, the longing for freedom not.

As to the third objection: in the recent past, more refined economical embargoes have been developed. Ones that spare the populace and hurt the leaders. I would be in favour of looking into those as a replacement for the blunt instrument of a general embargo.

Oh, there's a fourth objection to a lift too: that it would stop Europe from profiting from America's embargo.
Now, while I do not share right-wing America's utter obsession with Cuba, I have to say I'm too much of a trans-Atlanticist to appreciate efforts on either side to make a sneak profit from the other's foreign policy.

[Don Corleone]

Oh Louis, ever the idealist. Gotta love you for it, mi amigo. But frankly, I don't even know if I'm so much 'business as usual, tolerate the dictator' on this as I have come to realize that a free market requires an intelligent, free thinking workforce. Once edcuated and thinking for themselves, people simply will not tolerate dictators.

The well fed middle class didn't put Castro on the throne, starving peasants did. Understanding this better than anyone, Castro kept them barefoot and starving (but they do have free healthcare). Give them food, ownership of goods and a chance to invest in the capital markets that control Cuba's economy and those people won't settle for a banana republic dictator.

[KafirChobee]

The embargo remains in place for two reasons. First (as Don C. pointed out), to show support for the American based Cubans. Secondly, and most importantly, Big Sugar. The Big Sugar Corporations in the USA would be hurt were Cuba's sugar allowed in our market. Mostly though the embargo is a simply a political sham.

The use of economic embargos is so over used it is almost meaningless as a means to impress one nations will over a smaller one. Seems it is more a knee-jerk reaction than an actual diplomatic endevour to sway another nation into falling in-line with "norms" of the majority (or strongest) of nations.

Economic sanctions are more a meaningless political ploy to demonstrate to a nations people that IT is doing something to ..... what ever ... against the meanies. Regardless of how innifectual or substantive it is. After all, there will always be someone (another nation) willing to fill the economic vaccume created. Or, fill the order for nuclear materials and assistance to build reactors ..... what ever the embargo by one nation, another will fill the gap.

Money talks ....... you know the rest.