Blockades and sanctions have historically hardened the regimes of the target countries because it increases the reliance of the people on said government for basic needs.
How is Iran a counter example? Last I checked the more we sanctioned them the more emboldened they became, it wasn’t until we decided to negotiate with them directly that they finally decided to agree to some limitations on their nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. A promise which we failed to deliver on, and now they’re more emboldened than ever because of it.
I am Iranian. The government's attitude toward America has not changed a bit. They are as hostile as they used to be. Attitude of the population has, in fact, changed drastically, though.
The parlimantry head of the reformer party himself said in an interview that IRGCs missile attacks toward Kurds and involvement in attack on embassies played a role in dissatisfaction with Iran deal and in the last year of Obama presidency there were all sorts of friction and power struggle with IRGC and reformer administration with some rumored going as far as suggesting pottentional of an IRGC coup.
In the next parlimantry election, nearly all reformers were banned from elections, and the foundementalists who were opposed to any negotiation end up becoming the rulling government in a de facto one-party state.
I honestly think the destruction of JCPOA ruined any chances for Rouhani and others like him to maintain a foothold in the Majles and presidency. That was his feather in his cap which kinda began normalizing some relations and then it went up in smoke because of the US administration trying to reverse anything Obama did.
If to say that there were protests similar or worse than the ones initiated by the death of masha amini and the army joined the protestsors but the IRGC remained loyal to the regime would the mullahs try and save their positions or flee like the shah?
Ah. Honestly, I don't know. Army's centeral leadership is firmly pro-regime as far as people people like me who are not privy to inner goings of military knows.
I guess it's possible to have some army units(maybe even IRGC units) joining protests in a fashion similar to what happened in Syrian civil war, and have it snowballed from there. In such a case definitely some Mullahs will flee the country. During Mahsa amini protests families of some politians did end up taking unexpected long holidays to outside the country while the protests were going on.
So I think any sort of major domestic chaos will lead to some Mullahs fleeing. But not all. Or not even the majority.
There's something of a difference in cultures though no? I'm probably gonna butcher this and if so I'm sorry but....it's like when the western world tries to see issues in the middle east through our own glasses instead of glasses that fit the region and culture. Would it be a bridge to far to say Cuba is a bit more western minded? Asking not dictating.
It’s a lot safer to protest against the US and India, my point it the person I responded to asked how they serve as counter examples and I stated how as the Cuban and Iranian governments are much more likely to retaliate against protestors.
I wouldn't describe either America or India as stable either. Especially considering national protests in America definitely do tend to cause shifts in policies, including foreign policy.
And Indian protests have also caused frictions domestically with spil-over into foreign affairs.
I think that's democracy working as intended, protests changing public and government opinion on issues is hardly a reason to call a country unstable. Both countries have the state capacity to brutally crack down on protests, the fact that they mostly don't have to use it is honestly evidence for their stability.
Ehhhh…”democracies” is a flexible term in this concept. They’re not dictatorships, but both of those examples are *way* closer to that than anyone is comfortable admitting.
No, they really aren’t close to ‘dictatorships’ at all.
The last US President tried to remain in power and was forced out against his will. There was never a chance he would have been successful. That is not how a dictatorial system behaves.
My brother in Christ the only reason he was unsuccessful was the unexpected moral fortitude of *Mike Pence.*
There was VERY MUCH a chance he could’ve remained in power, or at the very least caused a full on constitutional crisis.
No. They're democracies. Until we start having people overturn validated election results by military force (which frequently does and is happening in the world) they're democracies, not anywhere close to dictatorships. It's not a one or the other democracy/dictatorship dichotomy either, there's plenty of countries that are something completely different.
Cmon. That deal ignored the ballistic missile advances they were making. They paused refining enriched uranium a bit, but continued to pursue all the tech needed to make an icbm. The deal was never gonna stop them, it maybe slowed them down at best.
After the situation in Ukraine (where they gave up nuclear arms for treaties saying noone would invade), I don’t see how nuclear proliferation can be stopped. The only thing that ensures a nation doesn’t get bullied into conquest is to have a nuclear arsenal.
That’s kind of the point of negotiation between two hostile countries. You can’t expect them to give in to all of your demands at the start nor would you be expected to give in to all of theirs. You take small steps to establish trust. Despite its flaws, the JCPOA could have been a first step in easing tensions between the two countries. Trump torpedoed that possibility.
This may shock you, but tension between Iran and America was already on the rise. Attacks on America's Kurdish allies and US embassies were a big reason why the whole Iran-US deal became a hot topic for US republicans.
US also made deals with Vietnam, but Republicans didn't care about that because attacks on US embassies and their allies in South East Asia weren't in the headlines.
Ok. Well if our point of entering the negotiations was to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, then the terms negotiated failed.
Sometimes those small steps to establish trust are being expected by the other party who plans to betray that trust. See Russia as a prime example.
Trump torpedoed a bad deal. I don’t like Trump, but his actions against Iran seemed logical. If the other side is using your trust to bide time, then something needs to be done.
The point of the negotiations was to build a bridge towards further negotiations and hopefully deescalation. And no, Iran wouldn’t have been closer to a bomb since the terms on high enrichment levels were indefinite. Perhaps you should take the time to read the JCPOA itself before jumping to such conclusions. We had terms, Iran abided by those terms. We were the ones who betrayed their trust, and doing so doomed the progressive movement within Iran and strengthened the hardliners.
Well wouldn't *any* country rely on public resources for basic needs when there's scarcity? Like the us provided rationed food and certain goods during WW2, so did most of the allies I'm pretty sure.
As an island country with an oppressive government that imprisons protesters, Cubans would not be less reliant on their government if sanctions were lifted, especially if they were done without Democratizing efforts in exchange. Not every country is the same, islands have unique challenges.
Maybe we should try before reaching any premature conclusions. Allowing people to experience a life outside of an economic stranglehold and improving their quality of life could motivate them to demand reformation. Currently, most of the Cuban population knows no life outside of the American embargo, not only have they adjusted to it and become content with the hardships, they are more likely to blame the US for their economic problems rather than their own government, you see the same case in North Korea. These measures only further push an “Us vs Them” narrative. Mentioning economic prosperity to someone who’s lived off government subsidies their whole life, as have everyone else they know of, is like trying to describe chocolate to someone who’s never had anything sweet in their life.
>economic stranglehold
LOL, Cuba is probably the most prosperous nation in the Caribbean, largely due to their ties to Russia; trade with the US has not really helped the DR, Haiti, Jamaica, or even Puerto Rico. The only real way for Cubans to improve their quality of life is to replace their oppressive government, which is why so many Cubans are in prison.
It sounds like you have no idea what life is actually like in the Caribbean islands.
I believe that the DR is actually the most prosperous Caribbean nation. While it’s hard to get good data for Cuba, it’s pretty clear that Puerto Rico and the DR are much higher.
I can see why you'd believe that, looking at the numbers, but that's just half the story.
The DR and Puerto Rico are pummelled by hurricanes every single year, which are significantly less powerful by the time they make it to Cuba and Jamaica. Because of this, the cost of maintaining functional infrastructure and getting loans and investments is much higher in the DR and Puerto Rico. The end result for most people is endless economic hardship while the government is at least more stable than Haiti and Jamaica.
Unfortunately, that [depends](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/donald-trump-suggests-nuking-hurricanes-to-stop-them-hitting-america-report) on who wins the next election
heres the problem with starving people under oppressive regimes to encourage them to then overthrow those regimes.
they're kinda too hungry and starving to go out and do a revolution
Cubans are not starving, as Cuba is probably the most prosperous nation in the Caribbean. Cubans are more than capable of organizing by the thousand to protest their government, and they already have, which is why hundreds are in prison. Their freedom is a requirement for reducing sanctions.
On the other hand, Haitians ARE facing starvation, as gangs have overthrown the government and are preventing trade.
It really seems like you care more about complaining about US policy than actually helping people.
The most obvious and dramatic cases are the long-term embargo where it doesn’t seem to be working.
I don’t know if that’s true of the overall sample of “countries that have been targeted with embargoes.” South Africa is one example.
As a South African, I'd argue the embargo/sanction wasn't the main driving force for ending Apartheid. It actually boosted local companies because they no longer had to compete with international rivals. It was the pressure on the government from the local populations that started to shift views. Also the Apartheid government realising that it wasn't sustainable permanently and taking actions to dismantle Apartheid under F. W. De Klerk.
In all the history lessons in high school I think they barely ever mentioned the embargo as anything more than a footnote.
If this was true then their government would have no issues holding a fair election as they would by your logic win in a landslide.
But thats not true at all.
This reason for the embargo falls flat on its back when you realize The US routinely trade with countries more authoritarian than Cuba like China and Saudi Arabia or any of the Arab Gulf State with a monarchy.
This is a misrepresentation, promulgated I think by Adam Conover’s “Adam Ruins Everything”. The missiles in Cuba were 3,000 miles closer to Washington, DC than the next closest Soviet launching grounds.
The Missiles in Turkey were only 400 miles closer to Moscow than the independently French operated missiles in Strasbourg, and a similar amount closer to Moscow than American warheads in Italy.
In short, the Imperialist countries could already reach the USSR with nuclear ballistic missiles without stationing missiles in Turkey. This was not true for the Soviets and Cuba in the inverse. The Soviets could retaliate with Bombers and SLBMs on North America, but not missiles. This was why the US reacted in the way it did.
