Pro & Con Quotes: Should the United States Maintain Its Embargo against Cuba?

“Advocates of lifting the U.S. embargo on Cuba have a serious misunderstanding of the Cuban economy and the brutal regime that controls the island. First, we must understand what U.S. law does: It bans American businesses from trading with companies or organizations linked to the Cuban regime. It’s nearly impossible to do business on the island without government connections. As a result, all economic activity in Cuba benefits a government with a long history of human rights abuses, including forced labor, torture, and executions….

Only political reform within Cuba would open the door to prosperity. If the regime were to release its political prisoners, allow freedom of the press, and establish free, fair, multi-party elections, real wealth building might occur. And if that happened, the U.S. embargo would end automatically, as intended by U.S. law. But we know Cuba’s dictatorship will never willingly relinquish control.

We saw that in July 2021, when thousands of people across the island took to the streets in protest against their government. Instead of listening to its citizens’ cries for freedom, the dictatorship cracked down on them, blocking internet access, abducting civil society leaders, and using state-sanctioned violence to intimidate protesters.

American companies should not be enriching a brutal, Communist dictatorship 90 miles from our shores. If we want what is best for the Cuban people and in the best interest of the United States, we should keep the embargo in place—until Cuba is finally free.”

“Cuba continues to play a destabilizing role in the Western Hemisphere, providing a communist foothold in the region and propping up U.S. adversaries in places like Venezuela and Nicaragua by fomenting instability, undermining the rule of law, and suppressing democratic processes. This Administration has made a strategic decision to reverse the loosening of sanctions and other restrictions on the Cuban regime. These actions will help to keep U.S. dollars out of the hands of Cuban military, intelligence, and security services.”

“[J]ust as we did in regard to moving our embassy to Jerusalem, the true capital of Israel, or designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for what it is, a terrorist organization, the Trump administration recognizes reality. We see clearly that the [Cuban] regime’s repression of its own people and its unrepentant exportation of tyranny in the region has only gotten worse because dictators perceive appeasement as weakness, not strength.

President Obama’s administration’s game of footsy with the Castros’ junta did not deter the regime from continuing to harass and oppress the heroic Ladies in White, a group of women dedicated to peacefully protesting the regime’s human rights abuses.

More broadly, the regime continues to deprive its own people of the fundamental freedoms of speech, press, assembly, and association. Indeed, according to NGO reports, Cuban thugs made more than 2,800 arbitrary arrests in 2018 alone. In the run-up to the country’s recent sham constitutional referendum, one that enshrined the Communist Party as the only legal political party in Cuba, the regime harassed, beat, and detained leaders and – opposition leaders and activists. Three hundred and ten people were arbitrarily detained according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation.

Cuba’s behavior in the Western Hemisphere undermines the security and stability of countries throughout the region, which directly threatens United States national security interests. The Cuban regime has for years exported its tactics of intimidation, repression, and violence. They’ve exported this to Venezuela in direct support of the former Maduro regime. Cuban military intelligence and state security services today keep Maduro in power.

Sadly, Cuba’s most prominent export these days is not cigars or rum; it’s oppression.”

“In June of 2017, President Trump announced the cancellation of the horrible, misguided deal the Obama administration struck with the dictatorship in Havana.

Under our new policy, National Security Presidential Memorandum-5, we are enforcing all sanctions transparently, aggressively, and effectively. We are supporting the Cuban people by promoting freedom of assembly and expression, and we are steering American dollars away from Cuba’s military, security, or intelligence services—the main instruments of the Cuban regime’s repression.

As you know, the President’s 2017 policy announcement was only the beginning. Since then, we have imposed even further sanctions, tightened restrictions, and scaled back U.S. personnel at Embassy Havana in response to the vicious attacks on American diplomats.

From now on, no regime will target American citizens with impunity.

