If only Kennedy could see this now. Castro was the bane in JFK's side during his entire tenure as president: failed assassination attempts, Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs and the sheer amount of disinformation campaigns launched throughout the 60's and beyond. However, Feb 19, 2008 El Presidente Fidel Castro has stepped down as leader of communist Cuba without the need of a coup, assassination or a political uprising.
Effectively ending a 49 year reign as leader of Cuba. But what is next for Cuba? Already President Bush and European leaders are clamoring for democracy and commercial ties with the island nation. But why? The reason goes to the heart of the 'we don't trade with despotic dictators or communist nations' rhetoric of the past. We have subsidized and maintained failed communist and dictatorial regimes throughout the world that committed far more egregious acts of human rights violations. Why then was Cuba so different?
The answer is simple enough, when Castro took control of the country in 1959 he ousted President Batista, a long time friend of America and an adept student in pseudo-capitalist corruption. To Washington though, this was seen as a major affront to their efforts in controlling South America through puppet regimes. To make matters worse Castro nationalized most of the industries and kicked out the casino/tourist mob cartel. Washington again became increasing worrisome over this little revolution taking place 90 miles of its southern most coast.
The final straw was the Cuban Missile crisis that took place in the early 60's under JFK's administration. We cut off all ties and refused to recognize the government - rightly so. Once the missiles were removed and the situation stabilized the economic sanctions should have been lifted, like it has been throughout our contemporary history. A lot of good could have come through trade with Cuba over these last 50 years; We would have had another close neighbor to which to sell our goods. The founding fathers talked about spreading liberty and freedom through good will so that others may emulate our success. It's quite possible that Cuba would have come around but why didn't America give them a chance?
The western powers had a personal grudge against Castro. Plain and simple our leaders in Washington didn't like the man and hated the fact that our neighbors would side with Russians. However, as time went on it was a more subtle and dishonest reason for keeping the embargo in place. Lobbyists and Special Interest groups wanted the embargo because the government in a sense gave these corporations a monopoly in their relations with Cuba.
At present, the embargo which limits American businesses from trading or conducting business with Cuban interests is still in effect, making it one of the few times in history that United States citizens have been restricted from doing business abroad, and is the most enduring trade embargo in modern history. Despite the existence of the embargo, the United States is the seventh largest exporter to Cuba (4.3% of Cuba's imports are from the US).
After lobbyists from America's agribusiness successfully won significant ground with the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act they essentially had a government sanctioned monopoly which limited the amount of competitors allowed to trade with Cuba.
Although many in congress and the senate favor a free-market approach to Cuba, similar in scale to that of Malaysia, Taiwan and China. It is doubtful it will come to fruition. America has no real ideology aversion to trading with dictators and violators of human rights, just ones who refuse to bow before the U.S., the WTO and the UN. Until Cuba makes great strides to join the international globalist movement via the WTO the markets will remain closed. In the meantime, government sanctioned monopolies will continue to reap the benefit of a misguided foreign policy.
©2008 jposty, all rights reserved. You must have written permission from the author in order to republish this work.
Published: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Last modified: Tuesday, February 19, 2008
The views expressed in this article are those of jposty only and do not represent the views of Nolan Chart, LLC or its affiliates. jposty is solely responsible for the contents of this article and is not an employee or otherwise affiliated with Nolan Chart, LLC in his/her role as a columnist.
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Reader Comments:
Posted By: Chad_Underdonk
Date: 2008-02-19 09:02:41
Based on what I heard on NPR this morning it seems that Castro is simply down, but not out. Initially after the revolution Castro was apparently not the President either, but he still held all the prestige and effectively all the power.
Even while Raoul has nominally been running Cuba for nearly 2 years he has had made statements about their economy, foreign relations, or energy policies, which have often been "shouted down" by Castro's "opinion" articles about the direction of Cuba. The NPR point was that even without being President he will likely continue to make statements that will counterbalance or limit the effectiveness of anyone else trying to make changes.
Posted By: Aguila1
Date: 2008-02-19 10:52:22
Very honest assessment of the situation. I think it bears noticing that the embargo was in place, before the missile crisis. Let it be said that the Cuban experience and the Cuban-American relationship are as much a failure of socialism as a political system, as it is a failure of US foreign policy - both examples of coercive government and coercive foreign and domestic policy. Lose-lose diplomacy.