On 19 October 1960 the United States banned exports to Cuba. The embargo had nothing to do with advancing democracy (the Fidelistas had recently overthrown the Batista dictatorship). It was all to do with the Castro government having the cheek to nationalize some US firms that had dominated the Cuban economy.
It has taken nearly 55 years for a US president to see the light,and begin to dismantle the trade and travel restrictions.
Some of the embargo provisions now being loosened show just how extreme it was. For example, not only were US tourists banned from going to Cuba, but even human rights and humanitarian workers had to get special waivers from the State Department, on a case-by-case basis, if they wanted to visit Cuba.
In 1996 the Helms-Burton Act imposed penalties of companies from other nations that traded with Cuba. Being told by the US what they could or could not do was one of the reasons almost every other nation opposed the economic blockade and voted against it at the UN General Assemby. In General Assembly votes (held annually) the maximum number of countries opposing such resolutions has been four, always including the US and Israel, and sometimes including Palau or the Marshall Islands. The US has looked very stupid.
The US defining Cuba as a terrorist-promoting state was also rather weird when there was no factual basis to it, and the US had over the years fostered terrorism in Cuba, including attempting to assassinate Fidel Castro. Presumably, following a planned State Department “review” of the terrorist designation, it will disappear.
Lifting the economic blockade substantively might be difficult with a resolution required in a now Republican-dominated Congress, but there are positive signs from some Republicans, like Senator Rand Paul. No friend of Cuba, Paul believes the embargo has been counter-productive. He now wants America to “unleash a trade tsunami that washes the Castros once and for all into the sea”.
Paul might find the Cuban revolution is not that easily submerged, but it is true that there will be wobbles as Cuba adjusts to the new economic reality. One currently tricky problem to resolve is the inequality produced by having two currencies, the ordinary peso (which locals use) and the internationally convertible peso – or CUC – (which tourists use and is worth around 24 ordinary pesos) . Cubans with access to US dollars (perhaps through remittances) or to CUCs (from tourists) have a big economic advantage over other Cubans.
Better Cuba/US relations will be good for human rights in both countries. American citizens will regain their right to travel freely. And Cuban citizens will be able to converse in a more relaxed atmosphere – and probably have better internet access, partly as a result of the technological improvements which will come from freer trade. A prisoner exchange including Obama’s release of the Cuban Five (imprisoned for years in the US for keeping an eye on hostile Cuban exiles) has also improved the climate for dialogue between people of both nations.
In one area American can learn a lot from Cuba, and that is in the provision of medical services to those in need, both at home and abroad. Cuba is the world leader in medical internationalism. This Guardian article neatly summarises the huge contribution Cuba makes, most recently to combat Ebola. They promised 461 doctors and nurses to West Africa and most of those are already working there. There are now 50,000 Cuban doctors and nurses working in 60 developing countries.
Good to see you post this Keith. I have gathered some thoughts on the US-Cuba opening as well, but from a slightly different vantage point: http://www.kiwipolitico.com/2014/12/perhaps-not-yet-a-cuba-libre-but-an-opening-nevertheless/
I find that whole turbulent era and the dynamics of USA / Cuban foreign relations a fascinating study.
From the disenfranchisement of the local Cuban people, the corruption of the Batista’s, the way the revolution was organised and carried out ..
To the economic problems of the new revolutionary govt, the missile crisis, Bay of Pigs fiasco , Kennedy and the assassination , operation Mongoose et al – and the dodgy takeover of Lyndon B Johnson and his push for a bigger and better war in Vietnam for all his arms dealing /manufacturing buddies.
It presents a maelstrom of govt departments, industrialists ,individuals , political intent and dogma ….all colliding with each other.
But one cannot be but struck with the sheer childishness and pettiness of so many of these so -called adults.
Moderation was thrown out the window….on both sides. Pig headedness was the order of the day.
This is the beauty of a functioning Social Democracy. All can become wealthy – as wealth is shared , balance starts to occur, and even the rich will not loose their wealth in that economic mode. And the plight of the poor starts to be alleviated ,…and becomes ever less threatening .Society’s become ever more productive as a result. It is a win -win solution.
Adaptations to Keynesian economics to modern circumstances can be adopted which softens and minimalises the occurrences of manipulated global markets…..creating a more stable global economy. Again …win – win.
We should be advancing – not backpedaling to a feudal autocracy.
Without the need for dogma, extreme ideology , petty bureaucrats in cloistered political environs. Basically no further advanced than caveman tribalism. And just as deadly.
I hope there is indeed a balanced co ordinated thawing of the relationship between Cuba and the USA . It is long overdue. The trick is to keep the opportunistic parasites from manipulating the new political advancement and souring what otherwise could be a really good thing.
Sorry, but I’m not going to believe America simply wants to bury the hatchet with Cuba. I smell a rat, and I believe American administration has got something brewing on the back burner with this. Instinct is telling me not to trust the American behind the political scenes puppeteers.
Yes unfortunately you are probably quite right…I suspect the same. Moreover , with this TTPA /TISA bussiness , even though this hasn’t to do with Cuba directly, the way world events are shaping up particually in the middle east ,…it could be a way of making a strategic geographical point on the globe become compliant.
That is the concern.
Now watch for the US corporate takeover of Cuba……..
Now is a good time to do a 30 year prospective cohort study on the health of Cubans. The exposure – neo-liberalism. The outcomes – their already existing phenomenal health stats, on par with many developed countries b/c of their amazing public health system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ms8emcoWZM
Absolutely Maria.
