Is it time to end the US trade embargo with Cuba?

[Ice]

This article just got me thinking:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/TRAVEL/08/15....ap/index.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a first for an online travel company, Travelocity.com has been fined by federal regulators for booking trips between the U.S. and Cuba in violation of a 45-year-old embargo.

Travelocity.com earlier this month paid $182,750 to settle a complaint brought by the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, which said the company violated the prohibition nearly 1,500 times between January 1998 and April 2004.

Treasury's complaint said Travelocity "provided travel-related services in which Cuba or Cuban nationals had an interest by arranging air travel and hotel reservations to, from, with or within Cuba without an OFAC license."

Dozens of travel service providers have been granted licenses by OFAC for approved trips to and from Cuba for everything from academic, religious and journalistic activities to humanitarian projects and visits to immediate family.

Travelocity spokesman Joel Frey on Wednesday said the company had not applied for a license and did not intend to.

"The trips to Cuba were unintentionally permitted to be booked by consumers online because of some technical failures several years ago and it's just now being finally settled with OFAC," Frey wrote in an e-mail. "In no way did the company intend to allow bookings for trips to Cuba and the company has fully cooperated with OFAC and implemented corrective measures."

Treasury spokeswoman Molly Millerwise said any individual or business that violates the Cuban sanctions can face civil or criminal penalties. She declined to say if the Travelocity investigation had been closed.

Travelocity did not voluntarily disclose the alleged violations, but did cooperate with OFAC's investigation, according to the agency's enforcement action.

Southlake, Texas-based Travelocity is owned by Sabre Holdings Corp., which was taken private earlier this year by affiliates of Silver Lake Partners and Texas Pacific Group. Its major competitors include Orbitz Worldwide Inc. and Expedia Inc., which owns Expedia.com, hotels.com and Hotwire.

None of those companies are included on OFAC's approved list of travel service providers for Cuba.

A Mexican subsidiary of American Express Travel Related Services Co. Inc. also agreed to pay $16,625 to settle OFAC allegations of Cuba-related violations. In December 2002 and October 2003, the Mexican company made sales of group travel packages to Cuba, according to the government.

American Express voluntarily disclosed the information to OFAC, according to the enforcement action.

Elsewhere, OFAC fined one unnamed individual $999.45 and another person $510 for buying Cuban cigars for sale on the Internet

I mean, I don't see the point anymore. I should be able to go on vacation and buy things from Cuba if I damn well please. It's not like we are funding terrorism.

[CountArach]

If the Govt is so scared of Cuban "Communism" (I use the term in its losest meaning), then they should just look at what China openning its market has done. Now if Cuba were allowed to do the same thing, a similar result could occur.

[Ice]

If the Govt is so scared of Cuban "Communism" (I use the term in its losest meaning), then they should just look at what China openning its market has done. Now if Cuba were allowed to do the same thing, a similar result could occur.

I doubt the government is scared of Cuban Communism. The cold war has been over for 15 years. I think they are doing it to punish Fidel, because they absolutely hate the guy.

Beside, we trade with many other so called "communist countries".

[Odin]

Yes

Its an antiquated policy that is no longer relevant. If by chance someone finds a missle silo with a pending Russian armament being loaded okay fine.

Cuba isnt a threat, and a potential positive market for us goods and services. This would be an excellent 1st move in a new modern approach to foriegn policy.

[Strike For The South]

No simply becuase I dont want Castro to have the satisfaction. Thats my reason and I dont care what you think

[Boyar Son]

What will we get out of it if the embargo is lifted?

[KafirChobee]

There remains only one reason to continue the embargo - Big Sugar. That is, American sugar corporations - they wouldn't really suffer (sugar is a better source of ethonal that corn - not as caustic), but by keeping things as they are it means they don't have to do anything to upgrade or change.

They were forced to swallow CAFTA, but are still choking on the after taste and doing anything they can to reduce it being a laissez-faire environment when it comes to sugar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAFTA

Florida is coping by spreading the word to the nations involved that they are best prepared to handle their flow of goods (and ours to theirs). Which doesn't placate Big Sugar in the least.

Regardless, Big Sugar remains a very powerful political lobby. Cuba, well, they don't.


Something way old:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2005Apr15.html
Demonstrates that even the biggys lose occassionally - yeah, right.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

I don't think Sugar is as powerful a lobby on this as is the Cuban expatriate community in Florida (though I agree they are using their leverage to maintain the lovely subsidized status quo) -- who just happen to be pro-embargo and willing to vote single issue over it in a state where the margin in razor thin. Neither party wants to offend them so this group of a few hundred thousand is dominating the issue.

[Caius]

I'm a history n00b, but why there is a embargo in Cuba?

