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Amnesty International 9, THE US EMBARGO AGAINST CUBA:
ITS IMPACT ON
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL RIGHTS,
http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/AMR25/007/2009/en/51469f8b-73f8-47a2-a5bd-f839adf50488/
amr250072009eng.pdf, ACC. 6-1-2013, JT//JEDI
The USA imposed the first economic sanctions against Cuba in 1960 by completely
stopping sugar cane imports from Cuba. This was in response to Cubas
nationalization of foreign property and businesses, the majority owned by US
nationals.9 Since then, the US government has consolidated and extended the
scope of the sanctions against Cuba. The original trade embargo has broadened into
a more comprehensive set of economic, financial and commercial sanctions which
rest principally on the following statutes and regulations:
_ Trading With the Enemy Act of 1917, section 5(b);
_ Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, section 620(a);
_ Cuba Assets Control Regulations of 1963;
_ Cuban Democracy Act of 1992, also known as the Torricelli Act;
_ Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act of 1996, (Helms-Burton
Act);
_ The Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000.
Johnson, et al, Sept. 16, 10, Andy Johnson, Director, National Security Program, Kyle
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
The Cuban embargo in effect today was established pursuant to several laws: the
1917 Trading with the Enemy Act, the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act, the 1963 Cuban
Assets Controls Regulations, the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act (Torricelli Act), and the
1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act (Helms-Burton Act).
Collectively, these statutes serve to restrict trade and travel between the US and
Cuba and place numerous economic sanctions on Cuba as well as countries that do
business with Cuba. The 2000 Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act
relaxed pieces of the embargo pertaining to agricultural goods and medicine, but all
trade between the US and Cuba remains strictly regulated.
AFF.
SAMPLE 1AC
OBSERVATION ONE: THE STATUS QUO
The federal government has no interest in lifting the embargo
Joel Brinkley, 12/18/12, Cuba embargo isn't working but isn't going away,
Politico, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/cuba-embargo-isnt-working-but-isnt-going-away-85281.html ,
JT//JEDI
But for so many people in Washington, Cuba doesnt matter any more
now, said Ted Piccone, deputy director for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution and a former
National Security Council official. Theres no political incentive to change the
policy even though the arguments for changing it are rife . Despite ample
provocation, the U.S. doesnt impose similar embargoes on other authoritarian states.
SAMPLE 1AC
SAMPLE 1AC
OBSERVATION TWO: SOLVENCY
Current democracy before engagement requirements fail. We
should scrap the embargo in favor of economic engagement
The Tampa Tribune, Feb. 28, 13, Having more influence on Cuba's transition,
The United States is wrong to base its policy on the disappearance of the
Castros and the heaven-sent appearance of free and fair elections,
opposition parties and an independent press before considering Cuba a nation
we can deal with.
These policies are unrealistic and at odds with their own goal of a freer
Cuba. Economic engagement , increased cultural exchanges and more
liberal travel requirements may indeed be inconsistent with the trade
embargo and the failed policy of victory through isolation, but they might
just work.
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
Peter Hakim, President of the Inter-American Dialogue, has rightly argued that a
democratic society in Cuba should be the objective of U.S. engagement,
not a precondition.11 Vietnam and China both fall under the rule of communist
leadership, yet the US has taken steps to establish formal diplomatic relations and
open trade with both countries. Cuba should not continue to be the exception.
Others have argued that US-Cuba cooperation on issues such as counternarcotics efforts could benefit both countries and initiate trust-building
among the two countries.
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle can agree that the embargo has
failed to meet its stated purpose of bringing change to Cubas communist
government, making a change in course a necessary next step. Lifting the
antiquated embargo would help to move Cuba into the 21st century,
removing the barriers currently preventing the US from engaging Cuba
and presenting the US with an opportunity to bring about change in Cuba
through economic and diplomatic channels. By opening Cuba, the US could
finally achieve the change it has been seeking for nearly fifty years.
SAMPLE 1AC
Most of Cubas problems stem from the embargo trade will
improve conditions even if the regime still exists
Franks, South American correspondent for Reuters, 2012, (Jeff, Cuba says
the repeal of Helms-Burton and related statutory provisions that limit the
Executive Branchs authority over Cuban policy.xviii
Repealing Helm-Burton and related statutory provisions would shift the
primary focus of U.S. Cuba policy away from the regime and toward
empowering Cuban people. It would also enhance the leverage of the U nited
States to promote a multilateral approach toward Cuba, as well as embolden
reformers, democracy advocates and private entrepreneurs inside the
island to press their government for greater change.
De-codifying the embargo would allow the Executive Branch the flexibility to use the
entire range of foreign policy tools at its disposaldiplomatic, economic, political,
legal and culturalto incentivize change in Cuba. The President would be free
to adopt more efficient, targeted policies necessary for pressuring the
Cuban leadership to respect human rights and implement political
reforms, while simultaneously empowering all other sectors of society to
pursue their economic wellbeing and become the authors of their own
futures.xix Repealing Helms-Burton would also free civil society development and
assistance programs to be implemented outside of a contentious sanctions
framework.
INHERENCY
No movement on the embargo nowWont happen in Obamas
second term
Williams, Senior International Affairs writer, 12
Carol J., Widely condemned U.S. policy on Cuba unlikely to change soon
(Nov/16/2012)
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/16/world/la-fg-wn-us-cuba-embargo20121115 /// JMR
Washington and Havana have taken baby steps over the last four years to
end some of the more destructive elements of their relationship, like a U.S.
prohibition against Cuban Americans' visiting their homeland more than once every
three years and Cuba's demand that citizens get exit visas to go abroad. But this
week's overwhelming international censure of the U.S. embargo against
Cuba -- a 188-3 vote of condemnation by the U.N. General Assembly -- was
a sobering reminder of how little has changed between the Cold War
adversaries despite President Obama's 2008 campaign vow to end half a
century of ideological standoff. Foreign policy analysts see possibilities that
Obama may have more room to maneuver in a second term. Opportunities for
improving U.S.-Cuba relations have been plentiful, and routinely
squandered, since the Castros and their bearded guerrilla partisans drove out
dictator Fulgencio Batista on New Year's 1959. The revolution's embrace of Stalinist
ideology led to massive property confiscations, and the Eisenhower administration
slapped on a first version of the enduring trade embargo in October 1960. Under
President Carter, envoys secretly sought to reconcile Cubans with their powerful
northern neighbors, only to be rebuffed by the 1980 Mariel boatlift that carried
125,000 would-be emigres, prisoners and mental patients to U.S. shores. A political
overture by President Clinton was snuffed out in 1996, when Cuban defense forces
shot down two planes in international airspace that had been searching for Cuban
rafters. The latest provocation to derail reconciliation has been the detention of Alan
Gross, a U.S. government emissary caught installing high-tech communications
equipment on the island. U.S. officials cast Gross' work as humanitarian relief; the
Cuban government has accused him of violating its sovereignty "I think it is
probably unlikely that any significant change can occur as long as the Cubans
continue to have Alan Gross in jail, and the Cuban regime probably knows that,"
said Ian Vasquez, Cuba policy expert at the Cato Institute in Washington. "The
regime says it wants to end the blockade, but every time there has been a U.S.
administration that would move toward normalizing relations, they do
something that makes it politically difficult to move in that direction." Andy
Gomez, senior fellow at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the
University of Miami, said the community in South Florida has applauded Obama's
easing of family travel and academic exchanges with the island. He doesn't see
prospects for improvement much beyond that unless and until the Castros are gone.
Even then, Gomez said, it will take years for Cubans to break the state stranglehold
on the economy and acquire respect for civil and human rights. "We've learned that
we can't export American values and attitudes to countries that don't have the
institutions to support them, and Cuba doesn't," Gomez said. Obama's moves to lift
limits on emigre visits and remittances to Cuban relatives have been widely
applauded on both sides of the Florida Strait. Those changes have built a stronger
sense of community between the two nations and helped Cubans open small private
restaurants, shops and services, said Philip Peters, vice president of the Lexington
Institute think tank and founder of the Cuban Triangle blog on relations among
Havana, Miami and Washington. "More could have been done, certainly, one
example being that there long ago ceased to be any justification for having Cuba on
the list of state sponsors of terror," Peters said. He calls the standoff over Gross,
who has been detained in Cuba since 2009, a self-inflicted wound and missed
opportunity to build on Obama's early advances. "Given the economic
challenges that our country faces domestically and the foreign policy
challenges around the world, some of which are very acute," Peters said,
"there is no way in the world that Cuba is going to be a front-burner issue
for President Obama in his second term."
INHERENCY
Washington shows no interest in lifting embargo
RT NEWS. 14 Nov. 2012 "Condemned...again: 'Genocidal' US Embargo on Cuba
Slammed by UN for 21st Year - RT News." Condemned...again: 'Genocidal' US
Embargo on Cuba Slammed by UN for 21st Year - RT News. Autonomous Nonprofit
Organization,. Web. 06 July 2013. <http://rt.com/news/cuba-embargo-un-vote635/>.
Cubas Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez addressed the assembly, voicing Cuban
disappointment that despite Obamas pledge to open a new chapter in
Cuban-American relations on assuming office four years ago, no steps had
been taken the lift the crippling embargo. "The reality is that the last four
years have been characterized by the persistent tightening of the
embargo," Cuba has offered to work in tandem with the US in areas such
as the fight against drug trafficking, terrorism and human trafficking.
However, Washington has affirmed that its policy towards Cuba will remain
intact for the time being. But the milestone is sure to remind supporters and detractors alike
that the era of the Castros is nearing its end, biologically if not politically. Raul is already a month
older than Fidel was when a near-fatal illness forced him to step down - temporarily, then permanently
- in 2006. In April, Fidel gave up his final post as head of the Communist Party. "Fidel is out at the age
of 85 - and he was always much healthier than Raul as a young man - and now Raul is 80," said Ann
Louise Bardach, a longtime Cuba expert and author of "Without Fidel" and "Cuba Confidential." She
gave Raul credit for having the courage to push an agenda of economic change since taking over the
presidency, but said he missed a great chance to bring in new leadership at a key Communist Party
summit in April when he selected old-guard revolutionaries Jose Ramon Machado Ventura, 80, and
Ramiro Valdes, 79, as his Nos. 2 and 3. "Their challenge is that they must bring in a younger
generation, but instead Raul picked someone even older than him as his chief deputy," she said. "It
just shows how unconfident they are. They missed an opportunity." On the streets of the capital,
Havana, reactions to the president's round-number birthday were mixed. "I'm not so concerned about
his age because he looks like he's in good health," said Marcelo Delgado, a 72-year-old retiree. "What I
am worried about is that it seems to be taking a long time to bring in the economic changes he is
talking about, and there isn't much time left." Since taking office, Raul has legalized some forms of
self-employment, turned over fallow government land to small-time farmers and promised to trim the
state's bloated payroll by 500,000 workers. He also has pledged to legalize the sale of cars and homes,
end restrictions on Cubans traveling abroad and open up credit to would-be entrepreneurs - though
those proposals remain part of a vague five-year plan and many are still skeptical. "Raul is going to
turn 80, and the others are even older," said Ernesto, a 26-year-old Havana resident, who asked that
he only be identified by his first name for fear he could get into trouble for speaking out about the
country's leaders.
INHERENCY
Congress Has no Plans to cancel Embargo
Gordts, Feb. 2012. Eline. "Cuba Embargo Turns 50." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 07
Web. 05 July 2013.
Washington already had some limited sanctions in place, but Kennedy's decision was the beginning of a comprehensive ban on U.S. trade with the
island that has remained more or less intact ever since.
of Intl Studies at the Univ. of Denver, Appease Cuba? What Would Winston
Churchill Say?, Havana Note,
http://thehavananote.com/2011/01/appease_cuba_what_would_winston_churchill_sa
y, ACC. 6-14-2013, JT//JEDI
Only in Miami could Ninoska Perez, a well-known hard-line radio show host,
reject such engagement because Adolf Hitler was able to murder six
million Jews, while apologists found excuses to justify his crimes. It is no
different in Cuba without raising concerns about her mental health. No matter
how repugnant certain of Castros policies might be towards political prisoners or
Cubans living abroad, any comparison with the power, aims and Human Rights
violations of Hitlers Germany or, for that matter, the apartheid regime in South
Africa and its colonial rule over Namibia, is simply nonsense. Unfortunately,
Mrs. Perezs analogies are not marginal among the right wing exiles who
defend the Helms-Burton Act, the legislation that guides current U.S.
policy towards Cuba.
Of course, this is delusional. The Cuban communist political system and command economy might have
prevented economic development of the Cuban people and repressed its civil and political liberties but there is little evidence about
genocidal or expansionist tendencies in Raul Castros government. The U.S. inclusion of Cuba in the terrorist list of the State
department is seen as the world paradigm of political manipulation of a core theme of American foreign policy for domestic political
reasons.
anything Cuba-related. The U.S. embargo has not and will not work. Put in
place in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy, the policy is stuck in a time warp
that has nothing to do with modern-day reality. The most enduring embargo in modern day
history is a remnant of a Cold War past when the Soviet Union was the enemy and the world was on the brink of nuclear war . The
thinking was that financial sanctions, which included a ban on travel by
American citizens, would collapse the island economy and force people to
revolt against Fidel Castro. Over the years, these sanctions have been
eased or toughened depending on political winds. In 1992, disgraced New Jersey Rep.
Robert Torricelli was behind one the cruelest acts which banned, among many
things, food and medicine sales to Cuba and prevented Cuban-American families from sending cash
to their relatives. These were tough times and seeing many friends and families suffer because they couldn't visit their elderly
mothers more than once every three years, or being prevented from sending them needed supplies, was very painful. Restrictions
It is now 2012. The Obama Administration has opened the door for
unrestricted travel by Cuban-Americans, a largely unrestricted remittance flow,
and more liberal travel for educational and cultural groups. Yet official U.S.Cuban
relations remain stalemated because of the Castro regimes refusal to unclench its
fist and take even the first steps toward true liberty.
Absence of political change in Cuba, many argue, is an insufficient reason to
retain the U.S. embargo. Siege warfare against the embargo continues.
Many Americans are on the tenterhooks of conscience, suffering from acute
symptoms of guilt, democracy fatigue, and loss of self-confidence in American
values. Others claim that South Florida CubanAmericans are losing their
political grip. They are quick to assume that more trade, travel, and
investment in Cuba will soften the hearts of Cubas leaders, not just line
their pockets.
3.3: The current policy may drag the United States into a military conflict with
Cuba. Military conflict may be inevitable in the future if the embargos
explicit goal creating an insurrection in Cuba to overthrow the
government is achieved, and the United States may not be ready to step
in. As Ratliff and Fontaine detail, Americans are not prepared to commit the
military resources [] (Fontaine 57), especially after unpopular wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Much like Americas current situation with isolated rogue states
such as Iran and North Korea, Cubas isolation may also lead to war for other
reasons, like the American occupation of Guantanamo Bay. These
consequences are inherently counterproductive for the democratization of
Cuba and the improvement of human rights.
Supporters of the trade embargo -- like Cuban-American Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) -- have
long argued that easing the restrictions would only reward Castro for the regime's ongoing repression of political dissidents. We
need to keep up the economic pressure on Cuba, so this logic goes, in order to keep pressure on the regime to do something about
aware middle class, which, in turn, presses for political reform. It's not clear that this argument actually holds up when subjected to close causal
scrutiny (although the reverse does seem to be true -- i.e., democratic reform creates pressure for trade liberalization). Still, it's difficult to disagree with
the proposition that by enabling visiting scholars and religious groups to stay in Cuba for up to two years (as the presidential order would allow) rather
than a matter of weeks (as is currently the case) we'd be helping, not hurting, democracy in Cuba. First, easing the current travel restrictions would allow
for far deeper linkages between non-governmental organizations from both countries, which some see as a powerful mechanism for democratic reform.
Second, because American visitors would be staying on the island longer, scholars and activists alike would gain much better insight into where the
pressure points for democracy actually exist.
3. It's a double standard . Another reason to question the link between the
embargo and human rights is that it's a double standard that flies in the
face of U.S. foreign policy toward other high-profile authoritarian
countries, most notably China. Stephen Colbert once quipped that Cuba is "a
totalitarian, repressive, communist state that -- unlike China -- can't lend us money."
Unless and until the U.S. pursues a consistent policy of sanctions against politically
repressive regimes, the case against Cuba doesn't hold up very well.
4. It's out of date . To argue that U.S.-Cuban policy is an anachronism is putting it
mildly. In an international climate marked by cooperation on issues ranging
from terrorism to global financial crises, holding on to this last vestige of
the Cold War foreign policy no longer makes sense. (Bear in mind that the young people now
entering college were not even alive when Czechoslovakia existed.) Sure, there's still tension between the United States and Russia.
But the recent renegotiation of the START agreement on nuclear proliferation reinforces the notion that the Cold War is no longer the
dominant prism for understanding that bilateral relationship, much less the Cuban-American one.
5. It doesn't work .
Of course, if the embargo were the last outpost of Cold War politics and it produced results, that
might be an argument for continuing it. But scholars and analysts of economic sanctions have repeatedly questioned the efficacy of
economic statecraft against rogue states unless and until there's been regime change. And that's because, as one scholar put it,
"interfering with the market (whether using sanctions, aid, or other government policies) has real economic costs, and we rarely
know enough about how the target economy works or how to manipulate the political incentives of the target government to
achieve our goals."
If strategic arguments don't persuade you that it's time to end the embargo, then perhaps
humanitarian arguments will. For as anyone who's traveled to the island knows, there's a decidedly enclave-like feel to those areas
of the economy where capitalism has been allowed to flourish in a limited sense (e.g. tourism) and the rest of the island, which feels
very much like the remnant of an exhausted socialist economic model. When I went there in the 1990s with my sister, I remember
the throngs of men who would cluster outside the tourist haunts. They'd hope to persuade visitors like me to pretend to be their
escort so they could sneak into the fancier hotels and nightclubs, which they could not enter otherwise. Horse -- yes, horse-- was a
common offering on menus back then. That situation has apparently eased in recent years as the government has opened up more
sectors of the economy to ordinary Cubans. But the selective nature of that deregulation has only exacerbated economic
inequalities. Again, one can argue that the problem here is one of poor domestic policy choices, rather than the embargo. But it's
not clear that ordinary Cubans perceive that distinction. Moreover, when you stand in the airport and watch tourists disembark with
bucket-loads
of basic medical supplies, which they promptly hand over to their (native) friends and family, it's hard not to feel that
CONTINUES.
U.S.
Another reason to think that it might be time to reconsider our Cuba policy is this natural
resource. Cuba has begun exploratory drilling in search of oil in its territorial waters, with some reports estimating the island could
Orbitz has collected more than 100,000 signatures in favor of restoring travel to Cuba through its OpenCuba.org drive. And
according to Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), one of the leading proponents of lifting the embargo, if a vote in Congress were taken secretly,
the ban on travel and trade would most likely fall. In other words, the environment to lift sanctions may be ripe politically in a way
that it wasn't even six months ago.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
One might reasonably argue that the success of these piecemeal reforms
would give the regime more breathing space to survive. This is a valid
concern, but is analytically unsound. The regime has survived despite a terrible
twenty-year economic depression that began after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Although it sounds counter-intuitive, economic success will be the
harbinger of structural collapse in Cuba.
For fifty years one system has ruled supreme; but if another system, however
nascent, begins to show that it can meet the needs of the people more effectively,
the prevailing system will begin to erode from the ground up. To an extent, the
United States can influence this process. As the global financial crisis begins to
negatively affect Cuba's state-benefactors (particularly Venezuela), as well as those
private investors willing to enter a closed economy, the Cuban government will
approach the point where only fundamental economic change will
encourage sufficient growth. The United States can help ensure that Cuba
reaches this point by encouraging more travel, rewarding economic
liberalizations, and by bringing the island back into the global financial
system.
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
After five decades of failure, the arguments for lifting the embargo are far
more compelling than those in support of leaving the status quo
unchanged. The US should leave the Cold War-era policy in the past and
look to engage Cuba through open trade and formal diplomatic relations,
which could initiate the transition to a more open, cooperative, and
potentially democratic Cuba that policymakers have sought for half a
century.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
However, Washington's policy for the last fifty years has focused almost
exclusively on the political situation (i.e., free and fair elections). This myopic
approach has ignored the possibility of doing an end-run around Castro's
political recalcitrance by simply giving the Cuban people (and
government) an offer they can't refuse: economic success. As long as the
political arena remains the battlefield upon which Washington and Havana
wage their ideological war, there will always be stalemate. Transitions
from other Cold War-era governments demonstrate that economic
liberalization helped facilitate political liberalization. In Poland, the labor
unions flourished before political parties were finally established after the fall of the
Soviet Union; n54 in Russia, mass privatization paved the way for moderate
political freedoms; n55 in Vietnam, the government started to embrace marketbased reforms in the mid to late-1980s; n56 and finally, in China, an unmistakably
capitalist society has emerged, although elections have still not been
held. n57 Cuba will be no different. In early 2009, the Cuban government
approved the largest land distribution since the revolution when it handed out
45,500 land grants to the private sector. n58
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
Former Senator Mel Martinez has argued against lifting the embargo, claiming that
the US needs to support pro-democracy activists in Cuba, not provide the Castro
regime with a resource windfall.15 Florida Rep. Tom Rooney has argued that lifting
the embargo would serve to reward Cubas leadership for its decades-long record of
human rights abuses and allow the abuse to continue due to the absence of
pressure from the US.16 The US has used the embargo as an effort to pressure the
communist leadership for nearly fifty years, yet the status quo remains unchanged.
If a possible downside of lifting the embargo is that the situation will not
change, then the US has nothing to lose by making an effort to normalize
relations with Cuba. By refusing to engage Cuba and make efforts to move
Cuba forward, the US is in a weak position to criticize the Cuban
leadership. Lifting the embargo and normalizing relations would put the US in
a stronger position to bring about change through economic
advancements that could in turn result in domestic demands within Cuba
for greater social and political freedoms.
Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Department of
Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst, It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo
of Cuba, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-itssenseless-embargo-of-cuba/, ACC. 6-1-13, JT//JEDI
For the first time in more than fifty years, Cuban citizens can travel abroad
without permission from their government. The move, part of a broader
reform package being phased in by Raul Castro, underscores the
irrationality of Americas continuation of a five-decade old embargo.
While the embargo has been through several legal iterations in the intervening
years, the general tenor of the U.S. position toward Cuba is a hardline notin-my-backyard approach to communism a la the Monroe Doctrine. The
official position is outdated, hypocritical, and counterproductive.
Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Department of
Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst, It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo
of Cuba, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-itssenseless-embargo-of-cuba/, ACC. 6-1-13, JT//JEDI
The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both dollar and
moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the
supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold
War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with
the help of American charitable relief, business innovation, and tourism.
A perpetual embargo on a developing nation that is moving towards
reform makes little sense, especially when Americas allies are openly
hostile to the embargo. It keeps a broader discussion about smart reform
in Cuba from gaining life, and it makes no economic sense. It is time for
the embargo to go.
Raul Castros reforms represents a total shift away from Statebased control
Ted Piccone, Jan 19, 12, senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, Cuba is
Changing, Slowly but Surely, ACC. 6-16-2013,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2012/01/19-cuba-piccone, JT//JEDI
A closer look, however, reveals something more profound a wholesale
mental shift , outlined clearly by President Raul Castro over the last two
years, that the time has come to move the Cuban people from wholesale
dependence on the state to a new era of individual responsibility and
The Escobarbarians
This is going to take time. The economic reforms or updating of Cubas Soviet-style economic system, approved last spring at the
Communist Partys first National Congress in 14 years, are just beginning to be enacted. They include an expansion of licenses for
private enterprise (over 350,000 have been granted), opening more idle land to farmers and cooperatives, allowing businesses to
hire employees, empowering people to buy and sell their houses and cars, and opening new lines of credit with no legal ceilings on
how much Cubans can borrow. Non-state actors are allowed now to sell unlimited services and commodities directly to state-owned
enterprises and joint ventures, thereby opening new channels of commercial activity between farmers and tourist hotels, for
example. Think Viet Nam or China. The reforms include tough measures too, like shrinking the buying power of the longstanding
ration card that every Cuban gets to purchase subsidized basic goods, cutting unemployment benefits, and eventually dismissing
anywhere from 500,000 to one million employees from the state sector as bureaucratic middlemen become obsolete and tax
revenues rise.
control of pricing and subsidizing products throughout the economy to a more decentralized framework of subsidizing persons based
on need. At heart, the Castro government is prepared to move Cuba from a society based on equity of results to equality of
opportunity, infused with a culture of humanism. Not that Cubas system ever offered true equality, as one taxi driver reminded me
as we drove down Havanas famous seaside Malecon. The door, however, is now opening wider to the inevitable rise in inequality
that comes from capitalism, even restrained forms of it. Whether one is able to prosper as a self-employed restauranteur, or is the
beneficiary of generous relatives sending remittances and goods home from Miami, new gradations in Cubas economic and social
strata are on the way. As long as someone arrives at their wealth legally and pays their taxes, assured one senior party official, they
are free to become rich.
Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Department of
Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst, It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo
of Cuba, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-itssenseless-embargo-of-cuba/, ACC. 6-1-13, JT//JEDI
The second point is what's happening in Cuba. It's not realistic to expect the
United States to undertake a series of unilateral moves toward
normalization; it needs a willing partner. I believe we have one in Havana
but have failed to read the signals. Raul Castro has now been in office since the
beginning of 2008. Raul holds the reins on both foreign policy and domestic
policy, and, domestically, the politics of implementing a fairly wide range
of economic and political and social reforms are his priority. In a deal that
was coordinated with the help of the Cuban Catholic Church and Spain, he released
all of the political prisoners in Cuba. He also is taking a number of steps that
imply a major rewriting of the social contract in Cuba to shrink the size of
the state and give Cuban individuals more freedom--economically,
especially, but also in terms of speech--than we've seen in the last fifty
years. He has privatized the residential real estate and car market[s],
expanded much-needed agrarian reform, lifted caps on salaries, and
greatly expanded space for small businesses. He also is moving to deal
with corruption and to prepare the groundwork for a great deal more
foreign investment. He's moving in the direction of the kind of reforms
that every administration over the last fifty years has called upon Cuba to
make, albeit under the rubric of a one-party system. There's a broad range of
cooperation--neighborhood security in the Gulf of Mexico, as Cuba has just
started drilling for oil, counternarcotics, and natural disasters--between
the two countries that is still not happening, and that gives me the impression
that the United States has been unwilling to take "yes" for an answer and respond
positively to steps taken by Cuba.
Under Raul Castro, the Cuban government has continued to undertake a number
of important reforms to modernize its economy, lessen its dependence on
Hugo Chavezs Venezuela, and allow citizens to make their own decisions
about their economic futures. The process of reform, however, is gradual,
highly controlled and short on yielding game-changing results that would ignite
the economy. Failure to tap new offshore oil and gas fields and agricultural
damage from Hurricane Sandy dealt further setbacks. Independent civil society
remains confined, repressed and harassed, and strict media and internet controls
severely restrict the flow of information. The Castro generation is slowly
handing power over to the next generation of party and military leaders who
will determine the pace and scope of the reform process. These trends suggest
that an inflection point is approaching and that now is the time to try a
new paradigm for de-icing the frozen conflict. The embargo the most
complex and strictest embargo against any country in the world has
handcuffed the U nited S tates and has prevented it from having any
positive influence on the islands developments. It will serve American interests
better to learn how to work with the emerging Cuban leaders while simultaneously
ramping up direct U.S. outreach to the Cuban people. I recommend that your
administration, led by a special envoy appointed by you and reporting to the
secretary of state and the national security advisor, open a discreet dialogue with
Havana on a wide range of issues, without preconditions. The aim of the direct
bilateral talks would be to resolve outstanding issues around migration,
travel, counterterrorism and counternarcotics, the environment, and trade and
investment that are important to protecting U.S. national interests.
Outcomes of these talks could include provisions that normalize migration
flows, strengthen border security, break down the walls of communication that
hinder U.S. ability to understand how Cuba is changing, and help U.S.
businesses create new jobs. In the context of such talks your special envoy
would be authorized to signal your administrations willingness to remove Cuba
from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, pointing to its assistance to the
Colombian peace talks as fresh evidence for the decision. This would remove a
major irritant in U.S.-Cuba relations, allow a greater share of U.S.-sourced
components and services in products that enter Cuban commerce, and
free up resources to tackle serious threats to the homeland from other sources
like Iran. We should also consider authorizing payments for exports to Cuba
through financing issued by U.S. banks and granting a general license to allow
vessels that have entered Cuban ports to enter U.S. ports without having to wait six
months. You can also facilitate technical assistance on market-oriented
reforms from international financial institutions by signaling your intent to
drop outright opposition to such moves. Under this chapeau of direct talks, your
administration can seek a negotiated solution to the thorny issue of U.S. and Cuban
citizens serving long prison sentences, thereby catalyzing progress toward
removing a major obstacle to improving bilateral relations. You should, in
parallel, also take unilateral steps to expand direct contacts with the Cuban
people by: authorizing financial and technical assistance to the burgeoning
class of small businesses and cooperatives and permitting Americans to
donate and trade in goods and services with those that are certified as
independent entrepreneurs, artists, farmers, professionals and craftspeople;
adding new categories for general licensed travel to Cuba for Americans
engaged in services to the independent economic sector, e.g., law, real estate,
insurance, accounting, financial services; granting general licenses for other
travelers currently authorized only under specific licenses, such as freelance
Though Ral may have become Cubas uncontested caudillo, the political sanctity of
his brothers strategic policies have hindered the countrys progress. The residual
deference to Fidels policy precedence lingers in the political ether like a viscous
medium that resist any sweeping changes. Though incremental changes have been
possible, broad strategic changes have found resistance from Fidels past dictates.
Perhaps no issues better manifest this strategic impediment than well-intentioned
relations with Washington. Though it may only be strategically important to
Raul and just a matter of time, No other departure from his brothers legacy
would be as monumental as supporting rapprochement with Washington.
He would begin to move out of Fidels shadow, asserting himself
definitively as his own man. It would be a popular policy in the military,
with most civilian leaders, and especially with the Cuban people. His main
objective would be to win a significant reduction, or termination, of the
U.S. economic embargo. (It can be suspected) that unlike Fidel, he will be
willing to negotiate in good faith and with no superseding precedence. 29
For the first time in nearly five decades, Castros step down from power has
opened opportunities previously unavailable. Though the despotic rule has
been masterfully handed off to his younger brother, Ral Castro, things have
changed and new doors will continue to open for U.S. policies into the
near-term. For one, Ral is certainly no Fidel. Where the elder was a brilliant
demagogue and shrewd politician, the youngers leadership talents come from
managerial skills and loyal followings. On the other hand, one similarity that
the bothers have in common is their advanced ages. With both Castros in their 80s,
the inevitable next power shift looms undeniably.
For the first time in several generations, changes in the U.S., the island,
and even internationally have opened unprecedented opportunities and
windows for advancing U.S. security policy objectives towards Cuba. This
confluence of events is unique and worthy of analysis. That is the purpose of
this Project. The document will provide a general background on U.S.-Cuban
relations, address some of those nascent prospects, discuss the resultant security
policy implications and make recommendations. All of this is in the sincerest hope of
helping to finally stopping Americans Cuba insanity.
Since then, the younger brother has cautiously and incrementally laid the
foundation for his version of the Cuban revolution. Aside from a few reported
instances in 2009 when the residual influence of the older Castro last reared its
dissenting head, Ral has systematically moved to build his supporting
nomenklatura and affect his vision for the island. In the former, the
unexpected purge of many of his brothers Fidelistas with his own loyal
Raulistas during the 6th Communist Party of Cuba congress asserted the
absolute nature of his political coronation.24 In the latter, his vision for the
revolution includes updating of the (socialist) model.25 Many leading Cuba
analysts, academics and policy makers concur that this will ultimately
include moves towards a Chinese (or Vietnamese) model of market-based
economies controlled within an authoritarian regime. 26 Undoubtedly, Ral
Castro appreciates the benefits of a model of patrimonial authoritarianism, or
economic opportunity expanded but political power and critical economic decisionmaking authority remaining concentrated in the hands of the state.27 This will be
something akin to Socialism with a Cuban Characteristic, to play off Deng
Xiaopings famous Socialism with a Chinese Character. By 2011, the charter seeds
of such economic liberalization were to bear societal and political fruit. 28
Despite the U.S. governments attempts to promote democracy in Cuba through economic sanctions, Fidel Castro, the former leader
of an underdeveloped nation of 11 million people, survived eight U.S. presidents and their attempts to oust him from office .
With the recent resignation of Fidel Castro and the installation of his brother, 76-year-old Raul
Castro, as president, many observers in the U.S. and Cuba relish the opportunity
to develop stronger trade ties. Although he has not signaled any major shift in Cubas economic system, in a
speech given in July of 2007, Raul Castro acknowledged that structural changes were
necessary to increase efficiency and the production of goods in Cuba.
Castro recognizes the inherent limitations on a country that imports more than 80 percent of its
food, leaves half of its arable land fallow, and depends on Venezuela for 90 million barrels of oil per day (The Center for Democracy
and fertilizer rather than have them assigned by the state, permitted nationals to buy computers, cell phones and other appliances
that previously were prohibited, reformed the state wage system by removing salary limits, and allowed Cubans to gain title to
state-owned homes (Weissert, 1). Most experts believe that Raul Castro will not undertake dramatic economic reforms over the near
term. Furthermore, due to the diversification of its economic relationships with other countries, particularly China and Venezuela,
Cuba is less reliant on the United States as a potential business partner.
Cuban First Vice President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura had already given the
keynote address, in which he demanded that the United States return the naval
base near the Cuban town of Guantanamo, where this year's celebrations are taking
place The United States maintains a five-decades-old trade embargo on
Cuba, and any improvements in relations have been stalled by a number
of issues, including the jailing of State Department contractor Alan Gross on
charges of espionage in Cuba. After Machado Ventura's speech, Raul Castro took the
stage, he said, to thank the crowd. But he said he had made several speeches this
week and would not be making formal remarks. Then he dived into the strained
U.S.-Cuba relations, saying he would prefer the two countries were
adversaries only on the baseball field. There was no olive branch, however, for
the country's internal critics, who Cuba's state-run media lambaste as paid
mercenaries working in the employ of foreign governments.
of Intl Studies at the Univ. of Denver, Appease Cuba? What Would Winston
Churchill Say?, Havana Note,
http://thehavananote.com/2011/01/appease_cuba_what_would_winston_churchill_sa
y, ACC. 6-14-2013, JT//JEDI
The rise of Raul Castro to power brought expansions of the Revolutionary Armed
Forces-security complex over the Cuban state. The FAR apparatus supposedly
designed to defend the party control over the Cuban government is today master of
the state and the party. Most of the new military cadres come from a different
experience than the revolution historicos. Their professional career is
related not to the fights of the 1960s but to the Africa wars that ended in a
compromise with the United States and South Africa, and the economic
management of the new sectors developed in the last two decades. Contrary to
most of the historicos, these cadres or their immediate relatives have
contacts with friends and family in the Cuban American community.
Therefore a policy of engagement can bring substantial political gain by
undercutting the blame-the-blockade narrative and exposing Cuban
pluralist civil society and elites to people to people contacts with the U nited
States through academic, educational, cultural, sports and even simple tourism
exchanges.
Americas two track policy for Cuba includes the economic stick of
sanctions as well as the civic carrot of support for the Cuban people.74
In this approach, it is unfortunate that common economic benefits are
subjugated to the lead of punitive sanction. This simply misses that
American national interests are best served by an economically strong and
vibrant Cuba. To varying degrees, this is the case for all three proposed scenarios.
While it is a foregone conclusion that trade with a Free Cuba would be
optimal for both countries, a less-than-democratic but economically liberal
GOC would also engender mutually benefits.
For Cuba, the destitute economy can wait no longer. The Cuban Minister of Economy
and Planning, Marino Murillo, candidly admitted as much in 2010, the gigantic
paternalistic state can no longer be, because there is no longer a way to maintain
it.75 This confession that the country is in ruins was confirmed to be literally true
by a University of Miami study which uncovered that in Havana alone an estimated 300
buildings collapse every year, and that about 100,000 residents there live in unsafe structures. Highways, utilities
and sewage systems, water mains, and other critical infrastructure are in advanced stages of disrepair. 76
This national disrepair signals an immense latent demand for infrastructure rehabilitation. The magnitude of the
Sanford School of Public Policy and a former staff member of the World Bank, Jan. 01
13, Nows the time to lift the U.S. embargo on Cuba, The Globe and Mail, ACC. 614-2013, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/nows-the-time-to-lift-theus-embargo-on-cuba/article6790494/, JT//JEDI
Now that the election is over, the United States has a rare opportunity to do away
with one of its most pointless and ineffective foreign policies the
embargo of Cuba that is as obsolete as the cool 1950s and 1960s sedans still running on the streets of Havana.
Just a few weeks ago, U.S. President Barack Obama sat down with leaders in Myanmar, an international pariah for many years with a
military responsible for thousands of civilian deaths. The United States now trades actively with Vietnam, which remains under the
control of the same Communist Party against whom it once fought and lost a terrible war. The U.S. has a normal, albeit complex,
diplomatic and commercial relationship with China, another Communist country.
Yet, Cuba is still treated as a pariah, a bizarre relic of the Cold War. I just
returned from a visit there and realized that lifting the embargo would be to
both countries advantage. Americans would have full access to Cubas
rich culture and natural beauty, and some new trade and investment
opportunities. Cuba would have expanded economic options, which it
needs to improve the material well-being of its citizens.
The U.S. has had normal diplomatic and commercial relationships with regimes and despots of all stripes from Mobutu in Zaire to
Mubarak in Egypt. The list is long. So what makes Cuba so special?
Is it because it is so close to the continental United States? No the U.S. has had a good, if testy, formal relationship with Mexico for
many years, including when it was a one-party state.
Is it because Cuba poses a military threat? Maybe, once upon a time. But if Americans got over the Vietnam War, they surely can put
the Cuban (or was that Soviet?) missile crisis behind them, especially since the U.S. now has quite a normal relationship with Russia.
What about a security threat? Arguably, almost every country could be wittingly or unwittingly harboring extremist plotters.
Somehow, though, I dont think al-Qaeda operatives are drinking mojitos on Cuban beaches. Cuba loosened its ban on organized
religion some time ago, but imagining either the government or its people sympathetic to Islamic fundamentalism is quite a stretch.
Is it because Cuba lacks economic opportunities for U.S. business? Granted, its not a potential powerhouse such as Russia, China or
even Vietnam for commercial purposes. But the U.S. has maintained good relationships (and made money) with many small, poor
countries. Whats one more?
Is it because Americans are standing on principle over Cubas human-rights record or strident rhetoric? Its hard to argue this when
the White House has entertained leaders of countries with even worse records and positions. Moreover, many of those countries do
not have education, health-care or food systems that reach the poor. Cuba does, although increasingly it is a challenge.
Of course, America should care about human rights and, along with that, everyone should have access to adequate food, education
and health care. But sadly, none of these reasons explain why the U.S. keeps a strict embargo on Cuba and has no diplomatic
relationship with it.
No, the real reason is because of a small vocal minority (Cuban-American exiles and their families) who happen to be clustered in an
electoral swing state (Florida) that gives them political clout. Some say the attitudes of the younger generation are softening toward
Cuba. Does Washington really need to wait another generation or two?
University, The History and Potential of Trade between Cuba and the US, Journal of Economics and
Business, 2011, http://www.auburn.edu/~thomph1/cubahistory.pdf)
Relaxed travel and financial restrictions would increase trade. Florida has
advanced in trade negotiations and operations but the product trade mix may favor
other states. Positive effects on manufacturing are possible for major US
exports including transport equipment and chemicals. There will be limited import
competition in manufacturing until investment in Cuba improves infrastructure,
machinery, and equipment to take advantage of cheaper labor. The Castro regime
has emphasized social services including education, the 95% literacy rate
suggesting potential for 13 quick growth. Any competition would be in labor
intensive products. The US has already adjusted to such imports from Mexico in
NAFTA and from Asia in the WTO. Trade with Cuba provides the opportunity for
increased demand for US business services including engineering,
construction, shipping, transport, banking, finance, insurance, and
consulting. Tourism is expected to become a major industry, with Cuba already
claiming interest in promoting multi-destination Caribbean tourism. Increased
political pressure to liberalize trade can be expected as more US firms and
workers become aware of the potential gains. Most Cubans in Miami now
favor diplomatic relations with Cuba as well as limited trade according to the
Institute for Public Opinion Research (2007). The US International Trade Commission
conservatively estimates the embargo costs the US $1.2 billion annually in
lost export revenue, not a huge amount but focused on particular industries
and regions. The embargo costs the Southeastern US in particular. There
remains little rationale for the embargo as it failed to reach any political objective
and strengthened Castro. The Helms-Burton Act is also inconsistent with US policy
that maintained relations with former communist adversaries. The Act pushes the
limits of international agreements and procedures of the WTO as pointed out by
Lisio (1996). Figure 12 shows the US was Cubas major trading partner before
the embargo, a historical pattern poised to return with a lifted embargo. * Figure
12 * 4. Conclusion Cuba is poised to integrate into the regional economy
including the US Southeast and the Caribbean. Except for protectionism, Cuba
would have been a US state and the economic history of the region would have
taken a different track. The embargo of the last half century is an economic
tragedy that has suppressed development in the region encompassing
the US Southeast. The 14 present look at history suggests trade and
investment between the US and Cuba will return to substantial levels
with a lifted embargo.
According
to gravity theory, one would expect that, after removing trade barriers
with Cuba, U.S. could easily exceed the peak level of exports from the
former Russian economy. Free Trade Benefits: Theoretical Framework This study relies on two theories: Ricardian comparative
from the Soviet block to Cuba declined from $8 billion to $1.7 billion from 1989 to 1993 (Robins & Trujillo, 1999).
advantage theory and gravity theory. Although there have been almost two centuries since David Ricardo formulized his famous theory of comparative
advantage, there are continues discussion of the same topic (Buchanan & Yang J. Yoon, 2003; Nords, 2000; Ruffin, 2002). In its most simple form,
Ricardian theory assumes two countries produce two goods using labor as the only factor of production. Goods are assumed homogeneous across firms
and countries. There is no transportation cost for moving goods between countries. In this model, labor is homogeneous within a country but
heterogeneous across countries. Labor can move between firms within a country but cannot move between countries. There is always full employment
and perfect competition in the market. Under the assumptions above, the main issue in the Ricardian model is what happens when two countries move
from the closed economy (no trade) to open one (free trade). In other words, how trade effects the prices, production, employment, wages, incomes,
consumption, and welfare in both countries. In the case of trade liberation, the initial differences in relative prices of the product between countries will
stimulate trade between the countries. Profit-maximizer firms in each country's comparative advantage industry would notice that the price of their good
is higher in the other country. Since, in theory, there is no cost (or minimal cost) for them to transport their product to the other country, they will increase
their export instead of selling to the domestic consumers. Thus, each country would export the product in which they have a comparative advantage.
Trade flows would increase until the price of each product becomes equal across countries. Ultimately, each country will receive a higher price for the
product they export because of their comparative advantage. The higher price would lead each country to specialize in the product they have a
gravitational force in the universe. His theory argues that the gravitational pull between two celestial bodies is positively related to the product of their
masses and inversely related to their distance apart. The gravity model has consistently been used as a tool for the analysis of bilateral trade flows. The
model as applied to trade predicts that the amount of trade between two countries is positively related to the product of their outputs, and negatively
related to the distance between them. The gravity model has been applied to bilateral trade since the 1960s and has been increasingly used in the 1990s
wealth from the surge in economic infusion from the U.S. (and elsewhere) they in turn demand more products from global
(particularly the U.S.) markets.