And the same goes for the education system in Cuba as well, where the literacy rate I last heard was in the vicinity of 97%.
Despite the US and its sycophantic allies not acknowledging the fact, but Cuba has had for some time, health and education systems rated as second to none.
An alliance with the US might put paid to all that, with the possibility of returning the country to a comparable state it was during the despotic, dark American backed Batista years, when Cuba was well known as the whorehouse of the Caribbean! A time when health and literacy were rock bottom!
True that Mary. It is free to go to medical school in Cuba. (free ed all up for everything) They have also an exchange with Venezuela to supply doctors, to go into the villages in Venezuela and teach the villagers to be doctors. Where in any developed nation do doctors go to the people and teach the people to be doctors? None that I know of. I am afraid all of Che’s hopes and dreams for the people maybe undone in 50 years….
Who the f… is down voting these posts. Could it be the Embassy of a nation that finds anything that does not promote the advantages of a corporate takeover of healthcare and education an anathema. Cuba has a better healthcare system than the USA. Actually just about any country does unless of course you are extremely rich in which case yay yay USA.
@Ike – the thumb downers come over via the WhaleOil site I’d say.
When they aren’t gnashing their gums, praising dear leader and all the vile US driven stench that clings to him, it’s what they do, thinking they are having a negative impact on this blog site. In actual fact, the contrary is the case.
Because what the numbskulls don’t realize they are doing is raising the number of hits TDB receives! So let’s look at their (albeit pathetic) contribution as having a positive effect in that respect.
Now I wait in anticipation for more thumbs down …
I doubt much will eventuate, if this Administration was serious about this issue there could have been more chance of progress when Congress was dominated by the Democrats.
Not too much change in the past half century, Crimea appears to becoming the new Cuba, a shift to another geostrategic plot of earth in an adversary’s backyard.
It appears any blockade is effective in softening up an isolated nation prior to an invasion or concerted effort in regime change. If said nation is resilient, the shortcomings are readily apparent.
Perhaps the powers that be in the US have realised the effectiveness of trade in gaining influence, suppose consumer culture can effect political change.
did I not read an article wondering if USA would be looking at the oil field off the coast of Cuba, unavailable to them until the Embargo was released.
Lets look and watch what happens.
Considering Cuba has not been involved in US driven conflict during the past 50+ years, it needs to seriously consider its position when it comes to buddying up to the USA.
Apart from the likely US driven aggressive corporate thrust into the nation, the timing of this “friendly” move from America seems somewhat ominous, with the Middle East coming to mind here. Cubans could just be seen as another convenient source of cannon fodder, to support the USA’s latest edition of hostilities in that part of the world!
Let’s face it, the US isn’t known for wanting to be nice for nothing in return! This amiable overture towards Cuba, has to be viewed with some skepticism!
There are a lot of positives to being enemy no 1, to the US and having that trade embargo. 97% literacy and fantastic cheap health outcomes.
NZ should think about that and make the pilgrimage there to actually look to improve outcomes here. If they bothered to do that they would find that privatizing health and downgrading it, while putting in Charter schools and adopting the US model will force us into a 3rd world country status.
Cuba has showed the world that being isolated in particular from the US is not a bad thing in many ways.
Ideally they lift the embargo and have free movement, but Cuba keeps privatization out.
My feeling re this development is very mixed. It is of course overdue that the embargo is ended. But as we know how economics tend to work out, it will be the larger, major trading “partner” that will make the most gains. Cuba has partly due to that inhumane embargo for decades been driven to extreme neglect and to being technological disadvantaged. Especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had offered Cuba some favourable trading terms, the US and some other western economies have put on the pressure, forced Cuba to introduce a second currency, to open up for tourism and some moderate cases of foreign investment.
Also has the US made great efforts to “soften” the sentiment in Cuba’s population, and tried hard to corrupt the younger members of Cuba’s society by channeling in “western” music and lifestyles. As always, the US portrays itself as the “fortress” of democracy and freedom of individual enterprise. Few in Cuba may know enough of the social realities in the US, and what had in the past led to Cuba becoming a kind of serf state under the US hegemony. For many US tourists Cubas was known as the gambling resort and brothel, and little else, before the revolution succeeded and made an end to it.
As it is with history, new generations look to the future, and tend to easily and too quickly forget what history should teach them.
I fear that Cuba will gradually be changed from the admittedly technologically “backward” country it is, that though has more social egalitarian aspects, to becoming another new capitalist dominated society, where it will be everyone for themselves, and against each other. Look at some places in Eastern Europe, and what became of them, soon after the Iron Curtain fell. Much enthusiasm and some bits of progress were replaced with much disillusion, with new social injustice, corruption and a rise of nationalistic parties, some being even fascist.
I doubt the latter will happen to Cuba, but I worry it will not gain what the government and many people may hope to gain. Next on the “to do list” for Obama and his US government are Venezuela, and to get rid of the post Chavez government there.
It is also my impression that the present, unexpected low oil price on the global market is not something that just happened by the market producing too much as suppliers misjudged demand. The US and Saudi Arabia are behind this, as they share interests in getting rid of certain large oil exporting regimes, such as in Iran, in Russia and Venezuela. Their economies are shot to pieces, given excess production in the US and Saudi Arabia. Without bullets political battles and wars are being fought out there.
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