By Philip Peters. The Cato
Institute. November 2, 2000. Cato Policy Analysis No. 384
Philip Peters is vice president of the Lexington Institute, where he
publishes field research on the Cuban economy. He served in the State Department
during the Reagan and Bush administrations.
Executive Summary
More than a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Fidel Castro remains
in charge in Havana, despising capitalism, taunting the Cuban-American community
in Miami, theorizing about the evils of globalization, and keeping up with every
imaginable statistic about Cuba. He has been in power for 41 years, outlasting
U.S. strategies from the Bay of Pigs in the early 1960s to the tightened
economic sanctions of the 1990s.
As Castro remains in control, new conditions have led to a reexamination of
U.S. policy. Cuba's threat to hemispheric security ended when the Soviet Union
dissolved, Soviet military support disappeared, and Cuban support for
revolutionary movements in Latin America ended. As American sanctions have
increased, Cuban dissidents and religious authorities have increasingly voiced
their opposition to the embargo and to policies that seek to isolate Cuba.
Economic reforms in Cuba are still incipient, but small enterprise, foreign
investment, incentive-based agriculture, and other changes have had important
impacts: they helped the economy survive its post-Soviet crisis, and Cubans
working in those sectors have gained experience with markets and augmented their
earnings.
Cuban Americans have increasingly joined this discussion, as a younger
generation of exiles values contact with the island and some first-generation
exiles begin to question the effectiveness of the trade embargo. The Elián
González crisis fueled doubts about the embargo when the young boy's
plight captured American attention and weakened the pro-embargo hard-line
position in public and congressional opinion.
The wide array of U.S. sanctions has failed to promote change in Cuba and
has allowed Castro to reinforce his arguments that the United States promotes
economic deprivation in Cuba and seeks to abridge Cuban sovereignty. It is time
for the United States to turn to economic engagement. Whether or not the embargo
is lifted completely, a policy that respects the rights of Americans to trade
with, invest in, and travel to Cuba would more effectively serve U.S. interests
in post-Soviet Cuba: defending human rights, helping the Cuban people, and
connecting with the generation of Cubans that will govern that country in the
early 21st century.
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