Economic sanctions rarely work. Trade and investment sanctions against Burma,
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea have failed to change the behavior of any of those
oppressive regimes; sanctions have only deepened the deprivation of the
very people we are trying to help. President George W. Bush and Republican
leaders in Congress understand that economic engagement with China
offers the best hope for encouraging human rights and political reforms in
that country, yet they fail to apply that same thinking to Cuba. Pressure has been
building in Congress for a new policy toward Cuba. Two years ago Congress voted to allow limited sales of food and medical supplies to Cuba on a cashonly basis, and the House voted by wide margins in 2000 and 2001 to lift the travel ban (although that provision died in the Senate). Both the Senate and
the House voted this spring in favor of third-party financing for farm exports to Cuba while debating this years farm bill, but the provision was stripped
from the final bill in the conference committee. A new House caucus, the Cuban Working Group, composed of 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans, unveiled
a plan recently for easing the embargo. Speaking for the group, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) delivered a withering indictment of U.S. policy: For over 40 years,
our policy toward Cuba has yielded no results. Castro hasnt held free and fair elections, he hasnt improved human rights and he hasnt stopped
preaching his hate for democracy and the U.S. Its time to try something new. Instead of relaxing the failed Cuban embargo, the Bush administration
wants to continue the status quo. In a speech on May 20, the president reaffirmed his support for keeping the trade and travel embargoes in place until
the Cuban government holds free elections. The administration already has quadrupled the number of Americans cited for violating the travel ban in 2001
compared with the number cited the last year of the Clinton administration. For example, one 75-year-old retired schoolteacher was fined $1,000 for a
recent bicycle tour through rural Cuba. According to U.S. law, citizens can travel more or less freely to such axis of evil countries as Iran and North
Korea. But if Americans want to visit Cuba legally, they need to be a former president or some other well-connected VIP or a Cuban-American. The
strongest supporters of the Cuban trade embargo are Cuban-Americans concentrated in Southern Florida an important constituency in a key electoral
state. Yet those very same Cuban-Americans routinely and massively violate the spirit if not the letter of the embargo. Each year, they send $800 million
in hard-dollar remittances to their friends and families back in Cuba; another 100,000 Cuban-Americans actually visit their homeland each year through a
special program for emergency visits (most of which occur around the Christmas holiday). In the name of politics, Cuban-American leaders want to
restrict the freedom of other Americans to visit Cuba while retaining that freedom for themselves.
Lifting or modifying the embargo would not be a victory for Castro or his
oppressive regime. It would be an overdue acknowledgment that the fourdecade-old embargo has failed and that commercial engagement is the
best way to encourage more-open societies abroad. The U.S. government
can and should continue to criticize the Cuban governments abuse of
human rights, while allowing expanding trade and tourism to undermine
Castros authority from below. Instead of the embargo, Congress and the
administration should take concrete if incremental steps to expand
American influence in Cuba. First, the travel ban should be lifted. Yes,
more American dollars would end up in the coffers of the Cuban
government, but dollars also would go to private Cuban citizens. Philip
Peters, a former State Department official in the Reagan administration and an
expert on Cuba, argues that American tourists would boost the earnings of
Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art and operate restaurants in
their homes. Those dollars then would find their way to the 300 freely
priced farmers markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders
and other entrepreneurs. Second, restrictions on remittances should be
lifted. Cuban-Americans currently can send a maximum of $1,200 a year to friends
and relatives in Cuba. Like tourism, expanded remittances would fuel the
private sector, encourage Cubas modest economic reforms and promote
independence from the government. Third, American farmers and medical
suppliers should be allowed to sell their products to Cuba with financing
arranged by private commercial lenders, not just for cash as current law
permits. Most international trade is financed by temporary credit, and private banks, not taxpayers, would bear the risk .
The
most powerful force for change in Cuba will not be more sanctions or a short
visit by a former U.S. president, but daily interaction with free people bearing
dollars and new ideas.
TERRORISM ADV.
Lifting the embargo allows the U.S. to focus resources on
transnational threats like terrorism and proliferation
Johnson, et al, Sept. 16, 10, Andy Johnson, Director, National Security Program, Kyle
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
Unlike their
historical counterparts, contemporary terrorists have introduced a new
scale of violence in terms of conventional and unconventional threats and
impact. The internationalization and brutalization of current and future
terrorism make it clear we have entered an Age of Super Terrorism [e.g.
biological, chemical, radiological, nuclear and cyber] with its serious implications
concerning national, regional and global security concerns.
out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a
substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction
possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped,
we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of
the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their
hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a
while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or
Security Strategy Towards Cuba," Strategy Research Project, www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518053, ACC. 6-11-2013,
JT//JEDI
Several embargo refinements over the years like the Libertad Act have
further tightened restrictions on Cuba. These restrictions have placed a
heavy burden on the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the
Customs and Border Protection (CBP) particularly in Miami. A 2007 GAO report
highlights these burdens and how they impede other more important Law
Enforcement activities in defense of the homeland.32
GAO findings suggest theres a real need to balance U.S. paranoia for
everything Cuba. This rebalancing purports an unacceptable costbenefit to the current law enforcement aspect of the embargo. It
diminishes our greater need to defend against terrorist, criminals and
other real threats to our national security. In essence, our efforts to impose
embargo restrictions are unacceptable tradeoffs for homeland security.
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
embargo would send to the Taliban and other regimes that sponsor
terrorism: foreign governments need not follow the American model, but
states that attack us forfeit the right to choose their own destiny.
Of course, the reason that the embargo has persisted in the face of overwhelming evidence that its
failed has been the strength of the Cuban-American lobby in Congress. Yet pro-embargo sentiment is
weaker than ever for a variety of reasons, including bad press garnered by Miami Cubans over the
Elin Gonzlez standoff. Moreover, armed conflict has a way of lending political capital to presidents
that is unavailable in times of peace. President Bush thus has a unique opportunity to change direction
on Cuba that his predecessors lacked.
The Cuban embargo long ago outlived its usefulness. With war now raging
against radical Islam, its time to let go of a policy that only serves to
punish the innocent and antagonize our friends. Let Cubans freely taste
the carrot of our prosperity through trade and lets save the sanctions
stick for true enemies.
nuclear devices are extraordinarily complex, the technical barriers to constructing a workable weapon are not significant. 42
aimed at preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear material in the first place are the most effective means of countering the risk
of nuclear terrorism. 44
Moreover, the end of the Cold War eliminated the rationale for maintaining a large
military-industrial complex in Russia, and the nuclear cities were closed. 45 This
resulted in at least 35,000 nuclear scientists becoming unemployed in an economy
that was collapsing. 46 Although the economy has stabilized somewhat, there are
still at least 20,000 former scientists who are unemployed or underpaid and who are
too young to retire, 47 raising the chilling prospect that these scientists will be
tempted to sell their nuclear knowledge, or steal nuclear material to sell, to states
or terrorist organizations with nuclear ambitions. 48
The potential consequences of the unchecked spread of nuclear knowledge and
material to terrorist groups that seek to cause mass destruction in the United States
are truly horrifying. A terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon would be
devastating in terms of immediate human and economic losses. 49 Moreover,
there would be immense political pressure in the United States to discover the
perpetrators and retaliate with nuclear weapons, massively increasing the number of
casualties and potentially triggering a full-scale nuclear conflict . 50 In addition to the
threat posed by terrorists, leakage of nuclear knowledge and material from Russia will reduce the barriers that states with nuclear
Extinction
Mohamed Sid-Ahmed, 4, Al-Ahram Weekly political analyst, Al-Ahram Weekly,
"Extinction!" 8/26, no. 705, http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2004/705/op5.htm
to a third world war, from which no one will emerge victorious. Unlike a
conventional war which ends when one side triumphs over another, this
war will be without winners and losers. When nuclear pollution infects
the whole planet, we will all be losers.
The efforts expended by the United States to keep the embargo effective, the
loss of trade, and the loss of soft power in most of the world are clearly
not worth it in comparison to the threat that Cuba poses today. The gains
to be achieved by following any path other than the unilateral removal of
the economic and travel embargoes are small in comparison to the overall
costs of continuing the current failed policy. The U nited States is losing far too
much soft power in its efforts to punish and isolate the government of
Cuba. American firms could be left out of any economic gains as Cuba continues to
grow its economy. As Cuba emerges from the economic difficulties of the last two
decades, the United States has an opportunity to influence the future direction of
our southern neighbor. The current United States policy has many passionate
defenders, and their criticism of the Castro regime is justified. Nevertheless, we
must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban
regime in a way that enhances United States interests.42
The United States cannot afford to miss out on the window of opportunity to
affect a positive change in the relationship with Cuba. If Cuba is able to
continue on a path of economic progress and emerge once again as a true
regional power, with communism intact, the United States will be the loser in this
half century struggle. Cuba is spreading its limited influence to Venezuela,
Honduras, Nicaragua, and will be ready to bring in any other countries in the
Americas that want to move away from the United States orbit. The United States cant
stand by and watch Cuba regain strength, intact as a communist country,
but must take this opportunity to create an inflection point for Cuba that
guides her onto a path that will benefit the nations of the Americas.
This is even more applicable in the case of the US, which has more alternatives due
to its higher level of wealth. With respect to restrictions motivated by
national security, selective restrictions that apply to all countries,
including China, would be more than sufficient to satisfy these objectives.
While Cuba would benefit more economically than the US from the lifting
of these restrictions, the US would benefit more in terms of improving its
international relations with almost every other country in the world . They
vote against the US embargo every year at the UN.
Although the United States still leads in the economic arena, steep debt and
recession closes the economic gap between the rising economies on which we have become dependent. Increased energy
independence offers a perfect opportunity to step up our economic game and minimize our stakes in volatile areas. Private sector
By remaining
a global player, we protect our economic interests and alleviate the global
income disparity that often catalyzes paralyzing conflicts. Stabilization in
both regional conflicts and emerging markets works to increase our
economic strength and win the solidarity of domestic constituents and
international partners. Nonengagement risks the loss of crucial markets to
competitors who are willing to capitalize on new opportunities.
actors should primarily lead the way in less threatening situations to lessen the burden on the public sector.
Solely using the bully pulpit to denounce atrocious crimes underscores a lack of deliberate action in accordance with our rhetoric
and values. Especially in a post-9/11 world where internal conflicts impact the regional balance of power, the United States cannot
continue to walk away or ignore issues when diplomatic efforts fail. The Arab Spring exemplifies the domino nature of drastic regime
Our options are not limited to either speeches denouncing violence at one extreme or full-scale war at the other. Rather, we can
innovatively apply tools of last-resort, such as leading a coalition or providing crucial air cover while ensuring that the regional
if the administration
does not act, then the gap in global leadership combined with a loss of
regional trust allow rising US opponents to exploit such an opening to vie
for the role of international hegemon. In the wake of national security
threats that demonstrate the pushback from rising powers, including
cyber attacks and announcements of nuclear capabilities, the U nited States must
increase its leverage to demonstrate that it will not cede any territory. Failure to do so would allow the United
partners we have culled in our diplomatic efforts are the primary line of defense. However,
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
For nearly half a century, the USA has unilaterally imposed an economic,
commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba. The severity and the scope
of the sanctions have varied, depending on political developments in Cuba, the USA
and the rest of the world. The continuous imposition of the embargo has
provoked frequent and intense debates in international forums. The UN
General Assembly has repeatedly condemned the US embargo as contrary to the
Charter of the United Nations and international law. On 29 October 2008 the UN
General Assembly passed a resolution reiterating for the 17th time its call on the
USA to end its embargo against Cuba.2 That resolution was adopted with 185 votes
in favour, three against and two abstentions.3 The Inter-American Commission on
Human Rights has also reiterated its position regarding the impact of such
sanctions on the human rights of the Cuban people and, therefore, insists that the
embargo be lifted.4
The UN General Assembly has once again demanded that the United States
"in the shortest possible time" lift the commercial and financial embargo
against Cuba. The blockade was introduced 51 years ago and seriously
undermines the economy of the island.
186 UN member states have spoken out in support of the resolution; three
countries have voted against (including the U.S.), and two abstained.
The resolution calls on the international community to refrain in future from
destructive actions such as those taken by Washington against Cuba.
As emphasized in the document, these actions are contrary to countries
obligations under the UN Charter, and international law.
The U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba is the longest in history,
and the most senseless and irredeemable. It is the act of a bully, based on pique.
It is an abysmal moral and political failure, diminishing not Cuba but the
U.S. in world opinion and respect. It has achieved the opposite of what it
has sought, hurting both the Cuban people as well as U.S. interests. The
embargo is opposed by virtually the entire world as well as large domestic
majorities, even Cuban exiles and dissidents; yet, the U.S. government persists
with its petty punitive policy, not out of reasoned principle but for internal
political posturing. The spectacle of the worlds largest economy and sole
superpower, seeking in vain for half a century to strangle a baseball-loving
small developing nation that dared to defy it, is a modern David and
Goliath story and no one loves Goliath.
One of the lasting legacies of America's Cuba policy is that it isolates the
U.S. and represents stubbornness in the face of ineffectiveness. After the
2008 election the calls to change U.S. policy toward Cuba were echoed by
both allies and non-allies, including Brazil, n9 Colombia, n10 and Mexico, as well
as Venezuela n11 and Bolivia. n12 The European Union has also expressed its
The U.S. embargo against Cuba is a Cold War relic that hurts America and
Cuba by preventing normal trade and travel between our two countries. From
the perspective of U.S. national security, not only does the embargo prevent our
cooperation with Cuba on common security issues such as crime and terrorism, it
hurts U.S. standing throughout the world by highlighting our aggression
against a neighboring country that poses no threat. The United States
demeans itself by this futile and hypocritical policy. It is long past time to
repeal the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
My own trip to Cuba reinforced the call for such actions. We spent four days
visiting with many different kinds of groups in Havana, community projects, senior
citizens, a health clinic, youth programs, artist and recording facilities, musical
ensembles, historic sites such as Revolution Square and the Ernest Hemingway
house and an environmental training facility, and not once did we hear anger
toward the United States or the American people. What we heard was
puzzlement about the embargo and strong feelings that it was hurting the
people of Cuba. In fact, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the
absolute poverty rate has increased significantly in Cuba. It was also evident
that there is visible decline in major infrastructure areas such as housing. Today,
there seem to be both humanitarian and economic factors, particularly with the
significant growth of the non-governmental section of the economy that could factor
in a change in American policy. There is also a major diplomatic factor in that no
other major country, including our allies, follows our policy. What a positive
statement for American foreign policy in Latin America and throughout the
world it would be for the United States to end its embargo and establish
normal diplomatic relations with Cuba. We would be taking both a
humanitarian course of action and making a smart diplomatic gesture. The
time is right and all our policy makers need is courage to bring about this
change.
from most U.S. sanctions today in two key respects. One, they were multilateral, while the large majority of
sanctions imposed by the United States since 1993 have been unilateral. Second, the apartheid government in
South Africa was answerable to a limited but still sizable electorate of about 5 million whites, which made the
government more sensitive to outside pressure. Given that multilateral sanctions against a semi-democratic
government were not sufficient to force change, it is virtually guaranteed that unilateral sanctions against a
dictatorship will fail.
Failure of the U.S. to finally snuff out the last vestiges of the Cold War in
the U.S.-Cuba embargo signals impotence in American strategic vision and
capability. Those who support the embargo undermine the empowerment
of Cuban citizens, harming them economically and robbing them of choices
that could evolve through greater engagement exactly what we have seen
in transitioning Communist countries like Vietnam and China. The world is
dismayed and rejects yet again Americas nonsensical embargo, which
ultimately makes the U.S. look strategically muddled and petty rather
than a leader committed to improving the global order.
embargo-and-the-20-year-rout-10-reasons-to-oppose-the-embargo/,
The U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba is the longest in history,
and the most senseless and irredeemable. It is the act of a bully, based on
pique. It is anabysmal moral and political failure, diminishing not Cuba but the
U.S. in world opinion and respect. It has achieved the opposite ofwhat it has
sought, hurting both the Cuban people aswell as U.S. interests. The embargo is
opposed by virtually the entire world as well as large domestic majorities,
even Cuban exilesand dissidents; yet, the U.S. government persists with its petty
punitive policy, not out of reasoned principle but for internal political posturing. The
spectacle of the worlds largesteconomy and sole superpower, seeking in
vain for half a century to strangle a baseball-loving small developing nation
that dared to defy it, is a modern David and Goliath story and no one
loves Goliath.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Chavez of Venezuela, or Evo Morales of Bolivia. Soft power, on the other hand,
can win over people and governments without resorting to coercion, but is
limited by other factors.
The key to soft power is not simply a strong military, though having one
helps, but rather an enduring sense of legitimacy that can then be
projected across the globe to advance particular policies. The key to this
legitimacy is a good image and a reputation as a responsible actor on the
global and regional stage. A good reputation and image can go a long way
toward generating goodwill, which ultimately will help the U.S. when it
tries to sell unpopular ideas and reforms in the region. n4
In order to effectively employ soft power in Latin America, the U.S. must
repair its image by going on a diplomatic offensive and reminding, not just
Latin America's leaders, but also the Latin American people, of the important
relationship between the U.S. and Latin America. Many of the problems facing
Latin America today cannot be addressed in the absence of U.S. leadership
and cooperation. Working with other nations to address these challenges is the
best way to shore up legitimacy, earn respect, and repair America's image.
Although this proposal focuses heavily on Cuba, every country in Latin America is a
potential friend. Washington will have to not only strengthen its existing
relationships in the region, but also win over new allies, who look to us for
"ideas and solutions, not lectures." n5
26-2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920,
JT//JEDI
technology lab called Cuba America gains a dedicated partner in the search for energy independence. Finally, a key component of
renewing relations is ending illicit emigration. At issue is the 1966 Cuban Adj ustment Act, amended in 1995. It encourages
disaffected Cubans to risk their lives for the reward of an expedited path to US citizenship upon reaching American soil. They also
receive immediate access to a work permit and the ability to acquire residency in one year. A 2002 article from The Miami Herald
reported that 1 in 20 Cubans being smuggled to the shores of the United States dies in the attempt. Meanwhile, smugglers collect
up to $10,000 a person.
Retiring the "wet-foot, dry -foot" policy and normalizing immigration laws could stop the Cuban brain drain, end charges of a US
immigration double standard, and save hundreds of millions of dollars for the US taxpayers who must fund four different agencies to
implement this policy. Supporters of the embargo say it serves as an important symbolic protest of Cuba's deplorable human rights
The window of opportunity is open now for this type of change. The Obama
administration has taken some steps in this direction with the lifting of remittance
limits, unlimited visits to relatives in Cuba, and the ability to provide cell phones to
relatives in Cuba. The other recent change is the new majority of CubanAmericans, in Florida, that support removal of the embargo. Based on votes in
the United Nations and the European Union it is clear that world opinion would
Program and a fellow at the USC School of Public Diplomacy and the Pacific Council
on International Policy, The Decline of American Soft Power, Dec. 2005, Current
History, Vol. 104, Issue 686; pg. 419.
A broad decline in soft power has many practical implications. These
include the drain in foreign talent coming to the United States, the potential
backlash against American companies, the growing attractiveness of
China and Europe, and the possibility that anti-US sentiment will make it
easier for terrorist groups to recruit. In addition, with a decline in soft power,
Washington is simply less able to persuade others. In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Bush
administration could not convince Turkey, a longtime US ally, to play a major staging role, in part because America's image in Turkey
was so poor. During the war itself, the United States has failed to obtain significant participation from all but a handful of major
nations, again in part because of America's negative image in countries ranging from India to Germany. In attempts to persuade
North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, Washington has had to allow China to play a central role, partly because few Asian
states view the United States as a neutral, legitimate broker in the talks. Instead, Washington must increasingly resort to the other
option. Nye discusses-force, or the threat of force. With foreign governments and publics suspicious of American policy, the White
House has been unable to lead a multinational effort to halt Iran's nuclear program, and instead has had to resort to threatening
sanctions at the United Nations or even the possibility of strikes against Iran.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
For fifty years the Castro regime has ruled Cuba with an iron fist. In response, for
nearly fifty years, the United States has tried to isolate Cuba, politically and
economically. This policy has failed to achieve any discernible policy end,
and has actually helped isolate the United States from the rest of the world.
Moreover, America's hostile relationship with Cuba has become a symbolic
rallying cry for an emerging class of Latin American leaders determined to
convert anti-American sentiments into electoral victories. As a result,
America's image has suffered, as has its ability to influence a region so
intricately tied to its economic and national security interests. This report
provides a starting point for dialogue with the Cuban government, which could
eventually be used as a stepping-stone towards the normalization of relations.
Additionally, this report attempts to accomplish another end: the fostering of a
dialogue amongst policymakers in America who are ready and willing to listen to
new ideas and a fresh approach.
The embargo isolates and weakens U.S. policy makers and U.S. policies at
a time of increasing integration between Latin America and the Caribbean
and the global south. U.S. citizens are denied ready access to highly praised
Cuban achievements in the arts and culture, education, medical and technological
advances, and deprived of sustained engagements with Cuban citizens and the
Cuban government to share our national virtues. It is time that our policy
makers support the resolve of its citizens and joins the majority of nations
in non-antagonistic diplomatic protocols with Cuba by abolishing the
embargo and normalizing relations with Cuba.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Third, the Obama Administration ignores Latin America at its own peril. Latin
America's importance to the United States is growing by the day , and cannot
be overstated. While the issue of U.S.-Cuba relations is obviously of
smaller import than many other issues currently affecting the world (i.e.,
the ailing economy, climate change, proliferation of w eapons of m ass d estruction),
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the
Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate
science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is
absurd and dangerous. Global warming on this scale would be a
catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably
never spoke , "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for
humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction. The collapse of the
polar ice caps would become inevitable, bringing long-term sea level rises of 70-80
metres. All the world's coastal plains would be lost, complete with ports, cities,
transport and industrial infrastructure, and much of the world's most productive
farmland. The world's geography would be transformed much as it was at the end of
the last ice age, when sea levels rose by about 120 metres to create the Channel,
the North Sea and Cardigan Bay out of dry land. Weather would become
extreme and unpredictable, with more frequent and severe droughts,
floods and hurricanes. The Earth's carrying capacity would be hugely
reduced. Billions would undoubtedly die.
B. PROLIF
Victor Utgoff, 2
Deputy Director of the Strategy, Forces, and Resources Division of the Institute for
Defense Analysis, SURVIVAL, Fall, 2002, p. 87-90
In sum, widespread proliferation is likely to lead to an occasional shoot-
out with nuclear weapons, and that such shoot-outs will have a
substantial probability of escalating to the maximum destruction
possible with the weapons at hand. Unless nuclear proliferation is stopped,
we are headed toward a world that will mirror the American Wild West of
the late 1800s. With most, if not all, nations wearing nuclear 'six-shooters' on their
hips, the world may even be a more polite place than it is today, but every once in a
while we will all gather on a hill to bury the bodies of dead cities or
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Cuba, too, poses a significant challenge for relations between the United States
and Latin America. The 50-year-old US embargo against Cuba is rightly
criticized throughout the hemisphere as a failed and punitive instrument.
