Cuban Embargo Essay Research Paper The Cuban free essay sample

Cuban Embargo Essay, Research Paper The Cuban Embargo: Punishing the Children for the Sins of the Father The key to understanding the foreign policy of a state province is understanding that province? s national involvement. The key to successful foreign policy is, as Henry Kissinger stated in 1998, specifying? an accomplishable aim? . Therefore United States policy towards Cuba fails because it neglects these two key ingredients of foreign policy. The United states trade stoppage of Cuba is four decennaries old and no longer serves the state? s national involvement, instead it has proven to be a economic and political hinderance for the US. The trade stoppage besides falls short in footings of holding an accomplishable end, since many of the petitions that embargo statute law calls for are merely non within the ability of the Cuban province. By analyzing the countenances and their economic, political, and human-centered affect on both the Us and Cuba a strong instance can be made for a alteration of US policy. United states policy towards Cuba and the authorities of Fidel Castro has, since the 1960? s, been a policy based on the aims of taking Castro, establishing a democratic system, and deriving reparations for confiscated US retentions. The initial countenances were instituted because the US considered the close propinquity of a Communist province to be a national security menace, and besides because Castro? s government confiscated US retentions, and therefore US control, on the island. By ordaining a policy that one-sidedly cut Cuba off from economic and political contact with the US, the US felt that it could coerce Castro from power. In the decennaries since the trade stoppage? s construct statute law has been created to even further implement these constructs. In 1992 Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act, which prohibited US subordinates abroad from holding concern dealingss with Cuba ( Ratliff and Fontaine 22 ) . This jurisprudence pushed Cuban net incomes even further from the appreciation of US concerns. Three old ages subsequently when the economic countenances of the Cuban Democracy Act had failed to throw out Castro from power, the US Congress one time once more increased the criterions Cuba most adhere to for the trade stoppage to be lifted. It accomplished this by go throughing the Helms-Burton Law. Three of the declared intents of the helms-Burton Law focal point on the democratisation of the Cuban authorities, two trade with protecting the US, and the last one is concerned with planetary countenances. The jurisprudence besides increases the sum of compensation Cuba most wage before the US will drop the countenances. The Helms-Burton jurisprudence, by take a firm standing that Cuba pay compensation to over 400,000 Cuban Americans, makes it literally impossible for the Cuban province to make the US? s footings. Embargo protagonists claim that countenances against Cuba must be maintained because Cuba is still a national security menace to the US, nevertheless current facts about security reveal this to merely be untrue. Initially, Castro? s socialist platform and confederation with the Soviet Union did so present a menace to American security. The ground for this is that the province of international political relations in that epoch was one of bipolarism between liberalism and communism. This meant that the US felt that its balance of power in its ain hemisphere was being threatened by the Soviet? s presence in Cuba. Besides the Soviet? s armament of Cuba posed a terrible menace to US security, as was seen during the Cuban missile crisis. However, with the autumn of the Soviet axis, Cuba ceased to be an issue of national security. Present twenty-four hours Cuba does non hold the economic ability or military ability to be a menace to the US. This decision was purportedly supported by a classified study issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency in 1998 ( Ratliff and Fontaine 31 ) . Many embargo protagonists disagree with this statement stating that Cuba is still a base for intelligence activities and that Castro could develop biological arms to utilize against the US. If these concerns are really warranted, so would non US security be better served by raising the trade stoppage so that the US intelligence community can break proctor these Cuban? menaces? ? The US trade stoppage proves to be uneffective in both democratising Cuba or taking Castro from power. US countenances against Cuba have been held for the last 40 old ages or so and Cuba is still really socialist society. Besides Castro? s power has non wavered in any important manner that would bespeak that the trade stoppage was working. US policy shapers feel that by enfeebling the Cuban economic system that it will be able to influence the Cuban people to lift up in rebellion against Castro. In many ways the trade stoppage has precisely the opposite consequence on reformists with in Cuba. By fastening countenances on the island the US is aching those people who would be the most likely to rebellion, the people of Cuba. Sanctions have made it necessary for the Cuban people to rely really to a great extent upon the authorities for basic demands like vesture and nutrient. Since there are no outside markets for Cubans to purchase from they most accept what the Castro authorities doles out. It would travel against a individual? s common sense to arise against the individual or people on whom he or she was wholly dependent. If Cubans need Castro they are really improbable to take the hazard of subverting him for fright of penalty. The countenances