With reports this week that the Obama administration will announce plans to expand opportunities for Americans to travel to Cuba, the embargo between the U.S. and Cuba has once again become a major topic of discussion.
As reported, the administration's plan would loosen restrictions on travel by academic, religious, and cultural groups that were imposed by President George W. Bush's administration and return to the "people-to-people policies" followed under President Bill Clinton's administration.
This, along with the Obama administration's move last year to allow Cuban Americans to provide basic humanitarian assistance to their families and help them remain connected to their relatives, are both steps in the right direction. But they are not enough.
It is far past time that we end the counterproductive and unnecessary travel ban.
If one examines the history of American foreign affairs, it is hard to find a policy that has lasted for as long, yet so obviously failed, as our trade embargo of Cuba. If someone had told President Dwight Eisenhower in 1960 that the Cuban embargo would last 50 years, would Eisenhower have considered a different approach?
We'll never know, but what we do know is that a half-century of the embargo hasn't brought down Castro's government. And it certainly hasn't helped Americans in any way. At long last, the time has come for the embargo to end.
The old cliché says that "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result." Yet whenever the question of the embargo is raised, its defenders say we need to keep it in place so we can keep pressure to promote democratic reforms, including greater freedom of speech, religion, and association. This is the same argument that has been made for 50 years. The embargo didn't bring about democratic reform in 1960, or 1970, or 1980, and it won't do so in 2010. We need to try a new approach.
That approach is engagement - individual, cultural, and economic. It won't be only Cubans who will reap the benefits. The House Agriculture Committee recently passed the Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, of which I am proud to be a co-sponsor. It lifts all restrictions on travel to Cuba, and allows American farmers to sell their crops to this waiting market just a few miles off our shores. It will be an important first step, but we need to go even farther, to eliminate the trade embargo that has failed for so long.
The result will be hundreds of millions of dollars coming into the American economy, and the creation of thousands of American jobs. And when Cubans start buying our goods and forming relationships with Americans, the path to their future - a democratic and prosperous one - will become clearer than ever.
If we can allow travel and trade with nations such as China and Vietnam, then surely we can move forward with lifting the travel ban and ending the embargo with Cuba.
Where I differ with the Congresswoman is in her Agricultural Bill, WE subsidize farmers, agricultural trade with Cuba will result in us subsidizing Cuba as well. The Castro Brothers are notorious for non payment. Where will the millions of dollars come from? The country can barely support their economy and Cubans do not have the earning power to buy American goods. Show me the money first.
Recently, Cuba has made up some of its US cutbacks by buying from Vietnam and other countries who do not require cash in advance. Some supporters of the recent bill want a relaxation of the cash up front policy and cite the recent import drop as a reason.
However, according to John Kavulich Senior Policy Advisor for the US Cuba Economic Trade Council (based in NY, not Miami), "I haven't read one Cuban officail saying it's because of US law and policy....They said they don't have the money".
*Paraphrased for expediency from a Tampa Tribune article Aug 12, 2010 reporting credited to the Associated Press.
If the current bill maintains the strict cash up front policy as you say it does, then sure trade with Cuba, why not? But like previously stated, show me the money (UP FRONT). I'm not opposed to trade with Cuba, I just don't want to foot the bill.
The fact is it exacerbates the Cuban people's woes and ours... Cuba's socialism gone crazy repression is a problem we should be helping them resolve by the power of our influence instead of interference. But our policies help empower the very repression you are complaining about.
Besides the policy has not worked and never will. So why continue failure?