News Journal: Time to end U.S. embargo against Cuba

It is time for congress to end the trade embargo on Cuba.

Einstein’s definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results – is, sadly, a pretty good description of the embargo we imposed on Cuba in 1960 and have maintained ever since.

It simply hasn’t worked. “Neither the American people nor Cuban people,” President Obama said in December, were well served by existing restrictions on travel and trade. He said he was ending “an outdated approach that, for decades, has failed to advance our interests.”

If the embargo was ever going to work, it was back in the early 1990s, after the Soviet Union collapsed and cut off the aid it had provided Cuba. Cuba went into a severe depression. Food was scarce and millions were often hungry. GDP was reduced by a stunning 34 percent. But the Castro government held on to power, in large part by blaming the United States and appealing to the patriotic pride of the Cuban people.

Much of the embargo continues, because only Congress can repeal the laws that created it. But by easing travel restrictions of Americans to Cuba as well as some restrictions on financial institutions and trade, Obama has set in motion a new era in our relations with a country that is only 90 miles away.

Cuba is a harsh dictatorship. It has an abysmal record on human rights. Despite a few recent loosening of some restrictions, Freedom House’s annual survey still ranks Cuba as one of the worst countries in the world in terms of civil liberties and political rights. That hasn’t changed for many decades.

I have a lot of sympathy for those who disagreed with President Obama’s decision. “This is a reward that a totalitarian regime does not deserve,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ). And Republican House Speaker John Boehner said, “Relations with the Castro regime should not be revisited, let alone normalized, until the Cuban people enjoy freedom – and not one second sooner.”

Of course the Cuban government doesn’t deserve a reward. But there are many who believe, as I do, that our embargo has perversely propped up the Castro government. Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said that trade restrictions “had done more, in my view, to keep the Castro regime in power that anything we could have done. So I am just pleased that these actions have been taken.” Whatever miseries the Cuban people have endured all these years, they have been told by their government, was the fault of the norteamericanos – the evil colossus picking on their small island.

That argument is not going to work any longer. The more we travel in and trade with Cuba, the more Cubans will have a chance to see the world as it really is. “I think there is an issue of freedom,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). “It’s amazing to me, post-Cold War, that the United States of America will not allow me to travel to Cuba. I think we should allow all Americans to make those choices. You can travel to North Korea, you can travel to some pretty awful places. Americans should be able to make those decisions all by themselves.”

We have normal trade and diplomatic relations, as Rep. Chaffetz points out, with some pretty awful places. Some of them were ranked with or below Cuba in Freedom House’s most recent survey, including China, Vietnam, and ex-Soviet Union members like Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Cuba actually scores better on civil liberties than our close ally, Saudi Arabia.

The truth is we recognize, and always have, that we can’t demand that every country we deal with adopts a political system we like. Why should we continue to single out Cuba as the only country in the world that must do that?

I don’t know what President Obama’s Cuban opening will eventually produce. Will Cuba become a capitalist democracy like ours? Certainly not for the foreseeable future. The people I talk to who know Cuba best say that the Cuban people want civil rights and freedom but don’t want to reject some of the real accomplishments their society has made in the past sixty years. They are proud of the fact that illiteracy, once widespread, has been virtually eliminated. Cubans have a longer life expectancy than we do. Medical training in Cuba is excellent, and Cuban doctors have been in the forefront of the battle against Ebola in Africa.

What I know the change will do is increase dialogue between our peoples, open up a closed society to fresh ideas, and eliminate a source of conflict between us and most of our South and Central American neighbors, who have always disagreed with our Cuban policy. Those are all positive steps, even if a truly democratic Cuba is a long way off.

Ted Kaufman is a former U.S. Senator from Delaware.

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