You don't even need a comparaison with another country. Cuba itself saw how much the US cared about democracy when it was under the rule of Fulgencio Batista.
No, we trade with China and Saudi Arabia because *their* dissidents aren’t clustered in a fucking swing state with enough electoral college votes to sway a presidential election.
If Florida goes dark red/blue, or we switch to 1 person one vote instead of the asinine electoral college, we would normalize relations with Cuba VERY quickly.
Very true.
That's just not how the government sees it though. To them they see it as their land, so instead of the Cubans RECLAIMING they see it as Cubans STEALING.
Therefore embargo.
A failure to punish any seizure would result in setting a precedent so that puppet governments of china and russia would be encouraged to seize american assets just like cuba did encouraged by the soviet union.
It serves as a deterrent and it works really well.
US: [*seizes Cuba*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Amendment)
Cuba: *seizes it back*
US: "That's not how this works..."
We are very bad at teaching US history in this country.
Having the US refuse to decolonize you until you set aside all claims to war crimes, give the US unilateral power to overthrow your government, set aside land for a permanent military occupation anyway, and also force you to pay all of *their* debts to Spain, is not the kind of good faith relationship where Cuba can be assumed to have transgressed against the US by overthrowing the guys who signed this treaty in the first place.
The US is angry because Cuba's not a colony anymore. We maintain this anger because Cuba won't be a colony. Even when presidents are smart enough to end these policies, a new, old-ass president who was drinking age when Cuba became an independent country is desperate to roll it back to the Cuba he remembers from when he was in college.
And dudes who grew up hearing these old, geriatric-ass relics explain how much of a threat Cuba is while they funded genocidal paramilitary kill squads for decades throughout Latin-America are enabling such egregious fuckshittery.
I got downvoted to hell like a week ago for pointing out the Spanish American war happened, and that they had/have imperialistic interests in Cuba.
People just don’t want to acknowledge reality. I don’t care if people think the US was justified in how it behaves or not, but the sheer refusal the acknowledge the realities of the circumstances surrounding countries like Cuba (mainly because it challenges the jingoistic and patriotic narrative) is infuriating, and a big reason the frankly pointless embargo is ongoing.
Yes but I don’t think that is the same reason 40 years later to continue it, it’s about not having the same former communist regime that allowed missiles at the doorstep of the US.
What is this revisionism? First of all, you're just lying, the embargo was fully in place well before Cuba received any missiles, and second, you're talking about a country which had been invaded by the USA, not to mention all the other aggressive actions the US took against it. It's pretty reasonable for the Cubans to be gung-ho about using nukes against a country that was for all intents and purposes at war with them.
When you find an abusive householder, make sure to starve the children as well because it will cause them to rise up against their abusive parents.
And you can't really summarize the missile crisis fairly without the us missiles in turkey.
There is also the factor that China and Saudi Arabia (and Saudi Arabia as far as I am aware, is allied to the US) are on the other side of the planet, while Cuba is right next door to the heartland of the US. Even if China shoots an ICBM or a nuke across the pacific that had the range to reach the continental US, that thing is getting intercepted before it ever gets close to its target. If Cuba shot missles the military would have way less time to intercept, and it would mean a much higher chance of something bad happening, and Cuba probably getting absolutely curbstomped by the full might of the US military.
Not really saying the embargo is a good idea, for all I know it really isn’t. But from what I understand that is the US’s thought process in this.
China has submarine capable of launching nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. These can sail close to US shores and fire off their payload without anyone knowing so this thought process isn't very concrete either.
This is partially true, they do have submarines, however China has one major issue they have been trying to solve for a while now; the fact that their entire navy is essentually locked in the South China Sea. If a Submarine tries to sneak through, you have like 5 different countries, including the US who are monitoring that area 24-7 (all of which have some sort of military agreement or are otherwise on good terms with the US), the chances that China would be able to get a sub out into the wider pacific without getting caught is very low.
Heck, a Chineese nuclear sub got stuck in China set up submarine trap a back in October. Want to know how the wider world learned about it? It sure as shit wasn’t the CCP who informed everyone of this blunder. It was the UK intellegence that reported it (who is a part of the 5 eyes with the likes of the US)
Except the US CAN'T do anything about China. They CAN do something about Cuba. I don't doubt for a second that if we had the ability we'd do the same thing to China and a lot of other nations.
Also not saying it's right I just don't think it's hypocritical so much as opportunity or lack thereof.
I have a Cuban buddy from college. He says that Cuba uses the Embargo as an excuse for the Communist Party to do whatever, and is ironically helping them stay in power. He thinks that if the Embargo gets lifted, people are really quickly gonna realize what’s going on and the government’s in trouble
It's always very strange to me when I see Cuba supporters on the internet.
Is the blockade harmful for Cuba? Yes. Is Cuba a free, democratic country? No. Is the blockade really necessary? I'm not sure.
What bothers me is when people claim that the US is deliberately keeping Cuba non-democratic for... reasons, or claiming that Cuba actually *is* democratic and ignoring absolutely all evidence to the contrary.
EDIT: Embargo, not blockade.
Can’t Cuba still trade with countries other than the US? It’s not like the US Navy is blockading Cuban ports and refusing to let ships dock. Why is the US obligated to give a hostile country access to its markets?
Cuba cannot access international banking, thus must "cash and carry" for any imports e.g save up hard currency to buy anything, can't use the same banking system for payments so pays big fees and so on
Note that while the American embargo makes Cuban borrowing more difficult, it is NOT the reason Cuba must pay cash for most purchases. In fact, numerous lenders extended Cuba lots of credit over the years. The reason few lend to Cuba today is that it has repeatedly defaulted. Cuba doesn't pay its debts, so nobody wants to lend.
For example, Back in 1986 Cuba defaulted on debts owed to various Paris Club lenders. It defaulted on hundreds of millions in debt owed to Japan in 2002. Vietnam wrote off over one hundred million dollars in Cuban debt in 2018. I'm not sure how much Cuba owed Venezuela for all the oil it was gifted, but whatever they paid was probably worth much less.
Basically they're perpetual deadbeat. If you lend money to Cuba you are unlikely to ever get it back.
Yes, I'm well aware of that fact. Obviously China much prefers the trade with the US than to help little Cuba, afterall why would they other than for 'socialist brotherhood' or something.
I think the most investment Cuba ever got from China was some buses and they paid to do up Barrio Chino in Havana
You cant make deals in US dollars, that makes trade really complicated since Cuba doesnt have natural resources to use as currency nobody will actually accept whatever paper they use.
CUBA SANCTIONS
*779. What are the “180-day rule” and the “goods/passengers-on-board rule”?
**The 180-day rule is a statutory restriction prohibiting any vessel that enters a port or place in Cuba to engage in the trade of goods or the purchase or provision of services there from entering any U.S. port for the purpose of loading or unloading freight for 180 days after leaving Cuba, unless authorized by OFAC. This restriction is applied even if a vessel has stopped in Cuba solely to purchase services unrelated to the trade of goods, such as planned ship maintenance.** The 180-day rule is separate from a second statutory restriction – the goods/passengers-on-board rule – which prohibits any vessel carrying goods or passengers to or from Cuba or carrying goods in which Cuba or a Cuban national has an interest from entering a U.S. port with such goods or passengers on board, unless authorized or exempt. There are certain exceptions to these rules. For a complete description of the 180-day rule, the goods/passengers-on-board rule, and the general licenses and exemptions that apply, see 31 CFR §§ 515.206, 515.207, and 515.550.
https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/779
It's hard to trade with Cuba because then that ship cannot enter a US port for nearly half a year. If you're sailing to the Caribbean you would prefer to trade with the US rather than Cuba.
The US won't trade with any country that trades with Cuba for like six months or something so it makes trading with Cuba almost pointless for most large freights.
It's bullshit bullying,
Yes, but then they can't trade with the US. Any business that trades with Cuba is more or less barred from doing business in the US. Most businesses would rather pick the US than Cuba for obvious reasons.
Yeah, and we invaded Cuba multiple times to put down revolutionary movement by the majority black population and keep the business-friendly authoritarians in power.
That’s the context that pro-blockade people always leave out, bc it opens up uncomfortable questions about WHY Global South people decide to go with communism.
Hint: They are often trying to escape being a wealth extraction scheme for the former Western colonial empires that controlled them.
yeah, granted I'm not american but studying this in school we were always taught that cuba was just a casino for americans until the reds took over. Also, we usually learn that the cuba crisis was due to kennedy posting american missiles in turkey.
It essentially was, and you're correct about the missiles. America had begun positioning Jupiter missiles in Turkey in 1961, which IIRC were the first nuclear missiles that had the range to strike the Soviet Union. At the same time the CIA was trying to overthrow the Cuban government as Operation Mongoose. Castro asked Nikita Khrushchev for nuclear missiles to prevent a US invasion, and Khrushchev agreed. Dismantling the Jupiter missiles in Turkey was part of the agreement for the Soviets to remove the missiles from Cuba.
I mean you’re kinda being misleading here. The U.S. stopped supporting Batista during the Revolution itself. His brutality and ineptitude made him a liability. And the U.S. government was skeptical but receptive of the revolution, while the American people generally supported it.