besides increase the unlikelih ood of rebellion because it has increased the category divisions. Class mobility is really hard in even the most booming economic systems and is really about impossible in a non-solvent economic system. Therefore those with power maintain that influence while those without power have no hope of deriving more influence than that which they were born into. Of those who have power the armed forces is most decidedly in this class. The Cuban armed forces, which is controlled by Castro, has a great trade of authorization and has made it clear that it will utilize all its force to quash manque reformists. Dependence on Castro? s authorities, a deficiency of economic independency, and fright of a strong loyal military brand reforms really rare and really unsafe for those who would establish them. Current United states policy towards Cuba does non function US economic involvements because it blocks off a really profitable market from US husbandmans and concerns and hinders consumers from acquiring the best possible monetary values. In 1999 the American Farm Bureau Federation stated that without US countenances agricultural trade with Cuba would amount to $ 500 billion ab initio. It besides estimated that this would rapidly turn to $ 2 billion in five old ages or less. An article written in May 2000 for CNN.com entitled US Farmers Lobby to Ease Cuba Sanctions states that Cuba imports $ 700 million dollars of nutrient a twelvemonth. For fighting US husbandmans this immense market would be vastly helpful in doing usage of their untapped and severely needed wheat and rice markets. Farming is non the lone concern enduring from the trade stoppage. A lifting of US countenances would besides assist US pharmaceutical companies. Currently Cuba has really small entree to medicate, particularly new medicines. Most late developed medical specialties are created by US companies. Cuba? s terrible deficiency of medical supplies would do it a really profitable country of export for the pharmaceutical companies. The trade stoppage besides effects the monetary value of some goods in the US. The goods noticeable effected are citrus and sugar, which are produced in copiousness in Cuba. Opening the United states market to merchandise with Cuba would make competition between Cuban manufacturers of these goods and US manufacturers which would finally lead to lower monetary values for consumers. Not merely would competition take down the monetary value of goods but cheaper importation costs would besides take down the monetary value since the US could import some goods from Cuba instead than from states that are farther off. An moderation of countenances on Cuba would assist better US concerns and therefore should be in the state? s national involvement. The US has frequently claimed ethical motives evidences for the trade stoppage, and yet US imposed countenances on Cuba are considered by the international community to immoral as they badly compromise the wellness and safety of Cubans. A 1997 study by the American Association for World Health concludes that the US trade stoppage has caused a important rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. It states that the trade stoppage has caused malnutrition among Cubans, hapless H2O quality, and a terrible lessening in the handiness of medicines and medical equipment. The US trade stoppage denies Cuba entree to interventions for diseases such as AIDS, chest malignant neoplastic disease, kid leukaemia, and cardiac unwellness. The US authorities has spent tremendous sums of clip and money on research to prevent these unwellnesss because of their atrocious impact on human life and yet the United states is wittingly leting the Cuban people to endure. The status of the Cuban medical pattern is in many ways that of a 3rd universe state, even though it is merely 90 stat mis from the seashore of a universe world power. It is obvious that the trade stoppage is non impacting its desired mark, Castro and his protagonists. Alternatively it is doing unneeded agony amongst the common people of Cuba. While it is clear that both the US and the Cuban people would greatly profit from a one-sided lifting of the trade stoppage, it is besides clear that due to Cuban-American buttonholing influence merely partial alterations can be made. Cuban-Americans are one of the most to a great extent politicized minority groups and stand for a big vote block in the state, but most particularly New Jersey and Florida. Cuban-American influence in Florida is really of import because of the province? s 25 electoral ballots. The anteroom can utilize these ballots to derive favour with any presidential aspirant. It is obvious that countenances on Cuba can non merely be lifted but instead must be peeled off one bed at a clip to be successful. A skining off of the first bed started in October 2000 when Congress passed statute law to let nutrient and medical specialties to be sold to Cuba. A canvass in the Miami Herald indicated that this measure had the support of over 60 % of the Cuban-American community. This step, nevertheless, is unequal because it still prohibits US funding of these gross revenues, public or private. That proviso makes the new statute law fundamentally null. The US authorities should to the full drop statute law against the sale of nutrient and medical specialty to Cuba. The US should in respects to these two points allow and endorse trade with Cuba as it does with other states. Such a policy, while apparently little, would profit American concerns and assist increase the wellness of the Cuban people and besides would receive plenty support to be passed through Congress.