The Dartmouth Beacon

In 1962, when President Kennedy first initiated the embargo on Cuba, tensions between the rapidly-spreading Communist regimes and the Democratic nations they opposed were in a state of exponential accretion. The Soviet Union was in its prime and sitting proudly in the world’s penultimate throne, and it had Cuba under its stalwart wings. Historically, Cuba has invariably functioned best when attached to an outside economy capable of producing more than sugar and tobacco, and since Cuba was a highly desirable military base only 90 miles from the United States, the Soviets were quick to adopt the nation when Castro thwarted Batista and took over in 1959. Cuba posed an enormous threat to the United States: it could now be home to the air force, navy, and army operations of our most formidable enemy. The island nation presented an unacceptable threat to the United States. Cuban reliance on the domineering specter of Joseph Stalin opened it to Russian satellite militaries. Moscow's aircraft, ships, and missiles now had a vacation home just ninety miles south of Florida. President Kennedy’s response was to eradicate Cuba’s access to the U.S. market by means of an embargo, a move he thought would eventually topple the Castro regime and the Russian grip with it.

At the time, the embargo was clearly futile—the Cuban government could easily provide its people with a comfortable lifestyle without U.S. aid so long as they had Soviet subsidies buttressing the economy.

In 1989, everything changed. The Soviet Union collapsed, and Cuba’s economy folded along with it. Concurrently, prices for sugar were drastically depressed because of a surplus in the world market. The dual catastrophes made it evident that Cuba needed a fiscal rejuvenation. The U.S. embargo finally became a serious problem for Castro, and hopeful Americans expected it might play impetus to his decline. Clearly, they were mistaken. Castro declared the “Special Period,” a time in which fundamentalist Marxist ideology had to be put on hold and replaced with a small dose of pragmatism. Castro opened Cuba’s gates to tourism, foreign investment, and controlled amounts of private enterprise. The government tightened its belt, and shut off power for a few hours every day in order to conserve oil, Cuba’s most essential resource. The Cuban government borrowed billions and defaulted on its debts. This, along with the income from the restrained capitalism of the “Special Period” was enough to get them through the the early nineties, with or without United States trade.

This is the first reason the Embargo would never work: the Cubans are a determined people who are willing to put their base ideologies on hold when necessary, despite quantifiable evidence that adopting the precise antithesis of their ideology would breed widespread success and prosperity. Yet, at this writing Castro has reversed the steps taken during the “Special Period” and returned to ideological Marxism; He has purportedly achieved his dream for Cuba, even at the price of pauperizing the population.

The second reason the embargo cannot work is that the United States is currently the only country in the entire world that refuses to trade with Cuba. The U.S. trades with every other country in the Caribbean, so when the Cubans need U.S. goods, they are able to gain access to them (albeit at higher prices) through these intermediaries. In fact, some other countries are especially willing to provide aid to Cuba to flout the embargo.

The third reason the Embargo is of no value is that Venezuela has replaced the Soviet Union as Cuba’s patron-nation. When Chavez came into power in Venezuela, he began to provide aid—especially oil—to Cuba at generous prices in the spirit of Communist solidarity. Because Cuba’s only source of power is oil-fired plants, this oil has easily become their most precious commodity. As a result, they now have enough power in their economic engine to develop once again foster a tourism marker and regain an irreplaceable source of income.
The ultimate evidence of the embargo’s inefficacy is that Cuban exiles living in the United States send billions of dollars in remittances every year to their relatives in Cuba. Yet most of the exile population in the United States is simultaneously unyielding in their desire to wage economic war on Cuba, and have succeeded in tightening the embargo by lobbying the Republican Party, which to its credit retains anti-Communist sympathies. However, the enforcement of the embargo is increasingly selective and inconsistent. While President Bush has recently severely restricted Cuban exiles’ access to their relatives, and seriously limited the amount of remittances they can send, he has refused to clamp down on American agricultural interests, which conduct business with Cuba. Archer Daniels Midland, for example, has been lobbying for permission to buy and sell goods in Cuba. In 2001 the embargo was relaxed just enough so that American companies are now able to sell food and medicine to Cuba.

Republicans on the federal level are reluctant to suggest lifting the embargo entirely. Cubans in Florida, all vehemently anti-Castro, are swing-voters in a swing-state. In a political climate where every state counts, a Republican can not afford to lose Florida and its wealth of electoral votes. As long as Cuban exiles in Florida vote on their anti-Communist sentiments, and as long as both parties desperately need their votes, we can expect the embargo to remain in place.

The intent of the embargo was to supplant Marxist roots with the seeds of democracy and capitalism. Though such nation transformation was accomplished militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States with Cuba was prevented from even making an attempt, as President John F. Kennedy had given assurances to the Soviet Union that America would not intervene militarily in Cuba.
The inconsistent, ineffective, and hypocritical embargo in place today will not succeed in toppling any regime, and has no place in our country’s foreign policy. It belongs in history books. Would lifting the embargo aid in the overthrow of Communist rule in Cuba? Certainly not. It would in fact only create richer Communists, as in China. It is evident that Communism will reign over Cuba with the embargo in place, and it will reign without the embargo. However, if there were no embargo, Cubans would eat better and live happier. We must consider not only the immediate political consequences, but also distant outcomes of our actions: if Cubans could be spared from scrounging for a better existence, it is almost certain that the natural forces of the market would change Cuba from the inside, so that when Fidel Castro is someday gone, genuine change can occur. If the embargo were lifted, this economic revolution may not happen quickly. But with the embargo in place, it has no chance of happening at all.