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

[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.