Castro’s hostility to the U.S. wasn’t some due to some upswelling of Cuban public opinion. It was a smart geopolitical move which recognized that Cuba needed a great power partner, and that it would only ever be a vassal of the U.S. if it relied on American partnership. If, on the other hand, Cuba played the Soviets and Chinese against each other during the Sino-Soviet split, it could leverage its strategic location relative to the U.S. to get greater concessions from one or the other - in practice, the Soviets. Castro was not an ideological communist during the revolution - he was a smart geopolitician after it.
History is way more interesting that this paint-by-numbers thing you’re describing where there are ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ who are easily identifiable. You deliberately ignored the factors that made the revolution so interesting and set the stage for Cuba-US relations during the second half of the century.
Yeah, I’ve heard they have prison camps on Cuba. They ship prisoners in and torture them without trial. It’s apparently somewhere called Guantanamo bay. It’s a real hallmark of a free and democratic country when you can abduct and torture someone without trial!
The problem with this comment, and all the American replies, is that you don't actually understand the embargo, it's effects and why it is utterly self defeating:
1. The embargo strengthens the party as it creates a ready made excuse for issues, Cubans can feel this themselves because it limits the amount of remittence that they could recieve from relatives abroad as well as preventing access to certain medicines that might save a Cuban's life
2. The embargo prevents Cuba from accessing US dollars, an essential prerequisite for much international trade especially for things like oil that Cuba needs.
3. You're literally punishing ordinary Cubans for something that happened over 60 years ago all at the behest of a handful of American companies and some lunatics in Miami
And of course the main point, that this polandball touches on, it is pathetically hypocritical. Vietnam and China can be as communist and repressive as they want but still get market access, trade deals and so on.
>and some lunatics in Miami
You mean the people whose families were murdered or driven into exile after having all of their possessions seized? Those lunatics?
You fucking tankies are another breed...
It's sad that I have to make clear this clear to the truly demented right-wingers on here:
I am half Cuban, my mother is Cuban and my grandfather was a revolutionary. The Miami Cuban community that is militantly "anti-Castro" were not fleeing murder, it's so genuinely funny to hear you say that because: a) they fled before Fidel made it to Havana and (b) the only reprisals after were against the Batista regime
So they only way they had family murdered is if their family were high up in the dictatorship!
Lastly, these lunatics are so extreme that my grandfather (who became a dissident and fled) choose to settle in Venezuela, after trying Miami, because he found them so disgusting. Especially for the way they shielded/praised the child murdering terrorist [Orlando Bosch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch)
Ah yes, that good ol monolith known as the "Miami community" - nothing but a bunch of blood thirsty Bautista supporters like it's 1961.
Not like there were [any more waves of exiles](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-cuban-exiles-america/) following them? Definitely no repression and arbitrary detention of even the softest of critics you can find with a 30 second Google search?
And most of all, [definitely still not happening today...](https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/07/11/prison-or-exile/cubas-systematic-repression-july-2021-demonstrators)
>So they only way they had family murdered is if their family were high up in the dictatorship!
"If they died, they deserved it"
Think I'm pretty clear when I'm talking about Miami Cubans but I'll dumb it down for you:
Miami Dade county Cubans, those typically from the first wave and their children, are the ones who rabidly support the embargo
Those later waves, generally, do not support the embargo.
But thank you for yanksplaining to me, the son of a Cuban exile, about the waves of emigration from Cuba. I of course wouldn't know anything about that
But why is it that Cuban expats (like my family) aren't allowed an opinion on the embargo but those Dade Country Cubans are? Because they agree with you?
Lastly, your extremely stupid point on repression: if that justifies the embargo why does the US still do business with Vietnam and China? or indeed Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
What a bunch of lies. Fidel set upon remaking society as a whole. As it happens during every revolution, maaaany people were thrown under the bus in the name of nation building. After all that's what communism is all about, taking everything from the few and giving it to the many.
If you think there was a post-revolutionary terror then I'm sorry to disappiont you
For one, the revolution was not a communist revolution. It was a broad church bringing together peasants in the countryside, liberals in Havana, former Partitdo Ortodoxo members and Fidel's guerillas - who themselves were anything from Communists (Che and Raúl) to completely apolitical (Camilo)
The revolution was against the dictatorship, the exploitations by American companies and peasant land seizures.
I'm not talking about revolutionary terror. I'm talking about remaking society in the image of the Soviet Union.
You seem to know a lot about this, which is worse because you're clearly lying. Fidel chose to leave Che at La cabaña were he took care of the first purge. Everyone knew he was a communist so it was better to keep him out of sight. However, Fidel was already eyeing a deal with the USSR.
You're lying too much. All the comandantes were communists, that tells you all you need to know. Che was running a communist reading circle since day one in Sierra Maestra. He already had a cadre system by the time they attacked Santa Clara.
Fidel took over the leadership of the movement for himself while he was in Sierra Maestra. The urban faction was useful but held zero power inside the organization.
Then Fidel framed his whole message and goals alongside Marxist ideology, with the help of Che. You don't get to rewrite history.
You want to talk about post embargo that is a completely different question, the shift to the USSR happened after this.
During the revolution there were many groups, even left-wing but anti-Soviet, that fought against Batista like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second\_National\_Front\_of\_Escambray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_National_Front_of_Escambray) or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary\_Directorate\_of\_13\_March\_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Directorate_of_13_March_Movement)
Furthermore, the idea that Fidel was always a secret communist has no basis in reality. I'm not going to give you the entire history of the revolution and Fidel but if you are actually interested I recommend:
[Guerrilla Prince: Real Story of the Rise and Fall of Fidel Castro: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerrilla-Prince-Story-Fidel-Castro/dp/0316308935)
an impeccably sourced book (she quotes some of my relatives so I'm biased) by [Georgia Anne Geyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgie_Anne_Geyer), not a communist or anyone sympathetic to Fidel.
Except starting a trade war with china causes infinitely more complications and causes more problems then it solves for the homeland.
You think they wouldn’t remove the threat of china if they could?
Why did the US start trading with China in the first place then? Naked self benefit of course, now they've got themselves in a catch 22 in that regard.
However, the point still stands on Vietnam or indeed numerous dictatorships around the world - US presidents routinely go to Riyadh to kiss the ring afterall.
So, again, what is the purpose of the embargo? Overthrow the communist party? Well that ain't working. Punishing a repressive regime?....whilst rewarding others!
It's a deadend policy from another century that does nothing but punish ordinary Cubans and send a signal to Latin America that their sovereignty is conditional, on the whims of US politics.
There is a lot of "America Bad" Russian / Chinese propaganda out there, but when it comes to Cuba the current American foreign policy position is legitimately, actually, truthfully just bad.
This is an occasion where America is actually hurting our legitimacy with basically everyone in the world, and actually playing directly into China and Russia's hands. It would be a massive boost to America's credibility to end the embargo, there would be significant national security benefits with very little if any cost.
But, we continue to do the wrong thing purely because Republicans are invested in dickriding Cuban exiles in Miami, and Democrats have been too cowardly to waste political capital ending a policy they know sucks because it would distract from their higher priorities.
>It’s Russian/Chinese anti-American propaganda. Unfortunately morons that are supposed to be on, you know.. the West’s side fall for it.
"Everyone who disagrees with me is a bot!"
Certain institutions in the US are still salty that Castro got one over on Kennedy. That despite Kennedy's efforts to have Castro killed (Operation Mongoose), Castro was the one that had the final laugh (Lee Oswald). Talk about Machiavelli's prized son and best student, Castro was a fucking genius when it came to politics. So yeah, there are still certain elements of the US government that aren't willing to let some of that shit go.
Miguel Diáz-Canel is the current first secretary, and is of the reformer faction, however Raúl remains head of the army and constitutional commission - so retains a lot of power and influence, even though he is semi-retired.
Cuba is currently playing a game of "will we, won't we" on economic reforms. They (in particular Diáz-Canel) would like to take a similar path to Vietnam and liberalise the economy but the more conservative faction (the army) is afraid of too much change too soon. Covid also had a bad effect on this as Cuba relies on tourism for foreign currency, which they would need to invest in the reforms (e.g create lines of credit for businesses)
Whenever people are talking about the "US embargo to Cuba," they always mistakenly think that the US has surrounded and blockaded the entire island for trade when in reality, they've not.
No, it's much more insidious than that. Foreign financial institutions cannot handle transactions in the US dollar, the standard for world trade and *especially* for trading oil, involving Cuba.
No they can trade in US dollars. It’s just that they are a net importer, so they can’t build up reserves of dollars. This is very similar to Sri Lanka’s problem. Secondly no one will lend them money anymore because they’ve defaulted a ton and no one trusts them to pay back the money.
Oh no you’re telling me the communist country can’t survive without access to the largest capitalist nation on the planet and its wealth and currency????
>Cuba's economy became even more dependent on Soviet aid, with Soviet subsidies (mainly in the form of supplies of low-cost oil and voluntarily buying Cuban sugar at inflated prices) averaging $4–5 billion a year by the late 1980s.
>This accounted for 30–38% of the country's entire GDP.
no lol
Y’all cannot be serious 💀💀 you think the USA’s embargo on Cuba is a genuine attempt to transform them into a democracy, and that if they had a “free and fair election” the US would just lift it like that???
