The Cato Institute.
October 31, 2001.
Castro policies to blame for poor economy, embargo not successful in
dislodging regime
WASHINGTON-Official U.S. and Cuban depictions of the effects of the United
States' 39-year-old embargo are misleading, a new Cato Institute study reveals.
"Report from Havana: Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward
Cuba," is the product of recent visits to Cuba by Jonathan G. Clarke, Cato
research fellow, and William Ratliff, senior research fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover Institution. Drawing on their interviews with officials,
dissidents, and private citizens in Cuba, Clarke and Ratliff argue that the
embargo is not responsible for the country's poor economic conditions-as Havana
claims-nor has it been effective at achieving Washington's goal of isolating the
Cuban regime.
"The United States and Cuba are essentially co-conspirators in
misrepresenting the effects of the embargo as more significant than is in fact
the case," the authors say. "The Cuban economy is not flourishing, but
it is no longer backsliding."
With the enthusiastic cooperation of many of the United States' closest
allies (including Canada, the European Union, and Israel), Cuba has found ways
to work around the U.S. embargo and weather the demise of its Soviet sponsor and
more recent storms such as increases in world energy prices, the authors say.
Beyond foreign investors, Cuban Americans-who support the embargo more
widely than any other group-also violate it most frequently and significantly. "By
sending remittances to the island they always violate the embargo's spirit and
sometimes its legal restrictions as well."
The authors also explain that while the Bush administration supports a
Senate bill to provide $100 million to Cuban political and human rights
activists, dissidents oppose such a measure because it would compromise their
independence and legitimacy.
To improve Cuba's poor human rights record and reveal the Castro regime as
the main source of Cuba's economic troubles, Clarke and Ratliff recommend "lifting
the trade and investment embargo, restoring the right of Americans to travel to
Cuba, and rejecting any current or proposed official aid to groups inside Cuba."
"Report
from Havana Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba"
© 2001 The Cato Institute | 