Under this administration, we don’t throw dictators lifelines. We take them away. “

“The United States believes the people of Cuba deserve a stable, prosperous, and democratic country. We strongly support their right to freely determine their own future. It is the Cuban government – and not the United States – that continues to deprive the Cuban people of this aspiration. Our sanctions against Cuba are just one part of our overall effort to help all in Cuba freely exercise their human rights and fundamental freedoms and choose their own destiny. For that reason, we vote ‘No’ and strongly oppose this resolution [to end the US embargo on Cuba].

The Cuban government continues to isolate the Cuban people while disingenuously blaming the embargo. In fact, Cuba currently has one of the most restrictive economies in the world as a direct result of its government’s policies. Irrespective of U.S. policy, the Cuban economy will not thrive until the Cuban government allows a free labor market, fully empowers Cuban entrepreneurs, respects intellectual property rights, allows unfettered access to information via the Internet, opens its state monopolies to private competition, and adopts sound macro-economic policies.

The United States remains a deep and abiding friend of the Cuban people. Our policy emphasizes advancing human rights and democracy on the island, while ensuring that our engagement benefits the Cuban people – and not their dictatorial regime. Our policy focuses on engagement with the Cuban people to give them the support and tools they need to move forward, independent of the obstacles imposed by their own government.”

“The Castro dictatorship denies the Cuban people the most basic human rights and freedoms. Uncooperative journalists and opponents of the regime are arrested and even killed. The Cuban economy is rigged in favor of the ruling elite. The Cuban government has the absolute authority to restrict travel inside Cuba and to determine who gets to leave…

The unfortunate thing is not that the United States was left, once again, standing virtually alone on behalf of human dignity at the United Nations [during the annual vote for the US to end the embargo]. To the contrary. We are proud to buck the mob when it comes to the principles we believe in.

The really unfortunate result of this UN charade is that the Cuban people were once again abandoned by an organization that is supposed to advocate for human rights.

Thankfully, the United Nations does not have the power to end the United States embargo. That power belongs exclusively to Congress and the American people…

In the absence of a world message of support, the United States reiterates its message to the people of Cuba: We will continue to stand with you until the day comes when we can stand together as free peoples in our shared neighborhood.”

“Last year, I pledged to be a voice against oppression, and here I am like I promised. Now that I am your president … We will stand with the Cuban people in the struggle for freedom… Effective immediately, I am cancelling the last government’s one-sided deal with Cuba. We won’t lift sanctions on the Cuban regime until all political prisoners and freed … until free and internationally recognized elections are held.”

“Just as the U.S. Congress focused sanctions on Iran’s petroleum-refining capability, which is that country’s foremost source of income, the United States has sanctions against tourism transactions in Cuba to prevent an exponential increase in funds directly to Castro regime’s repressive machinery…

Current U.S. policy toward Cuba has not failed. In order to label a policy as a failure, there needs to be evidence of the success, or likely success, of alternatives.

The fact is that decades of Canadian and European tourism to Cuba — with over three million visitors per year — has not eased the Castro regime’s repression, improved its respect for basic human rights or helped Cuba’s civil society gain any democratic space. To the contrary, it has increased repression and stabilized Castro’s regime…
For Cubans, the consequence of lifting restrictions on U.S. tourism is more repression; for the United States, it’s having financed that repression.”

“Clamors for the embargo’s lifting persist despite the fulfillment of dissident and exile warnings that diplomatic recognition of the Castro regime would strengthen the oppressors and crush popular dissent. The removal of what little trade sanctions remain is legally and morally unjustified…

The oft-repeated rhetoric that the embargo has ‘exacerbated the hardships’ of the Cuban people is untrue. The Castros’ totalitarian system of governance, which has created economic, sociopolitical and spiritual impoverishment, is the veritable culprit, not the embargo. Fifty-five years of global trade with Cuba refutes allegations of enforced isolation. Given Castro’s propensity to default on loans, the embargo has actually saved U.S. taxpayers millions of dollars by denying the corrupt regime easy credit.”