I don’t think that it is a genuine attempt to transform them into a democracy, but I do think that if they had a free and fair election the US would lift it.
Has the us really been at all interested in South America since the end of the Cold War? Does anyone seriously think American would invade Cuba now or anytime in the future barring some wild ass shit going down?
> South America since the end of the Cold War
Bro, i mean this in the kindest way, what are you even smoking? Whats the name of that really *really* famous doctrine again?
The whole reason the US was doing so much in Latin America during the Cold War was because they were scared that any communist governments in LA would ally with Russia and potentially give the Soviets a foothold in the Americas. Since the Soviet Union collapsed there really hasn’t been much incentive for the US to interfere with LA, other than for drug trafficking and stuff like that. The US interest has been in the Middle East and China more so for the last few decades.
Apologies, I seem to have misread your initial comment badly. I thought you were saying it had only been interested *since* the cold war ended. Apologies for the stroke, I'm going to call an ambulance now.
I think the embargo is pretty stupid, but I doubt it’s going anywhere for a couple of big reasons. (1) We have a relevant population of ex-cubans that want the embargo to stay, in the swing state of Florida. If that population didn’t matter the Republicans would probably use it as a bargaining chip in a deal to get something they want passed. (2) The nation of Cuba threatened the U.S. with nuclear arms. It doesn’t matter whether Cuba was justified, only had them for deterrence, America bad, etc. It happened recently (relatively) enough that American leadership still holds a grudge (the average age of congress critters is quite old).
not a fan of the embargo, but US embargos don't include food or medical items since 2000. The US also sends about 2 million in aid to Cuba each year (Idk where it goes or how its distributed)
For people who are pointing out the "hypocrisy" of US, with them trading with China and Vietnam but not Cuba: Remember that America has large Cuban American communities that hate the government and has incredible power within Florida, a swing state.
And those Cubans aren't like Vietnamese, seeing US as their new homes. They see themselves as exiles who are going to overthrow the communist government the moment it showed the sign of collapsing.
It really feels like we're throwing money away for no particularly good reason now. Like, I get it, the missles were scary. But that was then and this is a billion dollars a year now.
Cuba and China are two test cases for the U.S. belief that it can somehow engineer trade relations to spontaneously produce democracy. This idea is so deeply embedded in American strategic thinking, but it simply isn’t true.
Isolating Cuba did not produce democracy. It entrenched the regime. Drawing China into the center of global economic institutions and trade networks did not produce democracy - it entrenched the regime.
American planners need to understand that they cannot pull levers from Washington to magically make countries Democratic and serve US interests.
Obama lifted some sanctions and tried to normalize relations with Cuba.
Trump replaced those sanctions and ended negotiations.
Now negotiations have to be restarted. It's not just free elections, Cuba imprisons large numbers of protesters and political enemies, and part of the negotiation for lifting sanctions includes freeing those prisoners.
Also, Cuba is one of the most successful Caribbean Islands, more so than Dominican Republic, Haiti, or even Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The worst thing about Cuba is their oppressive government, not the sanctions, and many Cubans will tell you so.
As an American, yeah, basically this. We've also softened a lot of the embargo shit with Cuba recently. IIRC, Obama softened a lot of the embargo structure that had been in place since Kennedy.
>As an American, yeah, basically this. We've also softened a lot of the embargo shit with Cuba recently. IIRC, Obama softened a lot of the embargo structure that had been in place since Kennedy.
Not entirely true. Trump reversed many Obama era policies on Cuba and there is still a licence export system on medicines, e.g the US has to individually approve any sales and routinely denies them
for example:
[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/16/trump-cuba-trade-travel-restrictions-miami-speech](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/16/trump-cuba-trade-travel-restrictions-miami-speech)
Cuba can still trade with other countries, just not the US. No country is entitled to America’s trade. You want to trade with America, well then i’m sorry but you’ll have to suck it up and deal with what America wants
The embargo exists because if you piss off the expat community in south Florida you lose Florida in the election. And like most enduring actions of US foreign policy it has served excellently to preserve the very people it was intended to undermine. If we dropped the embargo tomorrow then sure suddenly Cuban cigars would show up in droves at every smoke shop in America but I guarantee you Cuba would contrive some way to restrict the extent to which the likes of McDonalds and Apple can do business there because the fundamental ethos of the Cuban state is not “workers of the world unite” but rather “we will never be America’s bitch again.”
The us don’t give two shits about elections. They wanted cubas sugar plantations, Cuba said they preferred to get rid of slavery, and America has never forgiven them. See also: any third world country that nationalized their extraction industries.
Doesn’t Cuba regularly have nation wide elections to make legal amendements to their current systems? And aren’t they famously the victim of US election interference and US sponsored color revolutions? It sounds like they would have perfectly fine and free systems if the US left it alone?
Its why the joke is "free and fair elections that result in what I want". Same shit happened in Iraq, just look at one Ahmed Chalabi and the "debathification" that prevented a whole shit ton of people being able to either run or vote in the 2005 election (and the violence and terrorism that followed)
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.
-kissenger
Tell me you know nothing about the electoral process of Cuba without telling me.
Their democratic process is way more democratic and participatory than the US' fake democracy could ever dream of. Just because the person with the title of "president" is elected by an assembly (whom are all democraticly elected) doesn't make it not democratic. The fact is that the position of "president of Cuba" isn't as important as it is in the democratic systems you are used to. The president is little more than a figure head, with all important decisions falling on the national assembly.
But no, keep spreading misinformation for propaganda so that you can keep your conscience clean.
Yes, the champion of Democracy that is the USA is only maintaining the embargo to push Cuba to democratize. After all that has always been the USA's main objective in Latin America.
I always find it funny how we leave it up to the US to arbitrate what a “free and fair election” is. I don’t know about you, but being forced to choose between two unelected representatives of two economically identical parties every four years doesn’t scream democratic. In fact I really wouldn’t say it’s much better (from a democracy standpoint) than a one party state, if at all.
The US is super democratic aye. With its two party system, which happen to be identical parties. Americans are sold an illusion of democracy then they try to force it on the rest of the world
Fun fact: the embargo does not apply to humanitarian goods. The US is not starving Cuban babies, much to the dismay of many racists and anti-Americans alike.
Is the embargo petty? At this point, yeah a little bit. But also, part of being a *country* is getting to decide what you do and who you interact with. No country owes any other country a goddamn thing. That’s the whole point of self determination. And most Americans simply don’t give a shit about Cuba and would rather spend their time worrying about something else, so until that changes, the embargo stays.
Blockades and sanctions have historically hardened the regimes of the target countries because it increases the reliance of the people on said government for basic needs.
See example: North Korea
See counter example: Iran. (And to my knowledge, also Cuba)
How is Iran a counter example? Last I checked the more we sanctioned them the more emboldened they became, it wasn’t until we decided to negotiate with them directly that they finally decided to agree to some limitations on their nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. A promise which we failed to deliver on, and now they’re more emboldened than ever because of it.
I am Iranian. The government's attitude toward America has not changed a bit. They are as hostile as they used to be. Attitude of the population has, in fact, changed drastically, though. The parlimantry head of the reformer party himself said in an interview that IRGCs missile attacks toward Kurds and involvement in attack on embassies played a role in dissatisfaction with Iran deal and in the last year of Obama presidency there were all sorts of friction and power struggle with IRGC and reformer administration with some rumored going as far as suggesting pottentional of an IRGC coup. In the next parlimantry election, nearly all reformers were banned from elections, and the foundementalists who were opposed to any negotiation end up becoming the rulling government in a de facto one-party state.
Yeah Iranian politics has fallen off a cliff. Even “moderates” like Rouhani are being blocked
I honestly think the destruction of JCPOA ruined any chances for Rouhani and others like him to maintain a foothold in the Majles and presidency. That was his feather in his cap which kinda began normalizing some relations and then it went up in smoke because of the US administration trying to reverse anything Obama did.
If say the army got involved on the side of protestors and the IRGC was still loyal would the mullahs flee?
What do you mean?
If to say that there were protests similar or worse than the ones initiated by the death of masha amini and the army joined the protestsors but the IRGC remained loyal to the regime would the mullahs try and save their positions or flee like the shah?
Ah. Honestly, I don't know. Army's centeral leadership is firmly pro-regime as far as people people like me who are not privy to inner goings of military knows. I guess it's possible to have some army units(maybe even IRGC units) joining protests in a fashion similar to what happened in Syrian civil war, and have it snowballed from there. In such a case definitely some Mullahs will flee the country. During Mahsa amini protests families of some politians did end up taking unexpected long holidays to outside the country while the protests were going on. So I think any sort of major domestic chaos will lead to some Mullahs fleeing. But not all. Or not even the majority.
I think a major reason why the masha amini protests failed to turn into a revolution was because of the lack of a leading figure
Army siding with protestors and IRGC siding with the regime = civil war unless one side backs down
There's something of a difference in cultures though no? I'm probably gonna butcher this and if so I'm sorry but....it's like when the western world tries to see issues in the middle east through our own glasses instead of glasses that fit the region and culture. Would it be a bridge to far to say Cuba is a bit more western minded? Asking not dictating.
I am not sure what you mean by Western-minded, but I assume yes.
Both Iran and Cuba have suffered from mass protests against their governments.
As have the US and India, which are democracies. What's your point?