It has long been a strain on US-Latin American relations. Although the United
States has recently moved in the right direction and taken steps to relax
restrictions on travel to Cuba, Washington needs to do far more to
dismantle its severe, outdated constraints on normalized relations with
Cuba. Cuba is one of the residual issues that most obstructs more
effective US-Latin American engagement.
relations would also benefit our regional relations. Certain Latin American leaders,
whose political appeal depends on the propagation of an array of anti-Washington
grievances, would lose momentum as a centerpiece of these grievances is removed.
More significantly, Latin Americans would view U.S. engagement with Cuba
as a demonstration that the United States understands their perspectives
on the history of U.S. policy in the region and no longer insists that all of
Latin America must share U.S. hostility to a 50-year-old regime. The
resulting improvement to the United States image in the region would
facilitate the advancement of U.S. interests.
The United States policy towards Cuba over the past fifty years has not produced
the intended results. The United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a
recent Digital Town Hall of the Americas in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
responded to a question about the Cuban embargo that, both she and President
Obama view the United States policy toward Cuba as a failure.2 It would seem
logical that a completely new policy towards Cuba should be developed, and
I propose that now is the right time for this to happen. On 17 April 2009, in his
opening remarks at the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, President
Obama stated that the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba.3 Although
Cuba was not on the summit agenda, nor was Cuba invited to attend the gathering
of 34 democratically elected leaders, it was important that the President put out this
marker. United States allies in Latin America and Europe have not supported the
Cuban policy for many years, with most deciding to go against American
policy and establish diplomatic and trade relations on a bilateral basis.
Support in Congress is waning, and the majority of the Cuban-American
population in Florida now favors removing the embargo. It is in our
national interest to change our policy towards Cuba in order to improve
our international relations, open up economic opportunities, and use
positive actions to influence our communist neighbor to the south in order
to better achieve our national security goals as they pertain to the
Americas. So how did we get to this point? It is time for some history.
exacerbating the political grievances of the likes of Hugo Chavez, but the more
moderate social democratic governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, recently
extended the designation of Market Economy Status (MES) to China, something the
U.S and the E.U have still denied. MES substantially diminishes the effect of antidumping legislation under World Trade Organization rules. Given the preponderance
of non-market factors in the P.R.C.s economy there can be little doubt that the
three countries made their decision almost exclusively on the basis of Chinas
growing political and economic influence. [72] This highlights the politico-economic
independence of the U.S that Latin America is exerting.
There are compelling reasons for the United States and Latin America to pursue
more robust ties.
Every country in the Americas would benefit from strengthened and
expanded economic relations, with improved access to each others markets,
investment capital, and energy resources. Even with its current economic problems,
the United States $16-trillion economy is a vital market and source of capital
(including remittances) and technology for Latin America, and it could
contribute more to the regions economic performance. For its part, Latin Americas
rising economies will inevitably become more and more crucial to the United States
economic future. The United States and many nations of Latin America and the
Caribbean would also gain a great deal by more cooperation on such
global matters as climate change, nuclear non-proliferation, and
democracy and human rights. With a rapidly expanding US Hispanic population
of more than 50 million, the cultural and demographic integration of the United
States and Latin America is proceeding at an accelerating pace, setting a firmer
basis for hemispheric partnership.
Despite the multiple opportunities and potential benefits, relations
between the United States and Latin America remain disappointing. If new
opportunities are not seized, relations will likely continue to drift apart.
The longer the current situation persists, the harder it will be to reverse
course and rebuild vigorous cooperation. Hemispheric affairs require urgent
attentionboth from the United States and from Latin America and the Caribbean.
We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight
this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a
CHINA ADV.
The plan shores up US-Cuban relations---that boosts US
influence in Latin America and crowds out Chinese expansion
Jonathan Benjamin-Alvadaro 6, Report for the Cuban Research Institute,
there is a de facto
trend in the Americas that clearly disavows and attempts to minimize the
influence of the United States in the region, and with the growing demands on
the world economy by China, it stands to reason that Cuba may assume an
increasing stature that almost potentially lessens the presence of American
influence in Cuban and hence regional affairs. Finally, and as demonstrated by the presence of American oil interests in
against U.S. opposition as it solidifies it economic and diplomatic role in the region. This is important inasmuch as
the February 2006 U.S.- Cuban Energy Summit in Mexico City, there may be interest in cooperating in joint venture projects, and by extension assisting in the long-term development in
Cubas oil industry. To accomplish this task the report seeks to lay out some national security policy considerations applying strategic thought to what I will term Post-Oil Cuba a
Cuba that has a small but vibrant and growing oil and gas production capacity with extensive relations with a number of partners, and an increasingly positive outlook toward addressing
energy and economic development questions that have plagued the Castro regime since the Cuban Revolution.3 The primary consideration is to determine the present state of Cuban
energy and what possibilities exist that would be available to American foreign policy decision makers and business interests as the relations with Cuba evolve over the coming years.4
This is important because any realistic appraisal of how Cuba is to take advantage of its oil bonanza involves the United States. Previous research in this area has clearly laid out the
scope and objectives of Cuban energy development schemes in the period since the demise of Cubas favorable trade arrangements with the former Soviet Union. Recently, and as a
result of the oil discovery and Cubas energy arrangement with the government of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela there is renewed interest in Havanas energy policies. Most of that analysis
has been focused on concrete possibilities where there can be cooperation in the energy field between these two neighbors. Specifically, the work has looked at areas for the
convergence of energy interests as they apply to the near- and long-term energy development scenarios facing both countries. Myers Jaffe and Soligo have addressed this possibility by
looking at the potential to increase diversification and dispersion of energy resources. This is an important consideration when one takes into consideration that well over one-third of all
oil refining capacity resides on or near the Houston shipping channel. The potential negative impact on Americas refining capacity following Hurricane Rita5 made a significant
impression on oil industry analysts for the necessity of diversifying the location of these vital national resources. The potential of viewing Cuba as a staging area for American oil
storage and refining is plausible because of the proximity of the island. The also becomes more attractive because of the growing climatic concerns over the uncertain security of oil
resources in the Gulf region as clearly demonstrated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005. While it is true that Venezuela has initiated an investment of $1 billion dollars to bring the
Cienfuegos refinery online, there are still many other possibilities open and available to American companies, as well as a growing number of foreign firms.6 Additionally, Venezuela
remains the fourth largest importer of oil to the United States and one can surmise that the existing trade arrangements between the U.S. and Venezuela will remain intact, the evolution
of the Bolivarian revolution under Chavez and a growing Chinese presence in the region notwithstanding. Additionally, pursuing such a path would allow United States policymakers to
take advantage of what Cuba has to offer in the following areas: domestic technical capabilities; continuing human capital development; strategic positioning in the Caribbean, and an
improved diplomatic stature. Cuba, by any measure, possesses a largely untapped technical capacity owing to advanced training and education in the core mathematic and scientific
areas. This was clearly demonstrated by its attempt to develop a nuclear energy capability in the 1980s and 1990s whereby thousands of Cubans pursued highly technical career paths
leaving Cuba with among the highest ratios of scientists and engineers to the general population in all of the Americas. Moreover, the foundation of Cubas vaunted public education
system remains intact and increased investment under various scenarios suggests that Cuba will continue to produce a welleducated workforce that will be critical to its future economic
sector in Cuba to ascertain the feasibility and possible success of such an undertaking become available to American firms. Moreover, it is interesting to
note that U.S. firms in the agriculture sector have successfully negotiated and consummated sales to Cuba totaling more than $1 billion dollars over the
past four years under conditions that are less than optimal circumstances but have well-served the commercial interests of all parties involved.
CHINA ADV.
Allowing Chinese influence in Latin America to grow causes
Taiwan war sponsored by the U.S.
Robbie Fergusson 12, Researcher at Royal Society for the Arts, Featured
In the Americas, the PRC had international recognition and longstanding support from ideological allies such as Cuba. However,
the ROC has maintained more diplomatic support in the Americas than any
other region, mainly due to the small nature of the states involved and the
importance of Taiwanese aid to their economies. Li notes that from the late
1980s to the early 1990s, roughly 10 percent of Taiwans direct foreign investment
(FDI) went to Latin America and the Caribbean, [51] highlighting the concerted
effort made in the region. Economic solidarity is increasingly important to the
formation of the Taiwan-Latin America relationship, for two reasons. The
first is that for Latin American states, the decision of which China to
support is less ideological and political than it ever has been; which makes
the decision a straight up economic zero-sum choice. The second is that
Latin America is home to natural resources which are of great significance
to the hungry growing economies of the PRC and the ROC regardless of
international recognition.
However, while the decision is not political for Latin American countries, for
Taiwan, every country which switches its recognition to the PRC damages
its legitimacy as a nation state in the international arena. The Table below shows the
designation of diplomatic recognition in the region in 2008.
Countries Recognising the PRC (China)Countries Recognising the ROC (Taiwan)Central AmericaMexico, Costa RicaEl Salvador,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, PanamaCaribbeanAntigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana,
Jamaica, Suriname, Trinidad & TobagoBelize, Dominican Republic, Haiti, St Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the GrenadinesSouth
AmericaArgentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, VenezuelaParaguay.
for the PRC, every state which withdraws its support for the
ROC takes it one step closer to being in a position where it can resolve the
Taiwan issue unilaterally . Subsequently, undermining Taiwan is of the
utmost importance to China, and it has taken to outbidding Taiwan in
offers of foreign aid, a strategy made possible by the decline in aid from the defunct Soviet Union, and the West,
On the other hand,
which is pre occupied with terrorism and the Middle East. Li notes that the regions leaders have turned to Asia for help to promote
trade and financial assistance, and consequently played the PRC and Taiwan against each other. [53] Despite its smaller size,
Taiwan has fared remarkably well in this bidding war; focusing its aid investments on infrastructure such as stadiums in St Kitts &
Nevis for the Cricket World Cup in 2007.
However, even Taiwans economy can be put under strain by the seemingly relentless stream of foreign aid which has brought only
In early 2004, Commonwealth of Dominica asked Taipei for a $58 million aid, which is unrelated to public welfare. The Caribbean
nation had relied on Taiwan to develop its agriculture-based economy since 1983. Diplomatic relationship was soon broken after
Taipei turned down the request. [54] This incident showcased the fact that in economic terms, the PRC is winning the battle for Latin
America.
<CONTINUES..>
CHINA ADV.
<CONTINUED>
Political strategies of the PRC
Domnguez suggests that the PRC has not been punitive toward those states that still recognize the Republic of China (Taiwan), [56] the legitimacy of
this claim has to be brought into question for example in June 1996, China fought the extension of the UN mission in Haiti, to punish the Caribbean
nation for its appeal for UN acceptance of Taiwan. [57] This incident showed that China is prepared to use its global clout to play spoiler and apply
indirect pressure on countries to adopt its position. Similarly, Chinas experience with one-party rule has taught it the importance of party-to-party
relations in addition to state-to-state relations, further cementing the PRC by establishing a relationship based on goodwill and common understanding.
Indeed by the start of 1998 the CCP had established relations with almost all major political parties in the countries that were Taiwans diplomatic allies in
Latin America, [58] further isolating the ROC.
Were the ROC to be deserted by its remaining allies in Latin America, the
USA would be disadvantaged in attempting to maintain the status quo
across the Taiwan Strait. A Taiwan that was not recognised by any state from the
Americas, or Europe (with the exception of the Vatican) would not be seen as a
genuine sovereign entity whose defence would be more important than the upkeep
of good relations between China and the West. As Chinas economic and
political position in the world improves vis--vis both America and Taiwan,
so might its ambitions. The U.S.A. might find itself in a position where it
could no longer withstand the diplomatic pressure to allow the PRC to
conclude a settlement on Taiwan, perhaps by force .
Relations: A way forward, A report of the Poni Working Group on U.S.-China Nuclear
Dynamics, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Elbridge Colby- consultant
to the Global Security Directorate and the U.S. Strategic Command and the National
Intelligence Council, principal analyst for Global Strategic Affairs in Center for Naval
Analyses, J.D. from Yale Law School; Abraham M. Denmark- fellow with the Center
for a New American Security and directed the Asia-Pacific Security Program, former
Country Director for China Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, History
and Political Science at the University of Northern Colorado,
http://csis.org/files/publication/130307_Colby_USChinaNuclear_Web.pdf, ACC. 6-122013, JT//JEDI
Considerations of U.S.-China nuclear relations would be a largely academic exercise without the serious risk of conflict and tension
these disputes appear likely to be resolved definitively in the near term. Beyond disputes, there is also the simple geopolitical reality
of the rise of a new great power in the arena of a well-established status quo power. From time immemorial, this reality has proved
to be a source of tension and competition among nationsand has often led to war.
A large-scale conventional war between the United States and China would be
incredibly dangerous and destructive, and nuclear war between the two countries would
The Escobarbarians
Even though the likelihood of conventional war between the two nations is
The United States can continue with the current policy of trade embargo, travel
restrictions, and limited diplomatic relations. The United States will not likely choose
this path, but will rather go down it because it is easier politically to not change the
status quo. This policy requires a long-term commitment and continuing patience.
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996 provides the way ahead
that the Cuban government must follow in order to gain normalized relations with
the United States. This option follows the path of the last forty nine years and no
significant change is required on the part of the United States. Politically, this avoids
the problems generated by going against the Cuban voters of Florida that have
been strong supporters of the current policy. The risk is that the United States will
miss a window of opportunity to make fundamental positive changes to
our relationship with Cuba. Additionally, Cuba could attain economic
prosperity in spite of the United States actions. Cuba would be forced to
continue to look towards China and Venezuela for trade and security
relationships. Additionally, for both trade and tourism, Cuba will continue to
develop relationships with Canada and the European Union, while the United States
influence will continue to wane.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Latin America hovered around $ 13 billion, but in 2007, that number had increased
to $ 102 billion, and by 2008 total trade was valued at $ 140 billion. n118 Even
despite the current financial crisis, trade between China and Latin America is likely
to grow during the next five years.
China's interest in Latin America is also based on its increasingly assertive
global political agenda. In 2007, Costa Rica dropped its diplomatic recognition of
Taiwan, a move heavily courted by Chinese officials. In 2008, President Hu rewarded
Costa Rica's new policy by visiting San Jose and signing a free trade agreement in
2010. n119
China also timed the release of a new policy paper on Sino-Latin American relations
to coincide with President Hu's most recent trip to the region. It charts China's
growing relationship with Latin America and promises increased cooperation in
scientific and technological research, cross-cultural educational exchanges, as well
as political and economic exchanges. n120 As China's role in Latin America
increases, American clout correspondingly decreases in terms of relative
power . To be sure, the U.S. will remain the major powerbroker in the Americas for
decades to come, but will increasingly have to make room for a new player. Given
this diminishing economic position, Washington will have to rely more
heavily on diplomatic initiatives that shore up credibility rather than
simply economic incentives and disincentives, such as bilateral trade
agreements.
Chinas involvement in the region is at a very early stage and its energy
interests are not overly well defined, but already, Chinas total
consumption of the five basic commodities grain, meat, oil, coal and steel
has already surpassed that of the USA in all but oil, [39] leading many
analysts such as Hutton to wonder how the global supply of energy can cope with
the emergence of such a hungry economy without conflict over increasingly scarce
resources. [40]
The development of China and its interests in the region is therefore key. Roett &
Paz argue that what matters most for Sino-Latin American energy
relations is not where China is today but how it compares with its position
in the world at the start of the twenty-first century and where it is likely to
be in 2030. [41] Due to the triangular relationship between China, the
U.S, and Latin America, any shift of the equilibrium towards China cannot
fail to impact upon the United States. Bajpaee moots the idea:
While not a zero-sum game, growing inter-linkages and interdependence
between China and Latin America is likely to come at the cost of the U nited
States relations with its neighbours, which will only undermine U.S ability to
access the regions energy resources. This will force the U.S to rely on
energy resources from more remote and less stable regions, such as West
Africa, the Caspian and the Middle East. [42]
Conflict: Possible Futures of a Confrontation between China, Taiwan and the United
States of America, http://www.lamp-method.org/eCommons/Hunkovic.pdf, JEDI
A war between China, Taiwan and the United States has the potential to
escalate into a nuclear conflict and a third world war, therefore, many
countries other than the primary actors could be affected by such a
conflict, including Japan, both Koreas, Russia, Australia, India and Great
Britain, if they were drawn into the war, as well as all other countries in the world
that participate in the global economy, in which the United States and China are the
two most dominant members.
In the unlikely event of hostile engagement with the United States, China has an
incentive to develop technological capabilities in Cuba, which can be used
in tandem with cyber and communications warfare against Washington.
Development of such capabilities may already be happening. China has a
huge presence at Lourdes, a former Soviet espionage base just outside of Havana,
where in 2004 Hu Jintao visited and confirmed that most of the technology housed
there, including almost all of the computers, came from China. n124 Another former
Soviet base in Bejucal may now also house both Cuban and Chinese intelligence
analysts. n125 But China's leadership is pragmatic, not ideological, which begs the
question: what is China getting in return for all this assistance? If China is
cooperating with Cuban intelligence to spy on the United States, a greater
American presence on the island would be needed to fully understand the
scope of this rather disturbing operation.
and telecommunications improvements; and pouring millions into a new police academy. In Colombia, China is planning a massive dry canal to link the countrys Pacific and Atlantic
coasts by rail. At either terminus, there will be Chinese ports; in between, there will be Chinese assembly facilities, logistics operations and distribution plants; and on the Pacific side,
there will be dedicated berths to ship Colombian coal outbound to China. In mid-January, a Chinese-built oil rig arrived in Cuba to begin drilling in Cubas swath of the Gulf of Mexico.
Reuters reports that Spanish, Russian, Malaysian and Norwegian firms will use the rig to extract Cuban oil. For now, China is focusing on onshore oil extraction in Cuba. New offshore
discoveries will soon catapult Brazil into a top-five global oil producer. With some 38 billion barrels of recoverable oil off its coast, Brazil expects to pump 4.9 million barrels per day by
2020, as the Washington Times reports, and China has used generous loans to position itself as the prime beneficiary of Brazilian oil. Chinas state-run oil and banking giants have inked
technology-transfer, chemical, energy and real-estate deals with Brazil. Plus, as the Times details, China came to the rescue of Brazils main oil company when it sought financing for its
massive drilling plans, pouring $10 billion into the project. A study in Joint Force Quarterly (JFQ) adds that Beijing plunked down $3.1 billion for a slice of Brazils vast offshore oil fields.
The JFQ study reveals just how deep and wide Beijing is spreading its financial influence in Latin America: $28 billion in loans to Venezuela; a $16.3-billion commitment to develop
Venezuelan oil reserves; $1 billion for Ecuadoran oil; $4.4 billion to develop Peruvian mines; $10 billion to help Argentina modernize its rail system; $3.1 billion to purchase Argentinas
petroleum company outright. The New York Times adds that Beijing has lent Ecuador $1 billion to build a hydroelectric plant. There is good and bad to Beijings increased interest and
investment in the Western Hemisphere. Investment fuels development, and much of Latin America is happily accelerating development in the economic, trade, technology and
infrastructure spheres. But Chinas riches come with strings.
For instance, in exchange for Chinese development funds and loans, Venezuela agreed to increase oil shipments to China from 380,000 barrels per day to one million barrels per day. Its
worth noting that the Congressional Research Service has reported concerns in Washington that Hugo Chavez might try to supplant his U.S. market with China. Given that Venezuela
pumps an average of 1.5 million barrels of oil per day for the U.S.or about 11 percent of net oil importsthe results would be devastating for the U.S.
First, Washington needs to relearn an obvious truththat Chinas rulers do not share Americas valuesand needs to shape and conduct its China policy in that context.
Beijing has no respect for human rights. Recall that in China, an estimated 3-5 million people are rotting away in laogai slave-labor camps, many of them guilty of political dissent or
religious activity; democracy activists are rounded up and imprisoned; freedom of speech and religion and assembly do not exist; and internal security forces are given shoot-to-kill
orders in dealing with unarmed citizens. Indeed, Beijing viewed the Arab Spring uprisings not as an impetus for political reform, but as reason to launch its harshest crackdown on
dissent in at least a decade, according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
In short, the ends always justify the means in Beijing. And that makes all the difference when it comes to foreign and defense policy. As Reagan counseled during the Cold War, There is
no true international security without respect for human rights.
the U.S. must stop taking the Western Hemisphere for granted, and
reengage in its own neighborhood economically, politically and militarily.
That means no more allowing trade deals and the partners counting on themto languish. Plans for a
hemispheric free trade zone have faltered and foundered. The trade-expansion agreements with Panama and Colombia were left
in limbo for years, before President Obama finally signed them into law in 2011 Reengagement means reviving U.S.
diplomacy. The Wall Street Journal reports that due to political wrangling in Washington, the State Department position focused on the Western Hemisphere has been
Second,
instead
must
staffed by an interim for nearly a year, while six Western Hemisphere ambassadorial posts (Uruguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Barbados) remain empty.
Reengagement means reversing plans to slash defense spending. The Joint Forces Command noted in 2008 that China has a deep respect for U.S. military power. We cannot overstate
how important this has been to keeping the peace. But with the United States in the midst of massive military retrenchment, one wonders how long that reservoir of respect will last.
Reengagement also means revitalizing security ties. A good model to follow might be whats happening in Chinas backyard .
border the Pacific. Given Beijings actions, it makes sense to bring these Latin American partners on the Pacific Rim into the alliance of alliances that is already stabilizing the Asia-Pacific
region.
Finally, all of this needs to be part of a revived Monroe Doctrine.
would make
sale of Chinese arms or the basing of Chinese advisors or military assets in the Western Hemisphere.
Conflict: Possible Futures of a Confrontation between China, Taiwan and the United
States of America, http://www.lamp-method.org/eCommons/Hunkovic.pdf, JEDI
A war between China, Taiwan and the United States has the potential to
escalate into a nuclear conflict and a third world war, therefore, many
countries other than the primary actors could be affected by such a
conflict, including Japan, both Koreas, Russia, Australia, India and Great
Britain, if they were drawn into the war, as well as all other countries in the world
that participate in the global economy, in which the United States and China are the
two most dominant members.
also a member of the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, an adjunct scholar with
the Cato Institute,) "A Hard Look at Chinas Soft Power." Cato Institute. Cato
Institute, 15 May 2008. Web. 05 July 2013.
<http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/hard-look-chinas-soft-power>. //wy
The fact that China uses soft power does not, however, mean they are
disconnected form hard power goals. The study notes that in all three of the
regions Latin America, Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa discussed, where
China is most active, access to energy resources and raw commodities to
fuel Chinas domestic growth plays a dominant role in Beijings activities.