[AntiochusIII]

I'm a history n00b, but why there is a embargo in Cuba?

During the Cold War, America wanted to screw Cuba's economy, which was dependent at least in part to sugar exports. They probably hoped it would affect the stability of Castro's regime and all that; after all he was their evil genius for a long time. That the Cuban emigrants in the United States -- who mostly hate Castro with a passion -- lobbied heavily for the measure and continue to support it in exchange for votes only adds to the incentive of the cause.

Seamus did a much better explanation than me in any case.

In all practicality the embargo as it remains now is really a dick measure though.

[Seamus Fermanagh]

Because once Castro had kicked out Batista -- a posterboy for corruption and graft -- he focused his anger on a lot of the US supporters of the previous regime. This sounded communist to the USA at the time -- we had a real thing about the Soviets -- and we reacted as negatively as possible. Then Castro shifted full into "people's republic" shoot anyone who supported the old regime and cuddle up to Russia to play them off against the USA mode.

We half-supported (just enough support to make everyone aware we were involved but not enough to make it work -- not that it had a lot of chance) an attempt by Cuban expatriates to invade Cuba and counter-coup the Castros at the Bay of Pigs.

The embargo is just a "economic sanctions" effort (like the ones the UN uses) that's supposed to punish the Castro regime, impoverish it, and encourage the locals to throw him out. It works just as well as most economic sanction programs -- the locals suffer economically but the leadership does just fine.

[Don Corleone]

Strike, you do realize that the biggest beneficiary of the embargo is Castro himself, right? By enforcing it, we give him a monopoly on hard currency.

This embargo is about one thing, Cuban-Americans in South Florida voting as a block. It's the dumbest thing from so many levels, I don't know where to begin. What's more, from a strictly personal view, I'm tired of having to go to Europe or Canada for my cigars. I don't care what anybody says, there is a difference and Dominican and Honduran versions will never be as good. I want my authentic Romeo y Julietas. I want my Madrons. I want my Unicas. The real ones, not the ones they make for Americans in Guatamala.

[Spetulhu]

The embargo works just as well as most economic sanction programs -- the locals suffer economically but the leadership does just fine.

The leadership does fine not only financially but politically. It's not Castro who keeps the people poor, it's those evil americans! Castro would ride on the lifted embargo, but it would give US companies a foot in the door too. And with the embargo lifted there would be no excuse if conditions don't start improving.

[Divinus Arma]

Full reconcilliation would be very interesting to see: Cuban cigars flooding the U.S., tourists flocking to Havana, the previously impoverished people of Cuba flooded with American Dollars!

Sounds pretty good all around to me.

[Tribesman]

Keep the embargo , it makes the government look like small minded spoilt little brats

[doc_bean]

Full reconcilliation would be very interesting to see: Cuban cigars flooding the U.S., tourists flocking to Havana, the previously impoverished people of Cuba flooded with American Dollars!

Sounds pretty good all around to me.

I think the people of Cuba will suffer from the lift if it's done at once. They're not used to living and working in a capitalistic environment and they will lose acces to what little the 'state shops' provided.

But a gradual lift would be the best solution for everyone. I just hope Havana will get restored to its old glory instead of being overrun by McD and other franchises. C'est la vie, I suppose.

[ajaxfetish]

I've long considered the continued embargo a mere act of stubborn pride on behalf of a government that can't abide the repeated humiliations they've suffered every time they've tried to deal with Castro. 'Why can't we just put this one little man in a little country right off our own shores in his place? And yet he outmaneuvers us every time.' It will take a little more political maturity (or Fidel's death, which will almost certainly come first) to end the embargo. I hadn't thought of the sugar and Cuban expatriate lobbies, though they make perfect sense, and make the issue sadly more complicated--not the issue of what should be done, but the issue of whether it will be.

Ajax

[Idaho]

But a gradual lift would be the best solution for everyone. I just hope Havana will get restored to its old glory instead of being overrun by McD and other franchises. C'est la vie, I suppose.

What will happen is the same thing that has happened in China and Russia (two extremes of the spectrum). Nationalised industries will be given to whoever was lucky enough to have party connections. They will become multi-millionaires and the people will get screwed over as before.

[rory_20_uk]

What will happen is the same thing that has happened in China and Russia (two extremes of the spectrum). Nationalised industries will be given to whoever was lucky enough to have party connections. They will become multi-millionaires and the people will get screwed over as before.

As opposed to their current Utopia? Better do nothing and everyone is poor than risk doing something?

[Devastatin Dave]

As opposed to their current Utopia? Better do nothing and everyone is poor than risk doing something?

Thats why I've never understood the mindset of the socialist; everyone being of equal misery.