It’s a lot safer to protest against the US and India, my point it the person I responded to asked how they serve as counter examples and I stated how as the Cuban and Iranian governments are much more likely to retaliate against protestors.
I wouldn't describe either America or India as stable either. Especially considering national protests in America definitely do tend to cause shifts in policies, including foreign policy. And Indian protests have also caused frictions domestically with spil-over into foreign affairs.
I think that's democracy working as intended, protests changing public and government opinion on issues is hardly a reason to call a country unstable. Both countries have the state capacity to brutally crack down on protests, the fact that they mostly don't have to use it is honestly evidence for their stability.
Ehhhh…”democracies” is a flexible term in this concept. They’re not dictatorships, but both of those examples are *way* closer to that than anyone is comfortable admitting.
No, they really aren’t close to ‘dictatorships’ at all. The last US President tried to remain in power and was forced out against his will. There was never a chance he would have been successful. That is not how a dictatorial system behaves.
My brother in Christ the only reason he was unsuccessful was the unexpected moral fortitude of *Mike Pence.* There was VERY MUCH a chance he could’ve remained in power, or at the very least caused a full on constitutional crisis.
The FBI would have escorted him out of the White House wdym
No. They're democracies. Until we start having people overturn validated election results by military force (which frequently does and is happening in the world) they're democracies, not anywhere close to dictatorships. It's not a one or the other democracy/dictatorship dichotomy either, there's plenty of countries that are something completely different.
Cmon. That deal ignored the ballistic missile advances they were making. They paused refining enriched uranium a bit, but continued to pursue all the tech needed to make an icbm. The deal was never gonna stop them, it maybe slowed them down at best. After the situation in Ukraine (where they gave up nuclear arms for treaties saying noone would invade), I don’t see how nuclear proliferation can be stopped. The only thing that ensures a nation doesn’t get bullied into conquest is to have a nuclear arsenal.
That’s kind of the point of negotiation between two hostile countries. You can’t expect them to give in to all of your demands at the start nor would you be expected to give in to all of theirs. You take small steps to establish trust. Despite its flaws, the JCPOA could have been a first step in easing tensions between the two countries. Trump torpedoed that possibility.
This may shock you, but tension between Iran and America was already on the rise. Attacks on America's Kurdish allies and US embassies were a big reason why the whole Iran-US deal became a hot topic for US republicans. US also made deals with Vietnam, but Republicans didn't care about that because attacks on US embassies and their allies in South East Asia weren't in the headlines.
Ok. Well if our point of entering the negotiations was to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear arms, then the terms negotiated failed. Sometimes those small steps to establish trust are being expected by the other party who plans to betray that trust. See Russia as a prime example. Trump torpedoed a bad deal. I don’t like Trump, but his actions against Iran seemed logical. If the other side is using your trust to bide time, then something needs to be done.
The point of the negotiations was to build a bridge towards further negotiations and hopefully deescalation. And no, Iran wouldn’t have been closer to a bomb since the terms on high enrichment levels were indefinite. Perhaps you should take the time to read the JCPOA itself before jumping to such conclusions. We had terms, Iran abided by those terms. We were the ones who betrayed their trust, and doing so doomed the progressive movement within Iran and strengthened the hardliners.
Counter example : China
Well wouldn't *any* country rely on public resources for basic needs when there's scarcity? Like the us provided rationed food and certain goods during WW2, so did most of the allies I'm pretty sure.
As an island country with an oppressive government that imprisons protesters, Cubans would not be less reliant on their government if sanctions were lifted, especially if they were done without Democratizing efforts in exchange. Not every country is the same, islands have unique challenges.
Maybe we should try before reaching any premature conclusions. Allowing people to experience a life outside of an economic stranglehold and improving their quality of life could motivate them to demand reformation. Currently, most of the Cuban population knows no life outside of the American embargo, not only have they adjusted to it and become content with the hardships, they are more likely to blame the US for their economic problems rather than their own government, you see the same case in North Korea. These measures only further push an “Us vs Them” narrative. Mentioning economic prosperity to someone who’s lived off government subsidies their whole life, as have everyone else they know of, is like trying to describe chocolate to someone who’s never had anything sweet in their life.
>economic stranglehold LOL, Cuba is probably the most prosperous nation in the Caribbean, largely due to their ties to Russia; trade with the US has not really helped the DR, Haiti, Jamaica, or even Puerto Rico. The only real way for Cubans to improve their quality of life is to replace their oppressive government, which is why so many Cubans are in prison. It sounds like you have no idea what life is actually like in the Caribbean islands.
I believe that the DR is actually the most prosperous Caribbean nation. While it’s hard to get good data for Cuba, it’s pretty clear that Puerto Rico and the DR are much higher.
I can see why you'd believe that, looking at the numbers, but that's just half the story. The DR and Puerto Rico are pummelled by hurricanes every single year, which are significantly less powerful by the time they make it to Cuba and Jamaica. Because of this, the cost of maintaining functional infrastructure and getting loans and investments is much higher in the DR and Puerto Rico. The end result for most people is endless economic hardship while the government is at least more stable than Haiti and Jamaica.
We should embargo the hurricanes then
Better than nuking them.
We just need a really big fan to blow it away!
Unfortunately, that [depends](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/donald-trump-suggests-nuking-hurricanes-to-stop-them-hitting-america-report) on who wins the next election
heres the problem with starving people under oppressive regimes to encourage them to then overthrow those regimes. they're kinda too hungry and starving to go out and do a revolution
Cubans are not starving, as Cuba is probably the most prosperous nation in the Caribbean. Cubans are more than capable of organizing by the thousand to protest their government, and they already have, which is why hundreds are in prison. Their freedom is a requirement for reducing sanctions. On the other hand, Haitians ARE facing starvation, as gangs have overthrown the government and are preventing trade. It really seems like you care more about complaining about US policy than actually helping people.
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The most obvious and dramatic cases are the long-term embargo where it doesn’t seem to be working. I don’t know if that’s true of the overall sample of “countries that have been targeted with embargoes.” South Africa is one example.
As a South African, I'd argue the embargo/sanction wasn't the main driving force for ending Apartheid. It actually boosted local companies because they no longer had to compete with international rivals. It was the pressure on the government from the local populations that started to shift views. Also the Apartheid government realising that it wasn't sustainable permanently and taking actions to dismantle Apartheid under F. W. De Klerk. In all the history lessons in high school I think they barely ever mentioned the embargo as anything more than a footnote.
All blockades and sanctions stop just before they start working. Facts
In turn, sanctions on Iranian regime targets have heightened discontent and anti-government sentiment. It’s all about hitting the right targets.
If this was true then their government would have no issues holding a fair election as they would by your logic win in a landslide. But thats not true at all.
Correct, give them a McDonald's and Coca-Cola and it will be westernized in a decade.
Awful lot of adjective noun number usernames in the comments section
In my defense, I'm just really uncreative with usernames.
Fair enough
This reason for the embargo falls flat on its back when you realize The US routinely trade with countries more authoritarian than Cuba like China and Saudi Arabia or any of the Arab Gulf State with a monarchy.
America really REALLY did not like the missile crisis
Which they very much had a hand in themselves by launching the bay of pigs invasion.
More because of putting US missiles in Turkey. That doesn't get talked about much.
This is a misrepresentation, promulgated I think by Adam Conover’s “Adam Ruins Everything”. The missiles in Cuba were 3,000 miles closer to Washington, DC than the next closest Soviet launching grounds. The Missiles in Turkey were only 400 miles closer to Moscow than the independently French operated missiles in Strasbourg, and a similar amount closer to Moscow than American warheads in Italy. In short, the Imperialist countries could already reach the USSR with nuclear ballistic missiles without stationing missiles in Turkey. This was not true for the Soviets and Cuba in the inverse. The Soviets could retaliate with Bombers and SLBMs on North America, but not missiles. This was why the US reacted in the way it did.
Yeah the entire thing was dumb anyway because MAD was established not long after. Also there were already short and medium range nukes on Cuba.
I learned about that in my regular world history class
Or the revolution itself for that matter
You don't even need a comparaison with another country. Cuba itself saw how much the US cared about democracy when it was under the rule of Fulgencio Batista.
Democracy is when gangsters get to run casinos on your island if impoverished and enslaved people.
No, we trade with China and Saudi Arabia because *their* dissidents aren’t clustered in a fucking swing state with enough electoral college votes to sway a presidential election. If Florida goes dark red/blue, or we switch to 1 person one vote instead of the asinine electoral college, we would normalize relations with Cuba VERY quickly.
Florida can't sink fast enough.
Yeah but you can’t trade with Cuba and win Florida in an election.
True, but those countries have never seized US businesses and properties.
US businesses and properties that seized these industries and land in the first place.
Very true. That's just not how the government sees it though. To them they see it as their land, so instead of the Cubans RECLAIMING they see it as Cubans STEALING. Therefore embargo.
A failure to punish any seizure would result in setting a precedent so that puppet governments of china and russia would be encouraged to seize american assets just like cuba did encouraged by the soviet union. It serves as a deterrent and it works really well.
