The Cuban embargo: Facts and fiction | Opinion

The island-wide protests that rocked Cuba on July 11 have left observers wondering about what happens next and what ought to be the role of the United States in the face of the people’s demands for freedom and the regime’s widespread repression.

Not surprisingly, the controversial role of the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba is once again being debated.

Should the embargo be tightened hoping that a few more turns of the screw will bring about the downfall of the Cuban communist regime? Or should the embargo be lifted, so that the Cuban regime can no longer use it as a pretext for its own economic failures?

The “embargo” is not much of an embargo and hardly the “blockade” that for decades the Cuban regime has been proclaiming it to be. Cuba trades with the rest of the world and actively trades with the United States (under the strict rules of the embargo). Cuba’s economic woes are internal, not external, and largely a function of the failed system that is communism. The decrepit Cuban economy can barely produce goods to feed its people, much less to trade with other nations.

Tightening the embargo by one country, no matter how strong that country may be, will not bring about regime change in Cuba, for a number of reasons.

First, as stated above, Cuba can always trade with the rest of the world and unless the regime unleashes a massacre against unarmed protesters, its European partners (mainly Spain) will not impose economic sanctions on the regime.

Second, economic pressure by one actor is unlikely to bring the regime down. Cubans have endured economic deprivation for decades and the regime has learned to weaponize their resilience, asking for more sacrifices when it is politically feasible to do so (and blaming the U.S. “blockade” for their misery).

Third, domestic espionage and repression are widespread and fairly effective within Cuba. Vocal opponents and other potential “subversives” are well known by the regime, routinely monitored, and quickly rounded up as threats emerge (as was the case during the July 11 protests). And fourth, domestic opposition to the Cuban regime up until recently, has largely been ineffective, atomized, and unorganized.

For an embargo to work, it must be in the form of collective action. The prime example is the worldwide effort to end human rights abuses in South Africa to end apartheid.

The Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986 imposed economic sanctions against the apartheid regime. The act isolated South Africa and highlighted its brutalization and oppression of its own people, and its aggression against neighboring states. This sort of collective action simply has never occurred against the Cuban regime.

The so-called blockade does not prevent Cuba from trading with other countries. Thus, the embargo is simply not an embargo when Cuba has long-had trade partners other than the U.S.

So, should the embargo be loosened? As the bitter experience of Obama’s rapprochement with Cuba showed, granting economic benefits without substantial concessions from the regime is not sound policy and only lends Cuba’s authoritarian regime a lifeline.

Moreover, the U.S. embargo is a political being with a life of its own—both for Cuba and for the United States—and getting rid of it now would have major political repercussions. First, it would force the United States to acknowledge that the embargo has been an abject failure. If the ultimate goal of the embargo is to effect regime change, then we have been pursuing the wrong policy for decades.

Second, U.S. politicians (particularly Cuban Americans and their allies in Congress) are deeply invested in the embargo and cannot let go of it without significant political costs for their careers. Florida is a crucial state in national politics and upsetting a key demographic over the Cuban embargo has domestic consequences. And third, it is unlikely that the Cuban regime will agree to changes that would imperil its grip on power in exchange for a few economic concessions. If the “U.S. blockade” has become the symbolic culprit behind Cuba’s failed economic policies, why would the Cuban regime let go of one of its remaining trump cards?

The U.S. embargo has put the United States in an unenviable position (of its own making) vis-à-vis Cuba. If the United States truly wants regime change, which it should for human rights reasons alone, this country should use its influence on the world stage and insist on collective action. When the Kennedy Administration imposed the embargo in 1962, the United States should have remained resolute. This is not a republican or a democrat issue.

This is a human rights issue. When Mexico resisted the embargo and eventually the OAS lifted sanctions in 1975, the United States should have used its influence and responded.

It should have made the human rights issue in Cuba a priority. U.S. politicians simply have failed to do so: democrats appear to only give lip-service to the human rights abuses in Cuba, with some even appearing to have an odd affinity for the regime, and republicans simply dismissively turn to the issue every four years during presidential elections, obviously recognizing the power of the Cuban vote in the key swing state of Florida.

Such tactics are both weak and frankly abusive. If the United States is the beacon for liberty, it should act in that fashion and lead. It should call, hell insist, on collective worldwide action to end the Cuban regime.

What is it waiting for?

Ediberto Roman is a Professor of Law & Director of Immigration and Citizenship Initiatives at Florida International University; Ernesto Sagás is a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at Colorado State University.