China has oil and gas exploration contracts with Brazil, Ecuador, Bolivia,
Colombia, Venezuela and Cuba; oil contracts and pipeline deals are a major part of
Chinas activities in its relations with Central Asian states such as Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan, and Chinas oil exploration interests extend to Burma, Vietnam, and
Malaysia. Imports of crude oil constitute the bulk of Chinas imports from African
states. China also deploys its soft power as part of the political dynamic of
trying to separate Taiwan from its remaining diplomatic relationships,
although this dynamic varies according to region. While it is important in Chinas
African relationships, it is not important in Chinas relations with Central Asian
countries, where Taiwan has no official diplomatic relations. It is a negligible factor
in Chinas relationships with Southeast Asian countries, where Taiwan has significant
economic interests but no diplomatic ties. But the Taiwan-China competition
looms large in Chinas relationships in Latin America and the Caribbean.
The regions proximity to the US mainland allows Taiwans president and
senior leaders to ask for symbolically meaningful transit stops in the U nited
States when making official visits to western hemisphere countries. A significant
reduction, or even the disappearance, of Taiwans Latin America and Caribbean
relationships could greatly impair this US connection.
the resolution of Taiwans future. Its also clear that from Chinas
perspective, a cordial relationship with Washington could isolate Taiwan
politically. [132] Whether the status quo across the strait can be
maintained through Washingtons tacit support of Taiwan as Chinese
power and influence increases vis--vis America is an issue that may
increase in pressure for American policy makers.
Johnson, 1, Chalmers, The Nation, Time to Bring the Troops Home p. 20, 5/14,
http://www.thenation.com/article/time-bring-troops-home , JT//JEDI
China is another matter. No sane figure in the Pentagon wants a war with
China, and all serious US militarists know that China's minuscule nuclear capacity is
not offensive but a deterrent against the overwhelming US power arrayed against it
(twenty archaic Chinese warheads versus more than 7,000 US warheads). Taiwan,
whose status constitutes the still incomplete last act of the Chinese civil war,
remains the most dangerous place on earth. Much as the 1914 assassination of the
Austrian crown prince in Sarajevo led to a war that no one wanted, a misstep in
Taiwan by any side could bring the United States and China into a conflict that
neither wants. Such a war would bankrupt the United States, deeply divide
Japan and probably end in a Chinese victory, given that China is the
world's most populous country and would be defending itself against a
foreign aggressor. More seriously, it could easily escalate into a nuclear
holocaust.
Enterprise Institute, 1/3/13, Four Surprises That Could Rock Asia in 2013,
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/01/03/four_surprises_that_could_rock_asi
a_in_2012?page=full, Foreign Policy, ACC. 6-10-2013, JT//JEDI
Economic integration is apparently failing to halt what Beijing sees as a
troubling trend. With a cross-strait trade agreement and a slew of other, easier
deals already on the books, Beijing now expects Ma to discuss political issues.
But Ma doesn't have the domestic political support to pursue political
talks -- in March 2012, two months after his reelection, 45 percent of those polled
said the pace of cross-strait exchanges was "just right," but the share of
respondents answering "too fast" had increased to 32.6 percent, from 25.7 percent
before the election. Any Chinese shift toward a more strident Taiwan policy
could portend a new crisis in the Taiwan Strait sooner than many expect ,
as a lack of progress on these issues may buttress hawks in the new Xi
Jinping administration. And America would surely be dragged in : Even lowlevel coercive measures against Taiwan -- a top 10 U.S. trading partner and
security ally -- could throw U.S.-China relations into a tailspin.
Studies, Renmin University, Published: June 21, 2013, Accessed: July 9, 2013,
Research and analysis Issues in Sino-US Nuclear Relations: Survivability, Coercion
and Escalation, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/issues-in-sino-usnuclear-relations-survivability-coercion-and-escalation/issues-in-sino-us-nuclearrelations-survivability-coercion-and-escalation)//mw
The two articles both raise the issues of conflict escalation and crisis
management, and this is indeed a very important issue in the contemporary
Sino-US relationship. Because of the Taiwan issue and the East and South
China Seas problems the two countries could be drawn into a conflict. A
conventional conflict between these two countries could, because of the
two countries force structure and strategic and tactical proclivities,
escalate to nuclear war. To be specific, there are three factors that could cause
crisis escalation. First, by integrating superiority in nuclear, conventional
and missile defense domain, the United States might achieve disarming
capability against China, and translate this position into coercive power.
Kissinger said, in 1971, that we have no disarming capability against the USSR but
we do have some against China. As long as we have a disarming capability
we can use it to regulate their actions in local situations. 10 In 2006 two
American authors wrote an article in which they suggested that the United
States had a first strike advantage over China. This article is based on an
unreasonable assumption that the United States has perfect intelligence
capability, and so their conclusion is fatally flawed. Chinas main objective in
the modernisation of its nuclear weapons is to enhance their survivability, and, in
recent years, the survivability of Chinas nuclear weapons has indeed shown great
improvement. We can be reasonably confident that in the current force
structure between the United States and China, the United States cannot
have confidence of destroying all Chinas nuclear weapons in a first strike,
but how the balance between the United States and China will develop in
the future is unknown. This is especially so given the United States ongoing and
rapid development of Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD), and their refusal to accept
any restrictions on this process. When this process is complete and the United
States is able to field large-scale and highly effective BMD systems, then
the United States will have a genuine first strike capability against China,
and then the United States will be able to use nuclear weapons to coerce
China.
perceived need to save face.10 Moreover, few of these dis- putes appear likely to be resolved definitively in the near term. Beyond disputes, there is
also the simple geopolitical reality of the rise of a new great power in the arena of a well-established status quo power. From time immemorial,
this
reality has proved to be a source of tension and competi- tion among nationsand has often led to war. A
large-scale conventional war between the United States and China
would be incredibly dangerous and destructive, and nuclear war
between the two countries would be devastating for all involved. Even
though the likelihood of conventional war between the two nations is currently lowand the probability of nuclear war is even lowerthe appallingly high
costs, dangers, and risks of a war demand that this risk be taken seriously and that steps be taken to render armed conflict more unlikely and less
dangerous. The fact that China and the United States could come to blows does not mean that any conflict would result in the use of nuclear weapons, but
conflicts over
apparently marginal issues canin ways that are not entirely predictable in advanceescalate into
conflicts over core interests. For these reasons, perhaps the single most im- portant task of American statecraft in the
it also does not mean that the use of nuclear weapons can be confidently ruled out, especially because even
coming century will be managing Chinas rise in a way that preserves peace while also defending important U.S. interests.11 The following factors could
American Policy and Research at Tulane University, April 2009, Failed Sanctions :
Transnational Players and the U.S. Embargo against Cuba, Manuscript retrieved
from:
http://cipr.bigglassonion.com/CMSuploads/Research_Spadoni_Cuba_Book_Introductio
n_Conclusion.pdf, ACC. 6-14-2013, JT//JEDI
It should be noted that Bushs restrictions on Cuban-American travel and remittances to Cuba implemented in June 2004 seem to
have had little or no impact on both practices. After a substantial decline in the immediate aftermath of Bushs introduction of stiffer
rules, Cuban-American trips to the island resumed strong growth and reached a record level in 2007. That year, U.S. visitors were
the third largest group among foreign travelers to Cuba after Canadians and Britons. Moreover, unofficial estimates based on sales
consider a quote by George W. Bush that exemplifies the great irony of U.S. economic sanctions against Cuba. In July 2001, Bush
stated: The sanctions the United States enforces against the Castro regime are not just a policy tool, but a moral statement. It is
wrong to prop up a regime that routinely stifles all the freedoms that make us human (Gerstenzang, July 14, 2001). If this is the
case, then U.S. policy toward Cuba in the post-Cold War era has been nothing other than a wrong policy. Only time will tell whether
the new U.S. administration of Barack Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will finally make it right.
26-2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920,
JT//JEDI
Both the United States and Cuba would benefit if Washington would lift its
longstanding trade embargo against the island, but U.S. President Barack
Obama has toughened the sanctions since taking office in 2009, a top Cuban official
said on Thursday.
The embargo, fully in place since 1962, has done $108 billion in damage to
the Cuba economy, but also has violated the constitutional rights of Americans
and made a market of 11 million people off limits to U.S. companies, Foreign
Minister Bruno Rodriguez told reporters.
"The blockade is, without doubt, the principal cause of the economic
problems of our country and the essential obstacle for (our)
development," he said, using Cuba's term for the embargo.
"The blockade provokes suffering, shortages, difficulties that reach each
Cuban family, each Cuban child," Rodriguez said.
If the goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba is to help its people achieve freedom
and a better life, the economic embargo has failed completely. Its
economic effect is to make the people of Cuba worse-off by depriving them of
lower-cost food and other goods that could be bought from the United States. It
means less independence for Cuban workers and entrepreneurs, who
could be earning dollars from American tourists and fueling private-sector
growth. Meanwhile, Castro and his ruling elite enjoy a comfortable, insulated
lifestyle by extracting any meager surplus produced by their captive subjects.
AND 20 YEARS, Presented at the international symposium Cuba Futures: Past and Present, organized
by The Cuba Project Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies at The Graduate Center/CUNY,
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/bildn/cuba/cubaforecasting.pdf)
Lifting the embargo would be no panacea. Other countries invest in and trade with
Cuba to no obvious political impact. And the lack of widespread economic reform
makes it easier for the regime rather than the people to collect the benefits of
trade, in contrast to China. Still, more U.S. contact would have an impact.
Argued trade specialist Dan Griswold, American tourists would boost the
earnings of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate
restaurants in their homes. Those dollars would then find their way to the
hundreds of freely priced farmers markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors,
food venders, and other entrepreneurs.
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/us-embargo-cuba-is-failure
The embargo has been a failure by every measure. It has not changed the
course or nature of the Cuban government. It has not liberated a single
Cuban citizen. In fact, the embargo has made the Cuban people a bit more
impoverished, without making them one bit more free . Americans of their
freedom to travel and has cost US farmersand other producers billions of dollars of
potential exports
percentage point to 1.3%. In the first quarter, GDP rose 1.8%. Pierpont Securities
economist Stephen Stanley lowered his growth forecast for the period even more, to
0.5% from 1%. "This seems pretty dire," Mr. Stanley said. The world's increasing
reliance on the U.S. economy, which remains relatively soft, could pose
challenges for overall global growth in the coming months unless demand
rebounds quickly elsewhere.
Ending the embargo brings $1.2 billion a year for the U.S. and
fosters economic reforms in Cuba
Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to former US
president Ronald Reagan, Dec. 11, 12, Time to End the Cuba Embargo, National Interest (Online),
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo, ACC. 5-26-2013, JT//JEDI
Ending the embargo would have obvious economic benefits for both
Cubans and Americans. The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates American
losses alone from the embargo as much as $1.2 billion annually.
Expanding economic opportunities also might increase pressure within
Cuba for further economic reform. So far the regime has taken small steps,
but rejected significant change. Moreover, thrusting more Americans into
Cuban society could help undermine the ruling system. Despite Fidel Castros
decline, Cuban politics remains largely static. A few human rights activists have
been released, while Raul Castro has used party purges to entrench loyal elites.
Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Department of
Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst, It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo
of Cuba, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-itssenseless-embargo-of-cuba/, ACC. 6-1-13, JT//JEDI
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
The US has had normal trade relations with many countries just as
problematic, if not more so, than Cuba, including China, Vietnam (President
Clinton lifted the 1975 trade embargo in 1994), and even the Soviet Union
throughout the Cold War.8 In an era of global economic integration, maintaining
strong economic relations with other countries is vital to growing the economy. The
rest of the world has recognized that Cuba does not pose a threat and has
normalized trade relations, leaving the US alone in its imposition of the
embargo. As long as other countries are willing to supply Cuba with all of
its needs, the US embargo will never be effective and will only hurt the US
economy. Furthermore, by blaming the US for Cubas lack of economic
prosperity and using the embargo as a scapegoat, Cubas leadership has
eluded responsibility for the poor standard of living on the island and
routinely portrays the US as an oppressor of the Cuban people.
(United Nations Department of Public Information 67th General Assembly). November 13,
2012. ARCHAIC, PUNITIVE EMBARGO MUST BE CONSIGNED TO HISTORY BOOKS.
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2012/ga11311.doc.htm Accessed 7/4/13 //SH
Keeping this policy in force is not in the national interest of the U nited States,
he said. Quite the contrary, it harmed the interest of American citizens
and companies, especially in times of economic crisis and high unemployment.
Moreover, there was no legitimate or moral reason to maintain the blockade, which
was anchored in the Cold War. Indeed, it is just a weapon in the hands of an
ever more exiguous, isolated, violent and arrogant minority, he said. As was stated
in recent Secretary-Generals report on the matter, the economic damage
accumulated over more than 50 years, until 2011, amounted to one trillion six
billion dollars. Any sensible person could figure out the living standards and
development levels that we could have achieved if we had had those resources
available, he added, calling the blockade one of the main causes of Cubas
economic problems and the major obstacle to its economic and social
development.
One of Winston Churchills most repeated quotes is, You can always count on
Americans to do the right thing- after they have tried everything else. It is time
for President Obama and Congress to do the right thing, cast off the failed
embargo of Cuba, and embrace a policy of engagement that will provide
economic opportunities for U.S. farmers and businesses as well the
workers they employ. Doing the right thing will improve economic
conditions in both the U.S. and Cuba and will also over time contribute to
greater social stability in the Caribbean region.
26-2013, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920,
JT//JEDI
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
Cuba has the potential to be a sizeable market for US goods should the
embargo come to an end. Despite all of the trade restrictions, the US exported
$710 million worth of food to Cuba in 2008, making the US Cubas largest food
supplier.9 A March 2010 Texas A&M University study found that expanding
agricultural trade and travel between the US and Cuba could result in
$365 million in increased sales of US goods in Cuba and create 6,000 new
jobs in the US.10
U.S. travelers would increase from less than 200,000 to between 550,00
and one million annually (U.S. International Trade Commission). The increase in
U.S. visitors would in turn increase demand for more and higher quality
goods and would provide more money for the government to purchase
U.S. goods, according to the Commission report. Allowing U.S. citizens to
travel to Cuba would boost the tourism industry in the U.S. and create
thousands of new jobs. Even lifting the travel restrictions on groups or
individuals directly engaged in U.S. agricultural sales to Cuba would be a
significant advancement. Business leaders and entrepreneurs from the
U.S. would gain a competitive edge by having the opportunity to travel to
Cuba and becoming familiar with the Cuban market and meting face-toface with their Cuban counterparts.
The answer to the question of how best to cope with intolerable global
warming caused by Nature is obviously the maintenance of the free
market, not its replacement by Socialist central planning. Indeed, the answer is to make
the free market freer than it now isas much freer as is humanly possible. This is
because while the primary reason for advocating a free market is the
greater prosperity and enjoyment it brings to everyone in the course of
his normal, everyday life, a major, secondary reason is to have the
greatest possible industrial base available for coping with catastrophic
events, whether those events be war, plague, meteors from outer space,
intolerable global warming, or a new ice age.
The increase in demand for foreign goods and services was another
sign of growing momentum in the countrys economic recovery. The gap in May grew by a hefty 12.1 percent compared to the $40.1 billion deficit recorded in April. It also
exceeded the $40.1 billion deficit forecasted by economists surveyed by Bloomberg before Wednesdays announcement. Mays wider deficit was mainly due to burgeoning U.S.
imports of goods and services. Total imports increased to $232.1 billion in May from $227.7 billion in April. That stronger volume, second only to the record $234.3 billion of
imports recorded in March 2012, was largely due to a $4 billion-dollar jump in the countrys consumption of foreign goods -- a sign that American consumers are opening their
wallets. Consumer goods, industrial supplies and materials, and automotive vehicles and parts accounted for the strongest areas of growth in imports, according to the Bureau
of Economic Analysis. . This growth in demand for foreign goods came amid strengthening confidence among U.S. households and firms. The Thompson Reuters/University of
Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index revealed that consumer confidence swelled during recent months and was at a six-year high in May, as jobs and income data brightened.
On the flipside,
May from $187.6 billion in April. Dropoffs in exports of consumer goods and
industrial supplies were the main cause of this decrease. Offshore demand
for U.S. products was likely suppressed by persistent economic dampness
in Europe and slowing growth in China. On top of that, the countrys
exports also became less competitive in the international marketplace as the
U.S. dollar picked up strength. The trade balance for June will be released Aug. 6. It is likely to be another strong month for imports as confidence among U.S. households and
firms gained more ground last month. In the meantime, take a look at the slideshow below to discover what items (as seen around Washington D.C.) made the list of the
countrys top 10 imports for the year to date.
as demand faltered. This may heighten risks that a second quarter slowdown could be sharper than expected and increase pressure on the Chinese central bank to loosen
policy. Agriculture ended the month lower, down 4.16%, pressured by higher-than-expected ending corn stocks and further data showing larger-than-expected US acreages
planted despite the earlier weather related planting delays. News that Australia's new-crop wheat production increased 15% from a year ago added to concerns over larger
leap in
policy action , a leap that ought not be taken without first exploring other
options. In taking the route of engagement, specifically economic
engagement, it would be inconvenient, if not virtually impossible, to reattain
an embargo policy.
T ANS. INCREASE / FX
Counter-interpretation: economic engagement includes the
removal of barriers to economic incentives solves their limits
disad
Haas 2000 (Richard, President of CFR, Terms of Engagement: Alternatives to
Punitive Policies, Survival;, vol. 42, no. 2, Summer 2000, pp. xxxx,
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/articles/2000/6/summer
%20haass/2000survival.pdf)
Architects of engagement strategies can choose from a wide variety of
incentives. Economic engagement might offer tangible incentives such as
export credits, investment insurance or promotion, access to technology,
loans and economic aid.3 Other equally useful economic incentives involve
the removal of penalties such as trade embargoes , investment bans or high
tariffs, which have impeded economic relations between the United States and the
target country. Facilitated entry into the economic global arena and the
institutions that govern it rank among the most potent incentives in todays
global market.
T ANS. INCREASE / FX
Default to reasonability narrow interpretations are flawed
policy, economic engagement includes the AFF, prefer federal
sources
USDS 9 (What is Total Economic Engagement? http://2001-2009.state.gov/e/eeb/92986.htm),
ACC. 7/5/2013
T ANS. INCREASE / FX
Sanctions preclude engagement
Fisk 98 (Daniel, Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs National Security Council, HOW
SANCTIONS CAN AFFECT U.S. POLICY INTERESTS,
http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1998_h/h980603df.htm), ACC. 7/5/2013
In discussing "sanctions" there are several levels that should be kept in mind. First,
there are private trade and investment activities. These involve activities
which do not rely on U.S. subsidies, but which may be subject to negotiated
agreements (e.g., GATT, NAFTA). These, then, are further divided into activities
which may entail a legal entitlement and activities in which a government does not
interfere with the ability of its own citizens to engage in economic pursuits. In these
cases, the United States can dictate whether its nationals can or cannot
engage in all or certain economic activities with another nation. And there will
be obligations that other nations will deem it appropriate, if not essential, that the
United States respect: for instance, benefits extended by the United States as part
of the GATT or NAFTA.
On July 11, 2012, the U.S. Department of the Treasurys Office of Foreign Assets
Control (OFAC) issued general licenses General License Nos. 16 and 17 that
substantially lift two key features of the U.S. economic sanctions against
Burma (Myanmar): the ban on new investment in Burma by U.S. persons and the
ban on exportation of financial services to Burma. These general licenses
implement President Obamas announcement in May 2012 that the U.S.
government would increase economic engagement with Burma. The general
licenses are in line with similar steps undertaken in the European Union, Canada
and Australia to lift their own sanctions with respect to Burma. As a result, there
may be new opportunities for many companies to enter Burmese markets.
Security Strategy Towards Cuba," Strategy Research Project, www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518053, ACC. 6-11-2013,
JT//JEDI
Achieving Congressional approval will be difficult although not impossible
in the present economic recession. The economic benefits associated with new
business opportunities in Cuba can encourage skeptics in Congress to
mobilize. As a counterargument to a continued embargo, the President
can point to the dangers associated with failed states like Somalia
inadvertently caused by the very environment sanctions create. A strong
communication strategy to gain American support coupled with a softening Cuban
American stance, shrouded in economic opportunity, could encourage
Congressional dialogue and resolution. President Obama can succeed if he sets
realistic goals and expresses these to the American public before the media or his
opposition defines these.
POLITICSPLAN POPULAR/PUBLIC
Removing the Embargo is widely popular across the board
Reid 12 --- Doctorate Professor of Sociology
Angus, Most Americans Willing to Re-Establish Ties with Cuba (02/06/12)
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/44366/most-americans-willing-to-re-establish-tieswith-cuba/ JMR
A majority of respondents also wants to lift the travel ban that prevents most Americans from
visiting Cuba. People in the United States are ready to change their countrys
interaction with Cuba, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found. In the online survey of
a representative national sample of 1,008 American adults, three-in-five respondents (62%) agree with
the U.S. re-establishing diplomatic relations with Cuba, while one-in-four (23%) disagree. Majorities
Most Americans (57%) believe it is time to lift the travel ban that prevents
most Americans from visiting the island. Half of Americans (51%) would lift the
trade embargo with Cuba that has been in place since the 1960s, while three-in-ten (29%)
disagree. Most Democrats (53%) and Independents (55%) support ending the embargo, but
Republicans are not as convinced (46%). The notion of supporting non-governmental groups in Cuba in
order to foster protests against the current regime did not resonate with Americans. Across the
country, only 35 per cent of respondents endorse this course of action. Two-thirds of
http://www.cubafoundation.org/why-2.html ///JMR
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WANT A NEW POLICY TOWARD CUBA. Every recent poll of
Americans, including surveys from independent pollsters, shows a majority of
Americans favors lifting the U.S. embargo -- with even bigger majorities favoring an
end to other embargo-era policies. Americans want to lift the embargo by a
margin of 52-to-32 percent, according to a Cuba Policy Foundation poll
conducted in 2001 by a nonpartisan independent polling firm. By a 63-to-33
percent margin, Americans believe lifting the embargo would be the most
effective way to bring democracy to Cuba. And by a 63-to-24 percent
margin, Americans want the U.S. to start a formal dialogue with Cuba now.