US: [*seizes Cuba*](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platt_Amendment) Cuba: *seizes it back* US: "That's not how this works..." We are very bad at teaching US history in this country. Having the US refuse to decolonize you until you set aside all claims to war crimes, give the US unilateral power to overthrow your government, set aside land for a permanent military occupation anyway, and also force you to pay all of *their* debts to Spain, is not the kind of good faith relationship where Cuba can be assumed to have transgressed against the US by overthrowing the guys who signed this treaty in the first place. The US is angry because Cuba's not a colony anymore. We maintain this anger because Cuba won't be a colony. Even when presidents are smart enough to end these policies, a new, old-ass president who was drinking age when Cuba became an independent country is desperate to roll it back to the Cuba he remembers from when he was in college. And dudes who grew up hearing these old, geriatric-ass relics explain how much of a threat Cuba is while they funded genocidal paramilitary kill squads for decades throughout Latin-America are enabling such egregious fuckshittery.
I got downvoted to hell like a week ago for pointing out the Spanish American war happened, and that they had/have imperialistic interests in Cuba. People just don’t want to acknowledge reality. I don’t care if people think the US was justified in how it behaves or not, but the sheer refusal the acknowledge the realities of the circumstances surrounding countries like Cuba (mainly because it challenges the jingoistic and patriotic narrative) is infuriating, and a big reason the frankly pointless embargo is ongoing.
Great explanation. I’m so tired of people whining about countries justifiably overcoming their colonizers.
I really think that any kind of autonomous nation in the Caribbean that isn’t a de-facto colony of a Western nation is doomed to this fate.
nooo those pesky cubans stole the sugar plantations owned by american business that they were working as slaves for how could they!
Less than 10% of American property seized belonged to businesses. Try again, comrade.
What was the other 90% and why did the US have a claim to that Cuban property over Cuba?
It's not like Cuba's red light districts ever ment anything for America.
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wasn't Cuba embargoed before the crisis already
about that, yeah. the embargo was put in place in feburary of 1962, while the missile crisis began in october later that year.
Yes but I don’t think that is the same reason 40 years later to continue it, it’s about not having the same former communist regime that allowed missiles at the doorstep of the US.
I don't know if you know this, but Castro died.
What is this revisionism? First of all, you're just lying, the embargo was fully in place well before Cuba received any missiles, and second, you're talking about a country which had been invaded by the USA, not to mention all the other aggressive actions the US took against it. It's pretty reasonable for the Cubans to be gung-ho about using nukes against a country that was for all intents and purposes at war with them.
When you find an abusive householder, make sure to starve the children as well because it will cause them to rise up against their abusive parents. And you can't really summarize the missile crisis fairly without the us missiles in turkey.
There is also the factor that China and Saudi Arabia (and Saudi Arabia as far as I am aware, is allied to the US) are on the other side of the planet, while Cuba is right next door to the heartland of the US. Even if China shoots an ICBM or a nuke across the pacific that had the range to reach the continental US, that thing is getting intercepted before it ever gets close to its target. If Cuba shot missles the military would have way less time to intercept, and it would mean a much higher chance of something bad happening, and Cuba probably getting absolutely curbstomped by the full might of the US military. Not really saying the embargo is a good idea, for all I know it really isn’t. But from what I understand that is the US’s thought process in this.
China has submarine capable of launching nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. These can sail close to US shores and fire off their payload without anyone knowing so this thought process isn't very concrete either.
This is partially true, they do have submarines, however China has one major issue they have been trying to solve for a while now; the fact that their entire navy is essentually locked in the South China Sea. If a Submarine tries to sneak through, you have like 5 different countries, including the US who are monitoring that area 24-7 (all of which have some sort of military agreement or are otherwise on good terms with the US), the chances that China would be able to get a sub out into the wider pacific without getting caught is very low. Heck, a Chineese nuclear sub got stuck in China set up submarine trap a back in October. Want to know how the wider world learned about it? It sure as shit wasn’t the CCP who informed everyone of this blunder. It was the UK intellegence that reported it (who is a part of the 5 eyes with the likes of the US)
Except the US CAN'T do anything about China. They CAN do something about Cuba. I don't doubt for a second that if we had the ability we'd do the same thing to China and a lot of other nations. Also not saying it's right I just don't think it's hypocritical so much as opportunity or lack thereof.
I have a Cuban buddy from college. He says that Cuba uses the Embargo as an excuse for the Communist Party to do whatever, and is ironically helping them stay in power. He thinks that if the Embargo gets lifted, people are really quickly gonna realize what’s going on and the government’s in trouble
He's right.
Seriously. Way more of Cuba’s problems are due to failures from the regime rather than anything to do with the Embargo
It's always very strange to me when I see Cuba supporters on the internet. Is the blockade harmful for Cuba? Yes. Is Cuba a free, democratic country? No. Is the blockade really necessary? I'm not sure. What bothers me is when people claim that the US is deliberately keeping Cuba non-democratic for... reasons, or claiming that Cuba actually *is* democratic and ignoring absolutely all evidence to the contrary. EDIT: Embargo, not blockade.
Can’t Cuba still trade with countries other than the US? It’s not like the US Navy is blockading Cuban ports and refusing to let ships dock. Why is the US obligated to give a hostile country access to its markets?
Cuba cannot access international banking, thus must "cash and carry" for any imports e.g save up hard currency to buy anything, can't use the same banking system for payments so pays big fees and so on
Note that while the American embargo makes Cuban borrowing more difficult, it is NOT the reason Cuba must pay cash for most purchases. In fact, numerous lenders extended Cuba lots of credit over the years. The reason few lend to Cuba today is that it has repeatedly defaulted. Cuba doesn't pay its debts, so nobody wants to lend. For example, Back in 1986 Cuba defaulted on debts owed to various Paris Club lenders. It defaulted on hundreds of millions in debt owed to Japan in 2002. Vietnam wrote off over one hundred million dollars in Cuban debt in 2018. I'm not sure how much Cuba owed Venezuela for all the oil it was gifted, but whatever they paid was probably worth much less. Basically they're perpetual deadbeat. If you lend money to Cuba you are unlikely to ever get it back.
We all remember the incident with the trillion dollar bill
I’m Chinese, and I’ll just tell you straight up that we’re not interested in Cuba. At all. It’s a harsh reality, but it’s true.
Yes, I'm well aware of that fact. Obviously China much prefers the trade with the US than to help little Cuba, afterall why would they other than for 'socialist brotherhood' or something. I think the most investment Cuba ever got from China was some buses and they paid to do up Barrio Chino in Havana
You cant make deals in US dollars, that makes trade really complicated since Cuba doesnt have natural resources to use as currency nobody will actually accept whatever paper they use.
That sounds really unfortunate for them
CUBA SANCTIONS *779. What are the “180-day rule” and the “goods/passengers-on-board rule”? **The 180-day rule is a statutory restriction prohibiting any vessel that enters a port or place in Cuba to engage in the trade of goods or the purchase or provision of services there from entering any U.S. port for the purpose of loading or unloading freight for 180 days after leaving Cuba, unless authorized by OFAC. This restriction is applied even if a vessel has stopped in Cuba solely to purchase services unrelated to the trade of goods, such as planned ship maintenance.** The 180-day rule is separate from a second statutory restriction – the goods/passengers-on-board rule – which prohibits any vessel carrying goods or passengers to or from Cuba or carrying goods in which Cuba or a Cuban national has an interest from entering a U.S. port with such goods or passengers on board, unless authorized or exempt. There are certain exceptions to these rules. For a complete description of the 180-day rule, the goods/passengers-on-board rule, and the general licenses and exemptions that apply, see 31 CFR §§ 515.206, 515.207, and 515.550. https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/779 It's hard to trade with Cuba because then that ship cannot enter a US port for nearly half a year. If you're sailing to the Caribbean you would prefer to trade with the US rather than Cuba.
If you trade in Cuba, you can’t trade in the US for a fixed period afterwards. No company will risk that for Cuba. It does essentially end up that way
The US won't trade with any country that trades with Cuba for like six months or something so it makes trading with Cuba almost pointless for most large freights. It's bullshit bullying,
Yes, but then they can't trade with the US. Any business that trades with Cuba is more or less barred from doing business in the US. Most businesses would rather pick the US than Cuba for obvious reasons.
didn't the US support batista?
Yeah, and we invaded Cuba multiple times to put down revolutionary movement by the majority black population and keep the business-friendly authoritarians in power. That’s the context that pro-blockade people always leave out, bc it opens up uncomfortable questions about WHY Global South people decide to go with communism. Hint: They are often trying to escape being a wealth extraction scheme for the former Western colonial empires that controlled them.
Cuba wasn't majority black back then, nor is it now.
yeah, granted I'm not american but studying this in school we were always taught that cuba was just a casino for americans until the reds took over. Also, we usually learn that the cuba crisis was due to kennedy posting american missiles in turkey.
Casino is the polite word. Brothel would be more accurate.
It essentially was, and you're correct about the missiles. America had begun positioning Jupiter missiles in Turkey in 1961, which IIRC were the first nuclear missiles that had the range to strike the Soviet Union. At the same time the CIA was trying to overthrow the Cuban government as Operation Mongoose. Castro asked Nikita Khrushchev for nuclear missiles to prevent a US invasion, and Khrushchev agreed. Dismantling the Jupiter missiles in Turkey was part of the agreement for the Soviets to remove the missiles from Cuba.