Support for important incremental changes in U.S. policy is even stronger.
Overwhelming majorities want to lift the U.S. ban on travel to Cuba (67-to24 percent); to allow American companies to sell food to Cuba (71-to-22
percent); and to allow American companies to sell medicine to Cuba (76to-17 percent).
may have had a profound effect on the Cuban economy, but the embargo
has been a singular failure in its primary mission to unseat the Cuban
dictator. And that has prompted a growing movement in the corridors of
power to reconsider the policy. Once the preserve of dedicated liberals and lefties,
opposition to the U.S. embargo on Cuba these days is an ever-expanding tent. The recent
congressional effort to relax aspects of the embargo was led by farm-state Republicans and echoed a
growing consensus even inside the GOP. The National Bipartisan Commission on Cuba, whose calls for
a comprehensive review of U.S. policy have thus far been rebuffed by President Clinton, includes not
only 16 GOP Senators (and eight Democrats), but also some of the GOP foreign policy heavyweights
lined up by the Bush campaign, including former Secretaries of State Kissinger, Schultz and
Eagleburger. And that's hardly surprising, since ending the embargo has long been
excuses, and interaction with the U.S. will hasten the collapse of his
archaic system. What's good for China is good for Cuba: China is a lot more repressive than
Cuba, and yet we've normalized trade relations with Beijing on the argument that trade will hasten
POLITICSGOP SUPPORTS
Republicans supports lifting the embargo-Reforms and failed
policy
Vogler 13
Dalton Vogler, in charge of research and writing articles February 25, 2013 Raul
Castro Brings Cuba Closer to Democracy
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/daltonvogler/2013/02/25/cuba-and-democracyn1520110
The succession of his brother Fidel Castro in 2006 led Raul to make numerous social
and economic changes, including lenience on travel constraints and the promotion
of private businesses. With Cubas growth limited by U.S. trade embargoes, new
talks are emerging to stop additional restrictions. Even prominent Republican
leaders such as former vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan support lifting the
embargo, the Cato Institute reports: The embargo doesnt work. It is a failed
policy. It was probably justified when the Soviet Union existed and posed a threat
through Cuba. I think its become more of a crutch for Castro to use to
repress his people. All the problems he has, he blames the American
embargo. Conservative politicians looking to repair their fractured message to
constituents could benefit from lifting the embargo. An end would demonstrate
Americas approval of Cubas progress, and a willingness to support Cuba
in transitioning away from socialist policies. As it stands this policy costs the
U.S. over $1 billion dollars in trading each year and prevents Cubans from
experiencing the benefits of capitalism. This isnt the same Cuba of thirty
years ago. Diplomat Wayne Smith predicts [a] younger, more liberal
generation of Cuban Americans with no memory of life in Cuba is coming
to the fore. For the first time in years, maybe there is some chance for a
change in policy.
Support for the Republican Party also is falling. According to some exit polls
Barack Obama narrowly carried the Cuban American community in November, after
receiving little more than a third of the vote four years ago. He received 60
percent of the votes of Cuban Americans born in the U nited States.
Barack Obama increased his votes among Cuban Americans after
liberalizing contacts with the island. He also would have won the
presidency without Florida, demonstrating that the state may not be
essential politically.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Florida since 2005. n17 In fact, a policy that eventually normalizes relations
with Cuba would probably carry votes in Florida, and the rest of the
south. n18 These domestic changes mean that the U.S. can more easily
reorient its Latin American policy to encourage constructive engagement
that inspires optimism and hope rather than fear and anger.
Acting Assistant Administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean and Senior Advisor at the
Organization of American States and as a senior professional staff member on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, Cuba policy in a second Obama term, Foreign Policy,
http://shadow.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/11/13/cuba_policy_in_a_second_obama_term, ACC. 6-12013, JT//JEDI
Critics of current U.S. policy towards Cuba have already begun speculating what
unilateral changes may be in store for that contentious relationship during President
Obama's second term. By winning the state of Florida -- home to the highest
concentration of Cuban exiles -- despite implementing some initiatives in his
first term that were opposed by Cuban Americans in Congress, President
Obama, in their view, can be aggressive in further liberalizing policy
without fear now of any political fallout (although widely reported exit polls
that suggested up to 48 percent of Cuban Americans voted for Obama have been
debunked by CapitolHillCubans.com).
As Anya Landau French pointed out ... in The Havana Note, and Phil Peters in
the Cuban Triangle, Cuban Americans voted for Obama in record numbers.
Recent reports suggest that Obama secured 48 percent of the Cuban-American
vote, edged out only slightly by Romney. Obama, who liberalized people-to-people
travel, dropped the Bush administrations hostile rhetoric toward Cuba, and allowed
Cuban-American families to visit Cuba as much as they want and send as much
money to Cuba as they want, increased his percentage of the CubanAmerican vote by ten points. The size of the shift is especially significant:
Until this year, Bill Clintons 1996 campaign had held the position as most
successful Democratic campaign ever in garnering Cuban-American votes. On
Tuesday, Obama surpassed Clintons numbers.
Also, on Tuesday night, the hardline blocs historical dominance of CubanAmerican politics was finally broken: Rep. David Rivera was defeated by
moderate Cuban-American Joe Garcia. Rivera introduced several pieces of harsh
anti-Cuba legislation, including an amendment to turn back travel regulations to
the George W. Bush era. After a bizarre election scandal, in which Rivera allegedly
funneled thousands of dollars in cash to support a previously unknown primary
challenger, Garcia defeated Rivera by ten points.
Americas embargo on Cuba began its 53rd year this fall, and its hard to
find anyone who thinks its working. Even Cuban-Americans who hate the
Castro brothers and fervently insist that the embargo remain in place
generally agree that it has accomplished little, if anything.
Still, said Jaime Suchlicki, a Cuban migr who is the director of the Cuba Transition
Project at the University of Miami, do you give away a policy that has been in place
for 50 years, whether you think its right or wrong, good or bad, effective or not
for nothing? Without a quid pro quo from Cuba? Suchlicki came to the United
States in the first wave of Cuban refugees in 1960 after the communist revolution.
His hardline views mirror those of many in his generation. And for decades, it
dominated the Cuba discussion in Florida, a state presidential candidates have long
believed they need to win to be elected.
But today the Cuban-American population is more diverse, as the U.S.
presidential election last month showed. Previously, Cuban-Americans
regularly voted in favor of Republicans, who are generally staunch
embargo supporters, by 4 to 1. This time, President Barack Obama won half
their vote.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
First, leadership changes in both countries allow each to signal a new way
forward without necessarily repudiating long-held positions. Both
governments have signaled a willingness to talk, which is already a step in
the right direction. Specifically, within the United States, demographic changes in
the Cuban-American community have led to attitudinal changes toward
U.S.-Cuban relations. Florida International University's yearly polls have
shown a trend whereby an increasing number of Cuban-Americans are
opposed to the current U.S. policy of economic and political isolation.
In 2008, those polls indicated that a majority of Cuban-Americans opposed
the restrictions on family travel and remittances. n15 These polls also
indicated that long-term demographic trends are breaking in the
Democrats' favor: the divide is now between older Cuban Americans who
still vote Republican, and the younger generation, increasingly more
numerous, who lean Democrat. Not only did President Obama outpace Senator
John Kerry's 2004 performance by ten points, but he won the twenty-nine or
younger Cuban-American vote with fifty-five percent. n16 This shift in
public opinion, combined with the fact that President Obama won Florida's
electoral votes during the 2008 election despite narrowly losing the Cuban vote,
gives the Administration a freer hand to construct a new policy with
relatively little political costs.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Implementing these recommendations will not be easy, but they certainly are not as
insurmountable as some will claim. President Obama was the first Democrat to
win Florida's Hispanic vote, and nearly tied Senator John McCain in the
Cuban-dominated Miami-Dade County. n159 While in 2004 President Bush won
55% of the Hispanic vote, President Obama bettered that number by winning over
57%, compared to only 42% for Senator McCain. This emerging political climate
has given the President enough room to maneuver around those who hope
to continue the failures of the status quo.
now many more new young Cuban Americans who support a more sensible
approach to Cuba.
A2: XO
Only Congress can end the embargo. It requires repealing the
Torricelli & Helms-Burton Acts
Johnson, et al, Sept. 16, 10, Andy Johnson, Director, National Security Program, Kyle
Spector, Policy Advisor, National Security Program, and Kristina Lilac, National Security Program, End
the Embargo of Cuba, Third Way, ACC. 6-1-2013,
http://content.thirdway.org/publications/326/Third_Way_Memo_-_End_the_Embargo_of_Cuba.pdf,
JT//JEDI
Although the Obama administration took the largely symbolic step of extending
the embargo for another year under the Trading with the Enemy Act last year, the
President did relax some longstanding restrictions by taking action to make
it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit and send remittances to family
members in Cuba. The administration also recently hinted at plans to reduce travel
restrictions for academic, cultural, and religious groups later this year.12 While the
executive branch can continue to chip away at these longstanding
restrictions, the law requires that Congress will ultimately need to pass
legislation to repeal the embargo.
Under existing law, established by the Helms-Burton Act, the embargo cannot be
lifted until the Cuban people democratically elect a new government and the
transition government is in place. While President Obama could take an initial
step by refusing to issue the annual extension of Cubas national
emergency status under the Trading with the Enemy Act,13 lifting the
embargo will ultimately require that Congress pass and the President sign
into law legislation to repeal both the Torricelli Act and the Helms-Burton
Act. Passing HR 4645 would be a positive first step, but Congress will need to take
further action to see that the embargo is lifted in its entirety.
Castros political and economic paradigm. Only in the last 40 years, with the
development of the Commission for the Protection of the Environment and the
Conservation of Natural Resources (COMARNA), has Cuba begun to address growing
environmental concerns. COMARNA consolidated all of the agencies with
environmental responsibilities, as a step towards giving them the power
to influence all environmental issues. Although COMARNA was all-inclusive, it
lacked independent authority, so its activities achieved few tangible
results. The sad fact was that the centralized agency only succeeded in
aiding the state in squandering resources.
How
Cuba became the newest hotbed for tourists craving sex with minors, Miami Herald, ACC. 5-26-2013,
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/16/v-fullstory/3289971/how-cuba-became-the-newesthotbed.html, JT//JEDI
Arianne Plasencia, J.D., Georgetown Univ. Law Center, 9, SEX TOURISM IN MODERN CUBA:
AN OUTGROWTH OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY'S FOCUS ON FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM, The
Georgetown Journal of Gender and the Law, 10 Geo. J. Gender & L. 999, //SH
Cuba's increasing reliance on foreign tourism and the economic strife that resulted
after the fall of the Soviet Union provided the optimal conditions for a resurgence in
prostitution in the 1990s. However, the prostitution of this era was unlike that of
pre-Revolutionary Cuba, where both wealthy Cuban citizens and foreign tourists
utilized the services of prostitutes. Instead, prostitution in modern Cuba has
taken the form of sex tourism. Sex tourism--travel to a country to engage
in sexual activity for hire with its native population--has been an
outgrowth of Cuba's increasing reliance on the tourism industry, and the
free-market system that accompanies it, to sustain its economy. In order to
compete in the globalized capitalist world, Cuba has taken a free market approach
to foreign trade and investment. At the same time, it has insisted upon a socialist
stance domestically. The resultant conflict between these two systems has found
expression in the increase in prostitution in Cuba in the last two decades.
How
Cuba became the newest hotbed for tourists craving sex with minors, Miami Herald, ACC. 5-26-2013,
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/16/v-fullstory/3289971/how-cuba-became-the-newesthotbed.html, JT//JEDI
prostitution, but there is no hard evidence against her, she may be arrested for
loitering around tourist hangouts. n102
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CONTINUES...
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debate practice promotes ignorance of these issues because debaters
appeal to conventional form, the expectation of judges that they will
isolate a single link to a large impact Feminists become feminism and
patriarchy becomes the sole cause of all evil. Poor causal arguments
arouse and fulfill the expectation of judges by allowing us to surrender our
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relationships.
mainstreamfeministstoabdicateresponsibilityfortheexerciseofclassandraceprivilege.Itcaststhestruggleagainstclassexploitationandracismassecondaryconcerns
The UN has urged the US to lift the 52-year trade embargo with Cuba in an almostunanimous vote. Cuba likened the blockade to genocide and said it was
disappointed that Obama had not taken measures to lift the disputed embargo. Of
the 193 members of the UN assembly, 188 voted to abolish what is widely
perceived as an illegal blockade. The only two nations that got behind the US were
Israel and the Pacific nation of Palau, while two countries abstained from the vote.
This is the 21st year running that the UN has decried the American economic
sanctions against the island nation. Cubas Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez
addressed the assembly, voicing Cuban disappointment that despite Obamas
pledge to open a new chapter in Cuban-American relations on assuming
office four years ago, no steps had been taken the lift the crippling
embargo. "The reality is that the last four years have been characterized by the
persistent tightening of the embargo," he said. The Cuban government has
calculated that since the blockade was enforced in 1960 the total financial damage
to Cubas economy is around US$3 trillion. Rodriguez qualified the maintenance
of the embargo as tantamount to genocide and a massive, flagrant and
systematic violation of the human rights of the people of Cuba. He criticized
America for what he called a costly double standard for wasting hundreds of
millions of dollars from the taxes that are paid by US citizens in the useless and
illegal subversion against Cuba. US president Barack Obama has taken measures
to facilitate US travel to the island nation, but has thus far refrained from taking any
further steps to lift the embargo. The US justifies its stance by saying it is waiting for
signs of changes in Cubas political regime and improvements in the island states
human rights record. The embargo was originally introduced with a view to
crippling Cubas communist regime, which took power in the country following the
1959 revolution headed by Fidel Castro. A loyal friend? In fact, US envoy at the
UN assembly, Ronald D. Godard argued the embargo is one of the tools in our
overall efforts to encourage respect for the human rights and basic freedoms to
which the United Nations itself is committed. Cubas resolution seeks to identify
an external scapegoat for the islands economic problems when they are principally
caused by the economic policies that Cuban government has pursued for the past
half century, Godard said. He stressed that the US was a loyal friend to Cuba
and it is working to empower Cubans who wish to determine their own future.
Citing the case of Alan Gross, a US citizen who was arrested in Cuba and currently
serving a 15-year sentence for setting up internet networks on the island, Godard
said his imprisonment had halted diplomatic proceedings with Cuba. Minister
Rodriguezs speech was greeted by thunderous applause, while Godards was met
with comparative silence at the assembly vote. Cuba has offered to work in
tandem with the US in areas such as the fight against drug trafficking,
terrorism and human trafficking. However, Washington has affirmed that
its policy towards Cuba will remain intact for the time being .
(Committee on Foreign Relations 111th Congress, Staff Trip Report to the Committee on
Foreign Relations United States Senate). February 23, 2009. CHANGING CUBA POLICYIN
THE
UNITED STATES NATIONAL INTEREST. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CPRT111SPRT47260/pdf/CPRT-111SPRT47260.pdf Accessed 7/9/13 //SH
Some of the common factors are local conditions that make populations want to
migrate in search of better conditions: poverty, oppression, lack of human
rights, lack of social or economic opportunity, dangers from conflict or
instability and similar conditions. Political instability, militarism, civil
unrest, internal armed conflict and natural disasters may result in an
increase in trafficking. The destabilization and displacement of populations
increase their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse through trafficking and forced
labour. War and civil strife may lead to massive displacements of populations,
leaving orphans and street children extremely vulnerable to trafficking.
Foundation Options for Engagement A Resource Guide for Reforming U.S. Policy toward Cuba, April,
accessed 6-25-2013, http://www.lexingtoninstitute.org/library/
resources/documents/Cuba/USPolicy/options-for-engagement.pdf, JT//JEDI
Whichever options the President and the Congress may choose to exercise,
suggested herein or elsewhere, each should avoid embracing a conditionbased policy on Cuba. The government of Cuba has indicated that it is not
moved by U.S. offers in exchange for internal political changes. U.S.
efforts are likely to see greater success if they center on protecting and advancing
American security and economic interests, nurturing a constructive bilateral
dialogue on difficult issues, and broadly contributing to greater economic and
political openness and opportunity on the island.
Security Strategy Towards Cuba," Strategy Research Project, www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518053, ACC. 6-11-2013,
JT//JEDI
Experts argue over whos started the dispute between nations: was it the Cuban Agrarian Reform Act in 1959 that nationalized
agrarian land in Cuba to include U.S. owned lands? Could it have been Cubas decision to resume trade with the Soviet Union that
led to a U.S. imposed embargo on Cuba in 1960? Perhaps the bigger issue was how diplomatic, economic and military efforts by
both countries continued to aggravate already strained relations.16 In 1961, Cuban exiles supported by the Central Intelligence
Agency failed to topple the Castro government. The Bay of Pigs fiasco sent Cuba a clear signal that the U.S. was not interested in
negotiation. Castro answered immediately by allowing Soviets to position nuclear missiles in Cuba, threatening U.S. vital security
and leading to the Cuban Missile Crises. These intentions have survived to the present undermining any attempt to pursue common
Security Strategy Towards Cuba," Strategy Research Project, www.dtic.mil/cgibin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf&AD=ADA518053, ACC. 6-11-2013,
JT//JEDI
Weve established that coercive means have failed to achieve democracy and
economic stability in Cuba. Im suggesting there is another mutually beneficial
alternative. Using China as an example, their exposure and need to compete in free
global markets broadened their horizons and shifted their hard line communist
approach to international diplomacy. This was a feat that coercive diplomacy has
not accomplished in Cuba. Yet we still have civil disagreements with China on
human rights issues, Taiwans right to independence and other contentious issues
without resorting to coercive measures. Why should Cuba receive different
treatment? The confusion lies with our tendency to impose democracy as a
precondition for diplomatic relations. How can Cuba subscribe to small business
practices, a free economy building block, if business opportunities are not available?
Diplomatic engagement and economic encouragement has a better
chance. Cubas economic condition incentivizes their willingness to begin
diplomatic negotiations. The U.S. should begin by focusing efforts to
3.3: The current policy may drag the United States into a military conflict with
Cuba. Military conflict may be inevitable in the future if the embargos
explicit goal creating an insurrection in Cuba to overthrow the
government is achieved, and the United States may not be ready to step
in. As Ratliff and Fontaine detail, Americans are not prepared to commit the
military resources [] (Fontaine 57), especially after unpopular wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Much like Americas current situation with isolated rogue states
such as Iran and North Korea, Cubas isolation may also lead to war for other
reasons, like the American occupation of Guantanamo Bay. These
consequences are inherently counterproductive for the democratization of
Cuba and the improvement of human rights.
WAR IMPACT
Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina, Department of
Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst, It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo
of Cuba, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-itssenseless-embargo-of-cuba/, ACC. 6-1-13, JT//JEDI
The trade embargo makes even less sense today. The United States has never
been shy about doing business with both international human rights
violators as well as former foes, from Vietnam, to China, to Russia, to Saudi
Arabia, to North Korea and even Libya. Yet because the U.S. government has
allowed a portion of its foreign policy to be held hostage largely by a small but
politically vocal group of anti-Castro South Florida Cuban emigres, the island
continues to be singled out for irrational special treatment.
A2: INCREMENTALISM CP
A2: PICS
Small reforms failOnly fully lifting the embargo empowers
Cubans
Cuba Study Group, Feb. 13, Restoring Executive Authority Over U.S.
A2: PICS
Postal negotiations prove small policies fail without lifting the
whole embargo
EIN News, June 21, 2013, U.S., Cuba Edge Closer to Cold War Thaw, In
There is a sound reason for unilaterally lifting the trade and travel
embargoes without first seeing positive actions from the Cuban
government. From Cuba expert Carlos A. Saladrigas, Co-Chairman, Cuba Study
Group, We can go back in the history -- in the 50-year history of United States-Cuba
relations and clearly see that any time we begin to see a little bit of
relaxation of tensions in the relationship, whenever we begin to see a little bit
of openness on the part of the United States or Cuba, historically the Cuban
government has done something to counteract that trend and significantly
revert back to their playbook. 40 The United States needs to take the initiative
away from the Castro regime, and have them react to actions they have
publicly called for (removal of the embargo), but in reality are unsure of the
second and third order effects and their ability to control the outcome.
General K Answers
The scientific method proves no one root cause of violence
Homer-Dixon 2001
(Thomas, associate professor of political science and Director of the Peace and
Conflict Studies Program at the University of Toronto Environment, Scarcity and
Violence, pg. 7)
Some skeptics argue that environmental scarcity is rarely an important cause of violent conflict!' Clearly, as 1
will stress in the following chapters. environmental scarcity by itself is neither a necessary nor sufficient cause:
there are many conflicts around the world in which environmental scarcity plays little role; and, when it does
play a role. it always interacts with other contextual factorsbe they physical or socialto generate violence.
But this fact should not lead analysts to the conclusion that environmental scarcity is always unimportant. After
it is hard to identify any cause of violence that is, by itself, either necessary or
sufficient: the causes of specific instances of violence are always interacting sets of
factors. and the particular combination of factors can vary greatly from case to case. If
all,
of anticipating the demise of our species. Indeed, as argued here, there are
compelling reasons for encouraging this collective mind-shift. For in the best
of all possible worlds, the realization that our species has long-term
General K Answers
No error replication at best your K is a partial takeout
Emory M. Roe, 1994, Executive Director, Center for Sustainable Resource
Development, THE SHARP EDGE OF THE SWORD, Transition, Issue 64, pp. 113169, JT
The distaste that some critics in the responses have for working in or with government, a. k. a. the state, is
palpable. Plucking up "development" between the tweezers of twin scare quotes is about as close as these
academics want to get to something that smells so foul wherever they stand. If government builds the road it
planned, it's criticized for "development;" if it fails to build the road, it's criticized because its plans are based on
wrong assumptions (Ferguson's book is studded with examples of a critic's having it both ways). Thus, the
What
this frequently leaves us-you, me, everyone-with are critics who
provide at times truly insightful analysis, until they get to the
section of their publications variously titled, Policy Implications.