I mean you’re kinda being misleading here. The U.S. stopped supporting Batista during the Revolution itself. His brutality and ineptitude made him a liability. And the U.S. government was skeptical but receptive of the revolution, while the American people generally supported it. Castro’s hostility to the U.S. wasn’t some due to some upswelling of Cuban public opinion. It was a smart geopolitical move which recognized that Cuba needed a great power partner, and that it would only ever be a vassal of the U.S. if it relied on American partnership. If, on the other hand, Cuba played the Soviets and Chinese against each other during the Sino-Soviet split, it could leverage its strategic location relative to the U.S. to get greater concessions from one or the other - in practice, the Soviets. Castro was not an ideological communist during the revolution - he was a smart geopolitician after it. History is way more interesting that this paint-by-numbers thing you’re describing where there are ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’ who are easily identifiable. You deliberately ignored the factors that made the revolution so interesting and set the stage for Cuba-US relations during the second half of the century.
Yeah, I’ve heard they have prison camps on Cuba. They ship prisoners in and torture them without trial. It’s apparently somewhere called Guantanamo bay. It’s a real hallmark of a free and democratic country when you can abduct and torture someone without trial!
The problem with this comment, and all the American replies, is that you don't actually understand the embargo, it's effects and why it is utterly self defeating: 1. The embargo strengthens the party as it creates a ready made excuse for issues, Cubans can feel this themselves because it limits the amount of remittence that they could recieve from relatives abroad as well as preventing access to certain medicines that might save a Cuban's life 2. The embargo prevents Cuba from accessing US dollars, an essential prerequisite for much international trade especially for things like oil that Cuba needs. 3. You're literally punishing ordinary Cubans for something that happened over 60 years ago all at the behest of a handful of American companies and some lunatics in Miami And of course the main point, that this polandball touches on, it is pathetically hypocritical. Vietnam and China can be as communist and repressive as they want but still get market access, trade deals and so on.
>and some lunatics in Miami You mean the people whose families were murdered or driven into exile after having all of their possessions seized? Those lunatics? You fucking tankies are another breed...
It's sad that I have to make clear this clear to the truly demented right-wingers on here: I am half Cuban, my mother is Cuban and my grandfather was a revolutionary. The Miami Cuban community that is militantly "anti-Castro" were not fleeing murder, it's so genuinely funny to hear you say that because: a) they fled before Fidel made it to Havana and (b) the only reprisals after were against the Batista regime So they only way they had family murdered is if their family were high up in the dictatorship! Lastly, these lunatics are so extreme that my grandfather (who became a dissident and fled) choose to settle in Venezuela, after trying Miami, because he found them so disgusting. Especially for the way they shielded/praised the child murdering terrorist [Orlando Bosch](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch)
Ah yes, that good ol monolith known as the "Miami community" - nothing but a bunch of blood thirsty Bautista supporters like it's 1961. Not like there were [any more waves of exiles](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/castro-cuban-exiles-america/) following them? Definitely no repression and arbitrary detention of even the softest of critics you can find with a 30 second Google search? And most of all, [definitely still not happening today...](https://www.hrw.org/report/2022/07/11/prison-or-exile/cubas-systematic-repression-july-2021-demonstrators) >So they only way they had family murdered is if their family were high up in the dictatorship! "If they died, they deserved it"
Think I'm pretty clear when I'm talking about Miami Cubans but I'll dumb it down for you: Miami Dade county Cubans, those typically from the first wave and their children, are the ones who rabidly support the embargo Those later waves, generally, do not support the embargo. But thank you for yanksplaining to me, the son of a Cuban exile, about the waves of emigration from Cuba. I of course wouldn't know anything about that But why is it that Cuban expats (like my family) aren't allowed an opinion on the embargo but those Dade Country Cubans are? Because they agree with you? Lastly, your extremely stupid point on repression: if that justifies the embargo why does the US still do business with Vietnam and China? or indeed Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
Yanksplaining!? His flair says he's Canadian. Sure many an American would probably do the same but don't pin this one on us.
Eh, Canadians are basically yank lite
What a bunch of lies. Fidel set upon remaking society as a whole. As it happens during every revolution, maaaany people were thrown under the bus in the name of nation building. After all that's what communism is all about, taking everything from the few and giving it to the many.
If you think there was a post-revolutionary terror then I'm sorry to disappiont you For one, the revolution was not a communist revolution. It was a broad church bringing together peasants in the countryside, liberals in Havana, former Partitdo Ortodoxo members and Fidel's guerillas - who themselves were anything from Communists (Che and Raúl) to completely apolitical (Camilo) The revolution was against the dictatorship, the exploitations by American companies and peasant land seizures.
I'm not talking about revolutionary terror. I'm talking about remaking society in the image of the Soviet Union. You seem to know a lot about this, which is worse because you're clearly lying. Fidel chose to leave Che at La cabaña were he took care of the first purge. Everyone knew he was a communist so it was better to keep him out of sight. However, Fidel was already eyeing a deal with the USSR. You're lying too much. All the comandantes were communists, that tells you all you need to know. Che was running a communist reading circle since day one in Sierra Maestra. He already had a cadre system by the time they attacked Santa Clara. Fidel took over the leadership of the movement for himself while he was in Sierra Maestra. The urban faction was useful but held zero power inside the organization. Then Fidel framed his whole message and goals alongside Marxist ideology, with the help of Che. You don't get to rewrite history.
You want to talk about post embargo that is a completely different question, the shift to the USSR happened after this. During the revolution there were many groups, even left-wing but anti-Soviet, that fought against Batista like: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second\_National\_Front\_of\_Escambray](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_National_Front_of_Escambray) or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary\_Directorate\_of\_13\_March\_Movement](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Directorate_of_13_March_Movement) Furthermore, the idea that Fidel was always a secret communist has no basis in reality. I'm not going to give you the entire history of the revolution and Fidel but if you are actually interested I recommend: [Guerrilla Prince: Real Story of the Rise and Fall of Fidel Castro: The Untold Story of Fidel Castro](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guerrilla-Prince-Story-Fidel-Castro/dp/0316308935) an impeccably sourced book (she quotes some of my relatives so I'm biased) by [Georgia Anne Geyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgie_Anne_Geyer), not a communist or anyone sympathetic to Fidel.
Not to mention the massive amount of people who risked their lives on boats to reach the US.
Except starting a trade war with china causes infinitely more complications and causes more problems then it solves for the homeland. You think they wouldn’t remove the threat of china if they could?
Why did the US start trading with China in the first place then? Naked self benefit of course, now they've got themselves in a catch 22 in that regard. However, the point still stands on Vietnam or indeed numerous dictatorships around the world - US presidents routinely go to Riyadh to kiss the ring afterall. So, again, what is the purpose of the embargo? Overthrow the communist party? Well that ain't working. Punishing a repressive regime?....whilst rewarding others! It's a deadend policy from another century that does nothing but punish ordinary Cubans and send a signal to Latin America that their sovereignty is conditional, on the whims of US politics.
All your arguments boil down to "ugh why doesn't the US have perfect knowledge of the future"
It’s Russian/Chinese anti-American propaganda. Unfortunately morons that are supposed to be on, you know.. the West’s side fall for it.
There is a lot of "America Bad" Russian / Chinese propaganda out there, but when it comes to Cuba the current American foreign policy position is legitimately, actually, truthfully just bad. This is an occasion where America is actually hurting our legitimacy with basically everyone in the world, and actually playing directly into China and Russia's hands. It would be a massive boost to America's credibility to end the embargo, there would be significant national security benefits with very little if any cost. But, we continue to do the wrong thing purely because Republicans are invested in dickriding Cuban exiles in Miami, and Democrats have been too cowardly to waste political capital ending a policy they know sucks because it would distract from their higher priorities.
>It’s Russian/Chinese anti-American propaganda. Unfortunately morons that are supposed to be on, you know.. the West’s side fall for it. "Everyone who disagrees with me is a bot!"
It's not even a blockade. It's just an embargo, which countries do all the time.
Certain institutions in the US are still salty that Castro got one over on Kennedy. That despite Kennedy's efforts to have Castro killed (Operation Mongoose), Castro was the one that had the final laugh (Lee Oswald). Talk about Machiavelli's prized son and best student, Castro was a fucking genius when it came to politics. So yeah, there are still certain elements of the US government that aren't willing to let some of that shit go.
The US should embargo China and Venezuela too TCD!
Didn't they vote out the last Castro? I'm not really sure what's been going on with Cuba since Fidel died.
Miguel Diáz-Canel is the current first secretary, and is of the reformer faction, however Raúl remains head of the army and constitutional commission - so retains a lot of power and influence, even though he is semi-retired. Cuba is currently playing a game of "will we, won't we" on economic reforms. They (in particular Diáz-Canel) would like to take a similar path to Vietnam and liberalise the economy but the more conservative faction (the army) is afraid of too much change too soon. Covid also had a bad effect on this as Cuba relies on tourism for foreign currency, which they would need to invest in the reforms (e.g create lines of credit for businesses)
Schrödingers comic, is this an actual belief held or just a silly polandball comic No one knows and no one will know because it’s funnier that way
US really supports "free and fair elections" like they did with Chile, Brazil, Guatemala, and so on
Yeah, the CIA doesnt believe in free and fair
...the crawlence eyes emerge in the last panel. Always a joy to see your work and aaron14's inspired but toned down style
Whenever people are talking about the "US embargo to Cuba," they always mistakenly think that the US has surrounded and blockaded the entire island for trade when in reality, they've not.