Then everything falls apart. Here the critic recommends, say, massive land reform, no
to undertake? But what critic wants to take sides with "the state," and one prone to error at that?
matter how politically unfeasible or practically unimplementable it is. Addressing questions of political feasibility
would mean they'd have to know a great deal about the workings of government bureaucracies, and they know
quite enougha boutt hata lreadyt,h anky ou very much! Anyway, the critic's real role is to critiquey, es?A lwaysc
ritiquea ndt hereby standi n oppositiont o the state,n o matter if this continuing stance raises nettlesome
questions like, Just how does permanent critique determine when the future will be more acceptableth an the
present,t he present more acceptable than the past? What is or is not acceptable surely has somethintgo do
with politicalf easibility, doesn't it? Who needs to "chase off' or banish such critics, when they left years ago, of
their own accord. BruceR obbinst, hough,i s correct" the freedom of critical analysis that is a prerequisite to
social theory" should not be curtailedo r obliterated.I t is what these social theorists try to do with or expect
from their critique that everyone must probe further.
road to extinction and its related agonies does indeed lie ahead.
Consistent with this prospect, the risks of human extinctionand the cost-benefit of
attempting to reduce these riskshave been quantified in a recent sobering
analysis (Matheny 2007).
A2: CAPITALISM
Cuban wont let removing the embargo foster capitalist
transition
Gordon G. Chang 2-20-8, In Defense of the Cuban Embargo, Commentary,
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2008/02/20/
in-defense-of-the-cuban-embargo/, ACC. 6-14-2013, JT//JEDI
Even if we lift the embargo , Castros successors will not allow their
economy to be overrun by American tourists, investors, and corporate
executives. Fidels legitimacy, we should remember, is largely founded on his
ridding the island of foreign exploiters and his creating home-grown socialism.
Cuban leaders, in any event, would allow only enough commerce to
maintain their regime, just as North Koreas Kim Jong Il is doing today. It is a
Fukuyama-induced fantasy to think that history has ended and that we can rid
ourselves of despicable autocrats with just letters of credit and bills of lading. The
Castro boys, Fidel and successor Raul, have survived just about everything during
five decades and are not about to surrender to globalization.
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
The final principle is that Cuba must reiterate and must focus its policies on the
bedrock of the nationsocialism. As described in the Cuban Constitution,
socialism is transformative in creating a new and just society, [socialism] is
irrevocable, and Cuba will never return to capitalism.142 By maintaining the
view that Cubas globalization occurs within the larger framework of Cubas
socialist ideology, Cuba can effectively protect itself from possible
neoliberal policies that threaten the core of its system. Cuba may
globalize effectively without changing its ideology; it must make it
abundantly clear that the only globalization that can save humanity and preserve
the human species is a socialist globalization.143 Thus, Cuba allows for
harmonization essential to the maintenance of the Cuban economy
without betraying the foundational elements of the Cuban identity. In
reaffirming the central tenets of Cubas ideology, Cuba may take charge of
its globalization and carefully guide its citizens into the global economy
without exposing itself to the possible pitfalls of neoliberal globalization .
A2: CAPITALISM
Cuba will resist neoliberal globalization. Raul will maintain
Marxism in philosophy while adapting to engagement.
Economic harmonization wont lead to homogenization
Heather E. Shreve, 12, J.D. Candidate, 2012, Indiana University- Maurer School
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
Although the end result of the Cuban economic reforms remains unknown, Cuba
serves as an illustration of the limitless flexibility of globalization to
create linkages, interplay, and engagement between the global economy
and the stateeven an ideological state that would be thought to resist
globalization. In short, Cubas economic reforms buck the assumption of
many theorists that Cuba could not or would not globalize and show that,
in globalization, the state reconfigures itself to be a global actor and to
engage in various models of engagement. No state is immune from
globalization; however, not all states must globalize in the same model.
Globalization, in short, is a transformative process by which forces at all
levels, from local to international, exert pressure on the decision making process of
states to harmonize with the policies and the practices of other countries;
however, while this results in similarities, globalization is not
homogenization. Therefore, it is possible for Cuba to enter the globalized
economy and to harmonize their economic policies with those of other
countries while retaining its Marxist-Leninist philosophy.
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
Ultimately, all of the forces found in these theories make it difficult for a state like
Cuba to resist change, as predicted by Larry Cat Backer. 127 Moreover, globalization
itself accounts for all of these changesit is both the transformative trigger and the
answer to Cubas motivation to reform. From a case study of Cuba, a historically
resistant country, the overwhelmingly unavoidable nature of globalization becomes
obvious; in the words of Fidel Castro, globalization is an inevitable phenomenon. 128
However, the mere fact that globalization is inescapable for Cuba does not
mean that Cuba must change its ideological basis or goals in order to
globalize; Castro conditioned his declaration by saying that globalization
was not inevitable if it was an imposition of neoliberal globalization. 129
Today, under the leadership of Ral Castro, it is clear that, contrary to
Backers 2004 prediction, a fundamental change of ideology is not a requisite
for Cuban reform.130 Instead, Cuba changes its economy within the context
A2: CAPITALISM
Raul wont let China or the U.S. their models of globalization
Heather E. Shreve, 12, J.D. Candidate, 2012, Indiana University- Maurer School
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
Many of the changes implemented and issues raised for debate by Ral
Castro show the vast differences between his leadership and philosophy
with that of Fidel Castro. To begin, Ral Castros role as the former defense
minister,70 the most profitable state agency,71 lends itself to an entirely different
manner of governance, one in which Castro takes the view that Cuba can no longer
afford the bloated and paternalistic state he inherited from Fidel, and the states
payroll should be linked to productivity.72 Included in Castros goal for increased
productivity are a restructuring of the economy, a reduction in spending on
universal education and healthcare, phasing out ration book to be replaced with
targeted help, and granting wide autonomy to state companies with expectations
that they will pay their own wayand [be] liquidated if they do not, and can set
up joint ventures with foreign companies to create jobs.73 These changes, while
marking change in Cuba, show the Cuban state reconfiguring itself, albeit
out of necessity, to remain an actor within the globalized world. Although
changes exist, they are done in the context and by the power of the
Cuban government , not in accordance with the U.S. or Chinese model of
state engagement.
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
The very fact that Cuba is reluctant to globalize or is not globalizing for
altruistic, market-based reasons does not negate the significance of its
reforms. Indeed, the importance of the reforms is that Cuba, as a state, decides to
implement changes, albeit in a new model, to remain in power and to engage the
global economy. Moreover, in the context of globalization, the fact that these
changes are not accompanied with fundamental changes to the Cuban
Marxist-Leninist framework is an even stronger argument that global
harmonization does not require ideological homogenization, linear
changes, or a simplistic one world model. Globalization is infinitely flexible,
complex, and diverse.
Globalization in todays world no longer requires homogenization; Cuba
does not need to either adopt a neoliberal or Maoist version of economics to
globalize. Instead, it can remain Marxist-Leninist while entering into the
global economy. Just as neoliberal policies are not the only concept of
A2: CAPITALISM
Cuba will globalize, but wont accept capitalism
Heather E. Shreve, 12, J.D. Candidate, 2012, Indiana University- Maurer School
of Law, Harmonization, But Not Homogenization: The Case for Cuban Autonomy in
Globalizing Economic Reforms Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies, 19:1, Winter
2012, pp. 365-390, JT//JEDI
Despite Backers assertion that Cuba, as a state, must relinquish its power and
conform to a prevalent form of engagement, such as capitalism, Cuba has
since shown that it will globalize without doing so . Instead, Cuba is a global
actor by its own choice, without withering as a state, and by creating its own model
of engagement in conformance with its ideology. Indeed, Cuba cannot and will
not resist globalization; it must globalize to survive. And yet, while Cuba
globalizes, it does so in its own manner, in accordance with its own
history, culture, and ideology.
A2: CAPITALISM
Reforms in SQ wont change Cubas central planning economy
Azel, 11, senior scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies ,
Jose, So Much For Cuban Economic Reform (Jan/10/2011), ACC 7/5/2013,
http://relooney.fatcow.com/SI_FAO-LA/Cuba_17.pdf /// JMR
With his characteristic intellectual wit, Cuban writer Carlos Alberto Montaner defines
communism as "the time countries waste between capitalism and capitalism." By
this account, the Cuban government is now in its 52 nd year of wasted time waiting
for prosperity. Much has been made of economic reforms promised by Ral
Castro, including by the Cuban president himself. "We can either rectify
the situation," Gen. Castro recently stated, "or we will run out of time
walking on the edge of the abyss, and we will sink." But one look at the
economic platform for the VI Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, now
scheduled for April 2011, and it's clear nothing much will change. The "Draft
Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy"a 32-page document that proposes to
chart Cuba's economic future affirms that "the new economic policy will
correspond with the principle that only socialism [i.e., Cuban communism]
is capable of conquering the difficulties." The document persistently
emphasizes Gen. Castro's militaristic themes of increased efficiency, discipline and
control. It insists, for example, on setting prices according to the dictates of central
planning. It also insists that any new "nonstate" (private sector) economic
activities not be allowed to lead to the "concentration of property" (that
is, the accumulation of wealth). There is no interest in introducing the
market socialism of a Deng Xiaoping, who famously told China's people in
1984 that "to get rich is glorious." It is not surprising that Ral and his
fellow generals are more comfortable with the chain of command of a
centrally planned economy than with the vicissitudes of a market
economy. More baffling is their failure to understand core principles of economic
development. After much debate and with trepidation, the Cuban economic
"reformers" have decided to permit the 500,000 to 1,300,000 Cubans being fired
from state jobs to solicit permits to become self-employed in certain activities. It is
instructive to examine a handful of the 178 trades and professions that
are supposed to help rescue the economy. Trade No. 23 will be the
purchase and sale of used books. Trade 29 is an attendant of public bathrooms
(presumably for tips); 34 is a palm-tree pruner (apparently other trees will
still be pruned by the state). Trade 49 is covering buttons with fabric; 61 is
shining shoes; 62 is cleaning spark plugs; 69 is a typist; 110 is the repair of
box springs (not to be confused with 116, the repair of mattresses). Trade 124 is
umbrella repairs 125 is refilling of disposable cigarette lighters; 150 is fortunetelling with tarot cards; 156 is being a dandy (technical definition unknown, maybe
a male escort?); 158 is peeling natural fruit (separate from 142, selling fruit in
kiosks). This bizarre list of permitted private-sector activities will not drive
economic development. But it does reveal the regime's totalitarian mindset. Here
Cuban technocrats foreshadow the degree of control they intend to impose by
listing the legal activities with specificity. These are not reforms to unleash the
market's "invisible hand" but to reaffirm the Castros' clenched fist. One
does not have to be an economist to appreciate that the refilling of disposable
cigarette lighters, for example, will not contribute in any measure to economic
development. In his economic dream land of surrealist juxtapositions, Ral believes
that improved state management is the way to save the communist system. The
desire for control by the military and the Communist Party of every aspect of Cuban
life is antithetical to the individual liberty and empowerment necessary to bring
about an economic renaissance. Raul Castro, president of Cuba, and commander
of its armed forces, will affirm that "central planning and not the market will
be supreme."
A2: CAPITALISM
THE PLAN IS AN IMPOSSIBLE DEMAND THAT SHATTERS THE
ALTERNATIVE PROBLEMATIQUE: THE COMBINATION OF THE
PLAN AND ALTERNATIVE FUNCTION AS THE OPTIMAL ACT OF
RESISTANCE. THE MERE PROPOSAL AND DEBATE ABOUT THE
PLAN CAN CREATE CLASS AWARENESS WITHIN THE SYSTEM
SOLVES ALL THEIR OFFENSE
Erinc Yeldan, prof. of economics at Bilkent University, May 10, 7, More
in these terms is a
trap to be avoided. I suggest that the quest for alternatives should be
pursued at both levels, that is, we need to specify defensive policies
to remedy the working conditions of the laboring masses within a
capitalist system not to achieve desired ends per se, but to invoke
the arguments as a demonstration that alternatives do exist and yet
cannot be implemented because they conflict with the interest of
the ruling classes. Thus, the strategy here is to create class
awareness within the capitalist system. Then at a further level of
strategy, we can make our case for life after capitalism, that is,
socialism .
A2: SECURITY K
of the Board of Advisors of the Institutes Center on Global Prosperity & a Research
Fellow and Curator of the Americas Collection at the Hoover Institution, February 1,
2013, Cubas Tortured Transition,
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=3541, ACC. 6-15-2013,
JT//JEDI
Americas post-Cold War embargo on Cuba is a clear example of failed
international interventionism. Making sanctions work, Henry Kissinger wrote in
the Los Angeles Times, depends on the ability to define an achievable objective.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the United States has not had such an objective in
its policy toward Cuba. Our policy, intended to isolate Cuba, has isolated the United
States.
This has been most blatantly demonstrated for the past twenty-one years by the
United Nations General Assemblys annual call to lift the embargowhich Havana
demagogically calls a genocidal blockadebecause it adversely affects Cubans
and the freedom of international trade. (The vote in 2012 to condemn the
embargo was 188 to 3.) Cuba today does not warrant this extraordinary isolation. In
2010, former Senator Richard Lugar, then the top-ranking Republican on the Foreign
Relations Committee, correctly noted: We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our
current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S.
interests.
has used to impose restrictions on the civil liberties of the population is that the
country is under a national emergency due to long-standing hostility of the United
States. If there is a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, it would create pressure
for a
re-assessment of the nature of the perceived threat, and foment
discussion about the many political projects that exist within Cubas
nationalist camp and its population in general.
A2: IMPERIALISM K
The embargo is blatantly imperialistic. The plan reverses this
hypocrisy
William Ratliff, 9, Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and a member of
the Board of Advisors of the Institutes Center on Global Prosperity & a Research
Fellow and Curator of the Americas Collection at the Hoover Institution, Why and
How to Lift the U.S. Embargo on Cuba,
http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=2496, ACC. 6-15-2013,
JT//JEDI
The United States demands more concessions from Cuba for recognition than
from any other country in history. In fact, the Helms Burton Act is blatantly
imperialistic ,
in the spirit of the Platt Amendment to the Monroe Doctrine a century ago, which poisoned U.S. relations
Lifting the embargo would unleash a new dynamic and put full
responsibility for Cuban rights violations and economic failure squarely on
Cubas leaders where it belongs.
We can hope, but cant guarantee, that ending the embargo will encourage
real domestic reforms in Cuba. We can guarantee that it will rid us of a
demeaning, hypocritical and counterproductive policy.
A2: IMPERIALISM K
Lifting the Cuban Embargo ends US economic imperialism in
Latin America
Lawson-Remer, PhD and Director of the Counsel of Foreign
Affairs, 13
Terra, La Verdad, 2013
http://www.yaleherald.com/archive/xxvii/1999.01.22/opinion/p10remer.html /// JMR
Although clothed in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, the trade
embargo is fundamentally a tool of economic imperialism. When President Bill Clinton, LAW
'73, said that "the overarching goal of American policy must be to promote a peaceful transition to democracy on the island [of Cuba]," he wasn't telling
the full truth. Clearly, Cuban-style democracy wouldn't qualify as "free" by most definitions. Yet other nations with far worse human-rights records,
. Hiding behind
the rhetoric of liberty in dealing with Cuba is supremely hypocritical. The
real motive behind U.S.-Cuban policy is economic imperialism, not
democracy. American involvement with Cuba dates back to the SpanishAmerican War, when the United States forced Cuba to add an amendment to its constitution allowing the U.S. to intervene in Cuba's
internal affairs. Political imperialism gradually gave way to economic imperialism.
including Guatemala, China, Chile, and Indonesia, have received U.S. economic and political support despite their atrocities
By the eve of the Cuban revolution, foreign corporations, with the complicity of Fulgencio Batista's repressive regime, owned the vast majority of Cuban
assets. Consequently, the U.S. lent covert military support to dictator Batista from 1957 to 1959 by sending weapons and intelligence to fight Castro's
rebel army. Even after the revolutionaries came to power in 1959, the CIA continued to sponsor a counter-revolutionary army within Cuba. It's no wonder
that in 1960, when the revolutionaries nationalized Cuba's extensive wealth, they failed to compensate U.S. companies, while corporations from nations
that hadn't fought against the rebels were adequately paid. This seizure of property was the primary reason for the Cuban embargo. As Michael
Ranneberger, the State Department's Coordinator for Cuban Affairs, said,"One of the major reasons for the imposition of the embargo was the Cuban
Government's failure to compensate thousands of U.S. companies and individuals."
the vestige of an imperialistic policy, dating from 1901, which has been characterized by U.S.-backed dictators and
the Bay of Pigs fiasco. Now that the "democracy defense" of the Cuban embargo has been exposed as a farce, what is left to defenders of the status quo
policy? Cuba remains a communist nation, defying free trade laws, the trend toward global capitalism, and the U.S. corporate appetite for profit. One could
say, in the rhetoric of the Cold War, that the U.S. is simply standing strong against the communist menace 90 miles from our shore. Yet it seems evident
that the small island off the shore of Florida poses no security threat to the United States. More importantly, communism has been good to the Cuban
people. The infant mortality rate in Cuba is one of the lowest in the world (12 per 1,000 live births). Life expectancy in Cuba far exceeds that in the rest of
Latin America (73.5 years as opposed to, for example, 64.3 years in Ecuador). The illiteracy rate has declined from 25 percent of the population before the
revolution (mid-'50s) to 4 percent in the mid-'90s. It's important to note that all this was achieved without the support of the U.S., the World Bank, or the
International Monetary Fund. Perhaps Soviet support until 1989 compensated for the lack of global financial involvementbut it's doubtful. More
importantly, Cuban farm workers now have access to potable water, decent housing, education, and health care at a rate almost unparalleled in the rest of
Latin America. Before the revolution, Cuba had a higher GNP, but it was concentrated in the hands of the very rich. Today the wealth of Cuba benefits
every Cuban. Cuba is not an island paradise. Although the Cuban people have, on the whole, benefited from communism, the system is currently close to
collapse. This is due primarily to the loss of its largest trading partner, the USSR, as well as to inherent economic inefficiencies. The lack of a free
democracy in Cuba also remains an important issueit's impossible to support a system that denies full freedom to its citizenry. So what stance should
regain prosperity and establish democracy, Cuba must make the transition from a state-planned economy under Castro to a market economy under a
communism. While laissez-faire capitalism would wipe out all the gains achieved under communism, a non-capitalist market economy could create
prosperity without poverty. It's time to eschew the hackneyed rhetoric extolling the virtues of capitalism, admit that communism has been far more
beneficial to the majority of Cubans than rampant capitalism was before the revolution, and lift the Cuban embargo.
A2: IMPERIALISM K
U.S. sanctions against Cuba are remnants of an
imperialist/colonialist policy
Lamrani, Expect in Cuban Affairs for La Sorbonne Univeristy,
10
Salim, U.S. Economic sanctions against Cuba: objectives of an imperialist policy
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Caribbean/USEconomicSanctions_Cuba.html ///
JMR
Cuba is no doubt the oldest preoccupation of U.S. colonialists. As far back as October 20,
1805, Thomas Jefferson evoked the extreme importance of the Caribbean archipelago under Spanish rule at the time stating: "The control which, with
Florida Point, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it,
would fill up the measure of our political well-being." However, Spain could rule the island until "our people is sufficiently advanced to take those
territories from the Spanish, bit by bit" . In 1809, in a letter to James Madison, he wrote: "I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most
interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States." The theory of the "ripe fruit" evoked in 1823 by one of the most clear-sighted and
intelligent political visionary of the history of the United States, John Quincy Adams mentioned "an object of transcendent importance to the commercial
and political interests of our Union" that was to fall in the hands of the United States at all costs . This object was the Cuban island, which was already the
priority of the United States government of the time. After the collapse of Napoleon's empire, the Monroe doctrine came into the world. It stipulated that
the United States would on no account accept European interventions in the affairs of the American hemisphere. It would enable the northern giant to
establish its power on the whole continent without hindrance, since Europe would not interfere. The theory was first motivated by Russian designs on
attempts to buy the island to Spain, Cuba was in the U.S. line of sight . In 1890, U.S. investments in Cuba amounted to $50 million and 7% of U.S. foreign
trade was with the island. Spain spent $7 million on Cuban imported goods whereas U.S. imports from the archipelago amounted to $61 million. U.S.
economic interests entailed the need for the U.S. to closely control the Cuban market in order to protect U.S. investments . The main objective of U.S.
intervention in the Cuban war of independence against Spain in 1898 was to prevent Cuban revolutionaries to gain their sovereignty. Indeed, in January
1896, the captain-general of the island Martnez Campos, who was in charge of military Spanish operations, resigned, admitting that he was powerless to
stop the rebels who had managed to infiltrate into the distant province of Pinar Del Ro, at the extreme West of Cuba. In talks with Spain in June 1896, the
United States put forward the possibility of granting Cuba home rule status. This idea aimed at ruining the independence movement and infuriated Maceo
second-in-command of the Cuban army of independence who flatly turned down the idea . Although the Spanish army outnumbered Cuban freedom
fighters and despite its overwhelming material superiority, Cuban rebels were winning one victory after another and their prestige among the Cuban
population and the Latin-American public was growing day by day. The Russian ambassador in La Havana wrote to his counterpart in Spain that "the cause
of Spain [was] lost" . In the same way, Colonel Charles E. Akers, the London Times correspondent, wrote: "With an army of 175,000 men, all kinds of
equipment in unlimited quantity, a beautiful weather, no or few diseases, with everything working in his favor, General Weyler was unable to defeat the
rebels. " Mximo Gmez, commandant of the Cuban revolutionaries, declared on March, 1, 1898: "the enemies are crushed and retreating and when they
had the opportunity to do something, they didn't do anything." This was exactly at that time that the United States decided to intervene, when Spain was
put to rout. The U.S. wanted to despoil the Cuban people of its independence, an independence that had been conquered with machetes. U.S. Democrat
Senator from Virginia John W. Daniel accused the U.S. government of intervening to prevent a Spanish defeat: "When the most favorable time for a
revolutionary victory and the most unfavorable time for Spain came the United States Congress is asked to put the U.S. army into the hands of the
President to forcibly impose an armistice between the two parties, one of them having already surrendered." The armistice was signed on December, 10,
not take on anymore. After they had suffered from Spanish colonialism, Cubans were to endure U.S. neo-colonialism and their northern neighbor was going
to "build an empire at the expense of Spain" . On January, 1st, 1899, after the Spanish troops had left, the Stars and Stripes not the Cuban flag was
hoisted in the sky of La Havana. The ripe fruit had at last fallen into the hands of the United States . After it had taken hold of almost all sectors of the
Cuban economy, the United States intervened several times to maintain the status quo, notably in 1912, 1917 and 1933 when protests were repressed in
a bloodbath. Before the 1959 revolution, U.S. companies owned 80% of services, mines, ranches and oil refineries, 40% of the sugar industry and 50% of
railways . The Batista regime enjoyed Washington benevolence because it wonderfully served U.S. economic interests. Cuba had to wait until 1959 to
taste the fruit of independence that had been forbidden to its people for almost half a millennium. But again Cuba would have to pay the highest possible
varied according to time. During the Cold War, the "communist threat" that Cuba represented was the paradigm in use although any serious study would
smash this theory to pieces. Indeed, in 1959, there was no Soviet presence in Cuba. But Washington stuck to that interpretation: Cuba represented a
A2: DEVELOPMENT/POVERTY
Cubans Dont Want to be Poor & want help
Sweig, Rockefeller, 12 -Director of Latin American Studies, Council of
Foreign Relations,Julia, Nelson, David, The Frozen U.S.-Cuba Relationship,
(2/28/12),http://www.cfr.org/cuba/frozen-us-cuba-relationship/p27510 /// JMR
How strong is the Cuban society's desire to move beyond the one-party system? It's
very strong. Public opinion is complicated because on the one hand, Cubans want
change and they want much more space--economic space, speech space. I
would say political party space, like having a multi-party system, that's not
the top priority for Cubans. But what is a top priority is having the opportunity
to make good for themselves with the wonderful education they have and
to run businesses and to have the state get out of the way, while
continuing to provide the basic social services that the entire population
has benefited from and gotten so accustomed to.
prejudice , ever since Western imperialism invaded Asia beginning in the early
19th century. Notwithstanding that it is natural, ceteris paribus, that the country
with the world's largest population, an ancient culture and long history would again
be a big player in the world economy as it modernizes, the fear that China might
soon gain advantages of labor, capital and even technology that would
allow it to dominate the world economy and gain the strategic advantages
that go along with such domination is enough to push the world's only
superpower openly to contemplate preemptive strikes against it.