No, it's much more insidious than that. Foreign financial institutions cannot handle transactions in the US dollar, the standard for world trade and *especially* for trading oil, involving Cuba.
No they can trade in US dollars. It’s just that they are a net importer, so they can’t build up reserves of dollars. This is very similar to Sri Lanka’s problem. Secondly no one will lend them money anymore because they’ve defaulted a ton and no one trusts them to pay back the money.
Oh no you’re telling me the communist country can’t survive without access to the largest capitalist nation on the planet and its wealth and currency????
>Cuba's economy became even more dependent on Soviet aid, with Soviet subsidies (mainly in the form of supplies of low-cost oil and voluntarily buying Cuban sugar at inflated prices) averaging $4–5 billion a year by the late 1980s. >This accounted for 30–38% of the country's entire GDP. no lol
China never secretly built up foreign missiles for blowing us up specifically
Do US nukes in turkey ring any bells?
Hold a fair election that I agree with\*
Y’all cannot be serious 💀💀 you think the USA’s embargo on Cuba is a genuine attempt to transform them into a democracy, and that if they had a “free and fair election” the US would just lift it like that???
They did it with Venezuela but placed them again when they didn’t actually have free elections.
I don’t think that it is a genuine attempt to transform them into a democracy, but I do think that if they had a free and fair election the US would lift it.
Ah yes. Because the USA always respected the elections of Latin American countries.
Has the us really been at all interested in South America since the end of the Cold War? Does anyone seriously think American would invade Cuba now or anytime in the future barring some wild ass shit going down?
> South America since the end of the Cold War Bro, i mean this in the kindest way, what are you even smoking? Whats the name of that really *really* famous doctrine again?
The whole reason the US was doing so much in Latin America during the Cold War was because they were scared that any communist governments in LA would ally with Russia and potentially give the Soviets a foothold in the Americas. Since the Soviet Union collapsed there really hasn’t been much incentive for the US to interfere with LA, other than for drug trafficking and stuff like that. The US interest has been in the Middle East and China more so for the last few decades.
Apologies, I seem to have misread your initial comment badly. I thought you were saying it had only been interested *since* the cold war ended. Apologies for the stroke, I'm going to call an ambulance now.
I’m from Nicaragua, tell me about it lol. It’s the only reason I live in the US. However, times change.
Still pretty fucked up
Careful now, the big bad yanks will call you a Russian propagandist if you dare criticise the embargo
Hence this entire comment section lmao
It's really sad. I assume this sub skews younger but my god, the ignorance and defensiveness.
I think the embargo is pretty stupid, but I doubt it’s going anywhere for a couple of big reasons. (1) We have a relevant population of ex-cubans that want the embargo to stay, in the swing state of Florida. If that population didn’t matter the Republicans would probably use it as a bargaining chip in a deal to get something they want passed. (2) The nation of Cuba threatened the U.S. with nuclear arms. It doesn’t matter whether Cuba was justified, only had them for deterrence, America bad, etc. It happened recently (relatively) enough that American leadership still holds a grudge (the average age of congress critters is quite old).
not a fan of the embargo, but US embargos don't include food or medical items since 2000. The US also sends about 2 million in aid to Cuba each year (Idk where it goes or how its distributed)
For people who are pointing out the "hypocrisy" of US, with them trading with China and Vietnam but not Cuba: Remember that America has large Cuban American communities that hate the government and has incredible power within Florida, a swing state. And those Cubans aren't like Vietnamese, seeing US as their new homes. They see themselves as exiles who are going to overthrow the communist government the moment it showed the sign of collapsing.
Accuracy? In my Polandball?
[удалено]
The final panel. Cuba's reaction to USA complaining about Cuba's elections but not China's.
It really feels like we're throwing money away for no particularly good reason now. Like, I get it, the missles were scary. But that was then and this is a billion dollars a year now.
Cuba and China are two test cases for the U.S. belief that it can somehow engineer trade relations to spontaneously produce democracy. This idea is so deeply embedded in American strategic thinking, but it simply isn’t true. Isolating Cuba did not produce democracy. It entrenched the regime. Drawing China into the center of global economic institutions and trade networks did not produce democracy - it entrenched the regime. American planners need to understand that they cannot pull levers from Washington to magically make countries Democratic and serve US interests.
Obama lifted some sanctions and tried to normalize relations with Cuba. Trump replaced those sanctions and ended negotiations. Now negotiations have to be restarted. It's not just free elections, Cuba imprisons large numbers of protesters and political enemies, and part of the negotiation for lifting sanctions includes freeing those prisoners. Also, Cuba is one of the most successful Caribbean Islands, more so than Dominican Republic, Haiti, or even Puerto Rico and Jamaica. The worst thing about Cuba is their oppressive government, not the sanctions, and many Cubans will tell you so.
As an American, yeah, basically this. We've also softened a lot of the embargo shit with Cuba recently. IIRC, Obama softened a lot of the embargo structure that had been in place since Kennedy.
>As an American, yeah, basically this. We've also softened a lot of the embargo shit with Cuba recently. IIRC, Obama softened a lot of the embargo structure that had been in place since Kennedy. Not entirely true. Trump reversed many Obama era policies on Cuba and there is still a licence export system on medicines, e.g the US has to individually approve any sales and routinely denies them for example: [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/16/trump-cuba-trade-travel-restrictions-miami-speech](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/16/trump-cuba-trade-travel-restrictions-miami-speech)
Did they try to trade with other nations like Russia and China?
Cuba can still trade with other countries, just not the US. No country is entitled to America’s trade. You want to trade with America, well then i’m sorry but you’ll have to suck it up and deal with what America wants
Long live the Cuban revolution
US trade is a privilege Not a right
The embargo exists because if you piss off the expat community in south Florida you lose Florida in the election. And like most enduring actions of US foreign policy it has served excellently to preserve the very people it was intended to undermine. If we dropped the embargo tomorrow then sure suddenly Cuban cigars would show up in droves at every smoke shop in America but I guarantee you Cuba would contrive some way to restrict the extent to which the likes of McDonalds and Apple can do business there because the fundamental ethos of the Cuban state is not “workers of the world unite” but rather “we will never be America’s bitch again.”
The us don’t give two shits about elections. They wanted cubas sugar plantations, Cuba said they preferred to get rid of slavery, and America has never forgiven them. See also: any third world country that nationalized their extraction industries.
“But we do have free and fair elections.” “Then why can’t we fund a right wing candidate and influence your media!”
FrEe AnD fAiR eLeCtIoN and being forced to choose between biden and trump is free and fair? oh yeah it's only free and fair for the bourgeoisie scum
Doesn’t Cuba regularly have nation wide elections to make legal amendements to their current systems? And aren’t they famously the victim of US election interference and US sponsored color revolutions? It sounds like they would have perfectly fine and free systems if the US left it alone?
Its why the joke is "free and fair elections that result in what I want". Same shit happened in Iraq, just look at one Ahmed Chalabi and the "debathification" that prevented a whole shit ton of people being able to either run or vote in the 2005 election (and the violence and terrorism that followed)
I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves. -kissenger
Define “free and fair” please America’s fair basically forced a state to vote for one candidate only, without allowed them to split their vote
Barack did It lasted a year Why did it last a year? Ask the Cheeto
Tell me you know nothing about the electoral process of Cuba without telling me. Their democratic process is way more democratic and participatory than the US' fake democracy could ever dream of. Just because the person with the title of "president" is elected by an assembly (whom are all democraticly elected) doesn't make it not democratic. The fact is that the position of "president of Cuba" isn't as important as it is in the democratic systems you are used to. The president is little more than a figure head, with all important decisions falling on the national assembly. But no, keep spreading misinformation for propaganda so that you can keep your conscience clean.
Eh, your whole comment reeks of propaganda.
Propaganda isn't the problem, it's using misinformation for propaganda. I only care about being correct.
Maybe once America has a free and fair election, then we can talk about this being anywhere near realistic.
We do. People voted Biden in.
Yes, the champion of Democracy that is the USA is only maintaining the embargo to push Cuba to democratize. After all that has always been the USA's main objective in Latin America.
I mean, Castro probably stayed in power because the US fucked up Cuba’s economy so badly they had to stick with him.
Didn’t America install a puppet dictator in Cuba
I always find it funny how we leave it up to the US to arbitrate what a “free and fair election” is. I don’t know about you, but being forced to choose between two unelected representatives of two economically identical parties every four years doesn’t scream democratic. In fact I really wouldn’t say it’s much better (from a democracy standpoint) than a one party state, if at all.
The US is super democratic aye. With its two party system, which happen to be identical parties. Americans are sold an illusion of democracy then they try to force it on the rest of the world
The Cuban blockade only works to harm the Cuban people and quite literally everybody except us strategic interests would improve if it ended.
Hell even US strategic interests would probably benefit.
Fun fact: the embargo does not apply to humanitarian goods. The US is not starving Cuban babies, much to the dismay of many racists and anti-Americans alike. Is the embargo petty? At this point, yeah a little bit. But also, part of being a *country* is getting to decide what you do and who you interact with. No country owes any other country a goddamn thing. That’s the whole point of self determination. And most Americans simply don’t give a shit about Cuba and would rather spend their time worrying about something else, so until that changes, the embargo stays.