Furthermore, Chinese culture commands close affinity with the peoples of Asia, the
main concentration of the world's population and a revived focal point of global
geopolitics. Suddenly, socio-economic Darwinism of survival of the fittest,
celebrated in the United States since its founding, is no longer welcome by US
policymakers when the US is no longer the fittest and the survival of US hegemony
is at stake. To many in the US, particularly the militant neo-conservatives,
international trends of socio-economic Darwinism now need to be stopped
by war.
Neither the United States nor China is likely to be keen on fighting the other. But as
has been demonstrated, the "China threat" argument, for all its alleged
desire for peace and security, tends to make war preparedness the most
"realistic" option for both sides. At this juncture, worthy of note is an interesting
comment made by Charlie Neuhauser, a leading CIA China specialist, on the
Vietnam War, a war fought by the United States to contain the then-Communist
"other." Neuhauser says, "Nobody wants it. We don't want it, Ho Chi Minh doesn't
want it; it's simply a question of annoying the other side." (94) And, as we know, in
an unwanted war some fifty-eight thousand young people from the United States
and an estimated two million Vietnamese men, women, and children lost their lives.
Therefore, to call for a halt to the vicious circle of theory as practice
associated with the "China threat" literature, tinkering with the current
positivist-dominated U.S. IR scholarship on China is no longer adequate.
Rather, what is needed is to question this un-self-reflective scholarship
itself, particularly its connections with the dominant way in which the U nited
States and the West in general represent themselves and others via their
positivist epistemology, so that alternative, more nuanced, and less
dangerous ways of interpreting and debating China might become
possible.
The high probability is that the United States and China will be the two
superpowers of the early 21st century and our living together in peace
will be essential to the prosperity if not the survival of the world.
Robbie Fergusson 12, Researcher at Royal Society for the Arts, Featured
Contributor at International Business Times, Former Conference & Research
Assistant at Security Watch, Former Researcher at University College London,
Master of Science, China in the International Arena, The University of Glasgow, The
Chinese Challenge to the Monroe Doctrine, http://www.e-ir.info/2012/07/23/doeschinese-growth-in-latin-america-threaten-american-interests/, ACC. 6-7-2013,
JT//JEDI
The China threat theory, as already mentioned, is dangerous in itself for its
portrayal of China as a problem. Rather than viewing China as a nation
with malign intent, it is perhaps better to understand the problem as
inherently structural, as China is on the rise and the US wants to
maintain its unipolar dominance [125] - this means that while
disagreement and conflict are still possible, both sides should recognise
the other is acting out of the self-interest that is required to sustain the
system as a whole.
The Escobarbarians
conducted by four international companies on a giant Chinese-built, Italian-owned semi-submersible oil rig worried both
environmentalists and critics of Cubas Castro regime. But the operation was largely a bust and only two of the participating companies are still in the
region: Malaysias Petronas and Gazprom, from Russia. Theyre operating in a partnership and are now only conducting some seismic work, Pion said.
The first company to work on the rig, Spains Repsol, closed its Cuban offices. And Petroleos de Venezuela, or PDVSA, is going through too many financial
difficulties to invest again in the risky Straits, according to Pion. The area near the Bahamas where Zarubezhneft is exploring is much shallower around
2,000 feet below the surface as opposed to 6,000 feet in the Straits. This makes it a more attractive place for companies like Zarubezhneft to search for
offshore fossil fuels. Valentina Matvienko, speaker of the Russian Federation Council the countrys equivalent of the U.S. Senate pledged in a May
interview with Cubas state-run Granma newspaper continued investment and involvement in Cubas offshore energy projects. We are currently
negotiating a broad range of projects relating to energy, and Russian companies such as Zarubezhneft are actively involved in oil prospecting in Cuban
waters, and this work is going to continue, Matvienko said. But the company might not use the Songa Mercur when it returns, according to oil industry
sources. One of the reasons Zarubezhneft is leaving Cuba is because the rig was having equipment difficulties. Instead, Zarubezhneft may come back in a
drill ship, a traditional seagoing vessel with oil-drilling capabilities. However, Lee Hunt, president emeritus of the International Association of Drilling
Contractors, said finding a ship that complies with the 52-year-old U.S.-imposed trade embargo against Cuba could be difficult. Such a vessel must have
fewer than 10 percent of its parts made in the United States. If the ship is not compliant with the embargo, companies using it could face U.S. sanctions.
Geir Karlsen, a Songa Offshore spokesman, told The Reporter his company has no agreement with Zarubezhneft to take the Mercur back to Cuba. Russia
and Cuba are not the only countries hoping the Cuba/Bahamas maritime border abounds with crude. The Bahamas Petroleum Co., based out of the Isle of
Man, received permission to begin exploratory offshore drilling in the region ahead of a referendum that would give Bahamians a say in the future energy
development of their country. This means drilling in the Old Bahamas Channel, south of the Andros Islands, could begin by 2014. The BPC is looking to
partner with another oil company in its search for oil. The company is also seeking European investors. Since the area is so close to the Zarubezhneft site,
Russias success there could reap BPC a financial windfall. Good news in Cuba would have helped in the search for much-needed capital and/or possible
joint venture partners, Pion said. A discovery on the Cuban side would have certainly helped their development momentum. Natalia Erikssen, a BPC
spokeswoman, said the company plans to begin drilling next year regardless of Zarubezhnefts success or failure in the region. It wont have anything to
Jorge (April 2013) Who benefits and loses if the US-Cuba embargo is lifted?,
http://devresearchcenter.org/2013/04/08/who-benefits-and-loses-if-the-us-cubaembargo-is-lifted-by-jorge-a-sanguinetty/
Who benefits and loses if the US-Cuba embargo is lifted? The answer depends on
the conditions under which the embargo is lifted. I focus on the expected
distribution of benefits (and costs) between the government and the Cuban
population. A unilateral move by the US Government, without any quid pro
quo by the Cuban government can be expected to yield significant benefits
to the official establishment with benefits of an unknown magnitude to the
population at large. I posit that the magnitude of the latter depends on the
degree of internal liberalization of the Cuban economy. Until Raul Castro
took over, the centralized command of the Cuban economy was subject to
a set or constraints arguably more restrictive than the US embargo. What I
have called the internal embargo consisted in the Cuban government outright
prohibition for Cubans to own enterprises, freely employ workers or trade
domestically and internationally. To many Cubans, probably a majority, such
constraints were the main cause of the country s secular economic crisis.
Lifting the US embargo under such circumstances was reasonably
expected to yield most of the economic and political benefits to the Cuban
government and limited economic and no political benefits to the
population. With the recent partial economic (not political) liberalization
policies implemented by Raul Castro, we can expect that the distribution
of economic benefits would be more favorable to the Cuban people. Such
new economic freedoms carry a dose of informal political freedoms as
Cubans are able to develop relationships among themselves that were
tightly constrained until recently, like freedom of assembly, to communicate,
and to make transactions and agreements without the tutelage of the
government. To wit, as the private sector develops because the government is
forced to reduce the inflated payrolls of its enterprises, the authorities lose control
on those newly liberated workers
Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of U.S. policy toward Cuba is its false
assumption that democratic capitalism can somehow be forcibly exported
from Washington to Havana. That assumption is explicitly stated in the
Helms-Burton law, whose first purpose is to assist the Cuban people in regaining
their freedom and prosperity, as well as in joining the community of democratic
countries that are flourishing in the Western Hemisphere.
But the revolution in democratic capitalism that has swept the Western Hemisphere
has had little to do with Washingtons efforts to export democracy. Rather, it has
had to do with Latin Americas hard-earned realization that the free-enterprise
system is the only system capable of providing self-sustaining growth and
increasing prosperity.
Even though Cubaunlike other communist countries, such as China or Vietnam,
with which the United States actively trades has not undertaken meaningful
market reforms, an open U.S. trade policy is more likely to subvert its
system than is an embargo. Proponents of the Cuban embargo vastly
underestimate the extent to which increased foreign trade and investment
can undermine Cuban communism even if that business is conducted with
state entities.
With Cuba cautiously introducing free-market changes that have legalized hundreds
of thousands of small private businesses over the past two years, new economic
bonds between Cuba and the United States have formed, creating new challenges,
new possibilities and a more complicated debate over the embargo. The
longstanding logic has been that broad sanctions are necessary to suffocate the
totalitarian government of Fidel and Ral Castro. Now, especially for many
Cubans who had previously stayed on the sidelines in the battle over Cuba
policy, a new argument against the embargo is gaining currency that
the tentative move toward capitalism by the Cuban government could be
sped up with more assistance from Americans. Even as defenders of the
embargo warn against providing the Cuban government with economic lifelines,
some Cubans and exiles are advocating a fresh approach. The Obama
administration already showed an openness to engagement with Cuba in 2009 by
removing restrictions on travel and remittances for Cuban Americans. But with Fidel
Castro, 86, retired and President Ral Castro, 81, leading a bureaucracy that is
divided on the pace and scope of change, many have begun urging President
Obama to go further and update American policy by putting a priority on assistance
for Cubans seeking more economic independence from the government.
Maintaining this embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is
strengthen and embolden the hard-liners, said Carlos Saladrigas, a Cuban
exile and co-chairman of theCuba Study Group in Washington, which advocates
engagement with Cuba. What we should be doing is helping the reformers.
Replacing the all-encompassing state with one that allows greater space
for voluntary interaction requires strengthening elements of civil society,
that is, groups not dependent on the state. That development is more likely to come
about in an environment of increased interaction with outside groups than in an
environment of isolation and state control.
Supporters of the embargo casually assume that Castro wants an end to the
embargo because he believes that step would solve his economic problems. Despite
his rhetoric, Castro more likely fears the lifting of the U.S. sanctions. It is difficult to
believe, for example, that he did not calculate a strong U.S. response when he
ordered the attack on two planes flown by Cuban-Americans in early 1996. But as
long as Castro can point to the United States as an external enemy, he will be
of
The U.S. government has waged economic war against the Castro regime
for half a century. The policy may have been worth a try during the Cold War, but
the embargo has failed to liberate the Cuban people. It is time to end
sanctions against Havana.
Decades ago the Castro brothers lead a revolt against a nasty authoritarian, Fulgencio Batista. After coming to power in 1959, they
created a police state, targeted U.S. commerce, nationalized American assets, and allied with the Soviet Union. Although Cuba was
but a small island nation, the Cold War magnified its perceived importance. Washington reduced Cuban sugar import quotas in July
1960. Subsequently U.S. exports were limited, diplomatic ties were severed, travel was restricted, Cuban imports were banned,
Havanas American assets were frozen, and almost all travel to Cuba was banned. Washington also pressed its allies to impose
sanctions. These various measures had no evident effect, other than to intensify Cubas reliance on the Soviet Union. Yet the
collapse of the latter nation had no impact on U.S. policy. In 1992, Congress banned American subsidiaries from doing business in
Cuba and in 1996, it penalized foreign firms that trafficked in expropriated U.S. property. Executives from such companies even were
banned from traveling to America.
However, the end of the Cold War left Cuba strategically irrelevant. It is a
poor country with little ability to harm the United States. The Castro
regime might still encourage unrest, but its survival has no measurable
impact on any important U.S. interest.
The regime remains a humanitarian travesty, of course. Nor are Cubans the only victims: three
years ago the regime jailed a State Department contractor for distributing satellite telephone equipment in Cuba. But Havana is not
the only regime to violate human rights. Moreover, experience has long demonstrated that it is virtually impossible for outsiders to
force democracy. Washington often has used sanctions and the Office of Foreign Assets Control currently is enforcing around 20 such
programs, mostly to little effect.
The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power.
Indeed, it has consistently used the embargo to justify its own
mismanagement, blaming poverty on America. Observed Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton: It is my personal belief that the Castros do not want to see an end
to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with the United States,
because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasnt happened in Cuba in
the last 50 years. Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group
argued that keeping the embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is
strengthen and embolden the hardliners.
State Department, America's Cuba Policy: The Way Forward: A Policy Recommendation for the U.S.
State Department, Harvard Latino Law Review, 13 Harv. Latino L. Rev. 187, JT//JEDI
Second, reforms recently enacted in Cuba indicate that the post Fidel
Castro leadership is more likely to embrace pragmatism. In recent years, and
especially since Raul Castro took over the presidency from his brother Fidel, Cuba's
leadership has slightly moderated its political repression. While Cuba still holds
political prisoners in custody, the total number is down from 316 in July 2006, when
Raul took the helm from his brother, to less than 170 today - the lowest total since
Fidel Castro seized power in 1959. n19 However, these political changes have
been small, and do not yet represent structural or fundamental reforms in the long
term, especially since they are all easily reversible. Nevertheless, these political
changes, combined with small economic liberalizations in the agricultural,
technological, and tourist sectors, represent the first significant reforms
under the new leadership of Raul Castro.
Russia hopes that the US decision to ease the blockade of Cuba may be followed
by other moves that would fully lift the blockade.
This came in a statement by Russian Ambassador to the United Nations Vitaly
Churkin after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution urging
Washington to give up its trade embargo thats been in place with regard
to Cuba for 51 years now.
The US has recently somewhat eased the blockade. It has specifically removed the
restrictions concerning visits by US citizens to their relatives in Cuba, as well as
allowed cash remittances.
Churkin feels that the unilateral US sanctions have proved incapable of
affecting the Cuban peoples choice of the model of social development,
but have only served to lower the living standards of the island countrys
population.
No impact
David E. Hoffman 12, contributing editor to Foreign Policy 10.22.12 // sb
www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/10/22/hey_big_spender?page=full
Despite tensions that flare up, the United States and Russia are no longer
enemies; the chance of nuclear war or surprise attack is nearly zero. We
trade in each other's equity markets. Russia has the largest audience of
Facebook users in Europe, and is open to the world in a way the Soviet Union
never was.
Staff;; GLOBAL ZERO U.S. Nuclear Policy commission REPORT, May 2012 //sb
http://orepa.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/cartwright-report.pdf
These illustrative next steps are possible and desirable for five basic reasons.
First, mutual nuclear deterrence based on the threat of nuclear retaliation
to attack is no longer a cornerstone of the U.S.-Russian security
relationship. Security is mainly a state of mind, not a physical condition, and
mutual assured destruction (MAD) no longer occupies a central
psychological or political space in the U.S.-Russian relationship. To be sure,
there remains a physical-technical side of MAD in our relations, but it is
increasingly peripheral. Nuclear planning for Cold War-style nuclear conflict
between our countries, driven largely by inertia and vested interests left over
from the Cold War, functions on the margins using outdated scenarios
that are implausible today. There is no conceivable situation in the
contemporary world in which it would be in either countrys national
security interest to initiate a nuclear attack against the other side. Their
current stockpiles (roughly 5,000 nuclear weapons each in their active deployed
and reserve arsenals) vastly exceed what is needed to satisfy reasonable
requirements of deterrence between the two countries as well as vis--vis third
countries whose nuclear arsenals pale in comparison quantitatively.
senior editor 9/27/2011, Global Insights: Putin not a Game-Changer for U.S.-Russia
Ties, // sb
http://www.scribd.com/doc/66579517/Global-Insights-Putin-not-a-Game-Changer-for-U-SRussia-Ties
Fifth, there will inevitably be areas of conflict between Russia and the
United States regardless of who is in the Kremlin. Putin and his entourage can
never be happy with having NATO be Europe's most powerful security
institution, since Moscow is not a member and cannot become one. Similarly,
the Russians will always object to NATO's missile defense efforts since
they can neither match them nor join them in any meaningful way. In the case
of Iran, Russian officials genuinely perceive less of a threat from Tehran than do
most Americans, and Russia has more to lose from a cessation of economic ties
with Iran -- as well as from an Iranian-Western reconciliation. On the other hand,
these conflicts can be managed, since they will likely remain limited
and compartmentalized. Russia and the West do not have
fundamentally conflicting vital interests of the kind countries would go
to war over. And as the Cold War demonstrated, nuclear weapons are a
great pacifier under such conditions. Another novel development is that
Russia is much more integrated into the international economy and
global society than the Soviet Union was, and Putin's popularity
depends heavily on his economic track record. Beyond that, there are
objective criteria, such as the smaller size of the Russian population and
economy as well as the difficulty of controlling modern means of social
communication, that will constrain whoever is in charge of Russia.
However, a great deal has changed after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Unable to even feed itself, much less extend the socialist revolution beyond its
borders, Cuba has become a mere shadow of what it once was. Its military
has been hamstrung for more than two decades by the most austere of
means. As a result, the FAR has been relegated to little more than a
residual and defense force which poses no security risk to the U.S. or
other countries in the hemisphere into the foreseeable future.52
Though its military decline has devastated the islands power projection, it
continues to court substitute replacements to past Soviet patronage.
Militarily these solicitations epitomize the adage that the enemy of my enemy is
my friend. The most obvious candidate is the current country of its old state
sponsor, Russia. Over the last few years, relations with Russia have
rekindled. While lacking its historic ideological alignment, the longstanding
alliance against the U.S. still has significant geo-political appeal to both
countries. As recently as 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev visited Havana
for those purposes. Later that same year, the Russian Navy made its first port call
on the island in several decades. Ral Castros reciprocated with a Moscow visit the
following year. A closer parallel to the USSR-Cuban alignments, China has also
intensified its affairs with the GOC. Also in 2008, Chinese Paramount Lead Hu
Jintao visited Cuba. During the visit, the communist countries signed dozens of
agreements including significant Foreign Direct Investments to upgrade the islands
oil refining capabilities.53 Finally, Cuban-Iranian relations have significantly
intensified over the course of the last decade. 54 As recently as January 2012,
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visited Ral Castro during a Latin American tour which U.S.
Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida aptly called a tour of tyrants.55
A Cuban military capability that all of these countries would certainly like
to leverage is Cuban intelligence penetration of the U.S. Because of
relatively low cost of the human-centric spying, GOC has grown
exceptionally capable in this threat. Brian Latell, a CIA agent who has led
Cuban analysis, has affirm just that, Theyre one of the best intelligence
services in the world theyre comparable in a way to the Israeli intelligence.
Theyre very focused on a couple - one or two very central core issues. They do
those missions very, very well.56 This threat will endure as long as Cuban
Bosch, two ex-CIA men given safe haven in this country, despite their involvement in large-scale murders and many other terrorist
crimes. Both spent years in Venezuelan jails for masterminding the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. Both had
long terrorist histories. Bosch, who died two years ago, headed an exile group that claimed responsibility for 11 bombing attacks
against Cuban properties. The Justice Department accused him of more than 30 acts of sabotage and he was jailed for four years in
this country. Attorney General Richard Thornburgh described Bosch as "an unrepentant terrorist." He was ordered deported in 1988.
But at the urging of Jeb Bush, then a Florida businessman and later the state's governor, his father, President George H.W. Bush,
overruled the deportation order, allowing Bosch to spend his last 21 years as a free man in Miami. He died at 84. Posada, 85,
remains alive and free in Miami. Two employees of his private detective agency confessed to the airline bombing and said he put
them up to it. He denied it. He escaped jail in 1985 and, despite his record, was rehired by the CIA to help supply the Nicaraguan
Contras. Authorities say Posada was responsible for dozens of terrorist bombings. He boasted to theNew York Times that he planned
the 1997 bombings of seven Havana hotels and restaurants that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 other people, but later denied
it. He was jailed in Panama for four years after a failed plot to assassinate the visiting Fidel Castro. Posada has been in the U.S.
since his illegal entry in 2005. A judge wanted to deport him but refused to send him to Venezuela or Cuba, the only countries willing
to accept him (so they could try him). The judge said he'd be tortured if sent to either. Today, cleared of all charges, he's a hero to
many Cuban-Americans. There are much worse defects in U.S.-Cuba policy than the fact that the island is on our terrorist lists. Our
53-year-old trade embargo is a miserable failure. Travel restrictions make Cuba the only country our government won't allow most
nothing is as
hypocritical and morally reprehensible as our terrorism policy. We claim to
be fighting a global war on terrorism. But our government has given aid,
comfort and safe haven from justice to some of the world's worst
terrorists.
Americans to visit. Our far-too-lax immigration rules uniquely for Cubans are ridiculously outdated. But
believe that Cuba is a state sponsor of terrorism." Removing Cuba from the list
would improve relations with Cuba and all of Latin America, which sees U.S. policy
toward Cuba "as a reflection of U.S. attitudes toward the region as a whole," Thale
said.
The decision to retain Cuba on the list surprised some observers of the
long-contentious relationship between Havana and Washington. Since
Fidel Castro retired five years ago and handed the reins of power to his younger
brother, Raul, modest economic reforms have been tackled and the
government has revoked the practice of requiring Cubans to get exit visas before
they could leave their country for foreign travel.