A young girl joins 300,000 of her fellow Cubans in the city of Manzanillo to demonstrate against the US embargo.

Cuba may be just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, but it is a world away politically from the United States. The United States has imposed its infamous embargo on the nearby Communist island-state since 1961, and all signs indicate that the administration of US President George W. Bush plans to maintain this policy. While the United States hopes that sanctions will force communist Cuba to embrace democracy and capitalism, the Cuban government blames the United States for the chronic starvation and economic devastation within its borders.

Although the rest of the world is free to trade with Cuba, Cuba adamantly argues that the United States is, literally, killing its people with its sanctions; Foreign Minister Perez Roque recently called the sanctions “an act of genocide.” Bringing democracy to Cuba might indeed be a noble ideal, but after 40 years, the embargo has shown itself to be ineffective in achieving this goal. Instead, it has given dictator Fidel Castro political ammunition against the United States, not to mention costing the United States billions of dollars in terms of lost trade each year. Most ironic, perhaps, is that the end of Castro’s regime may come sooner by abolishing the US sanctions for good.

Over the four decades of Castro’s rule, Cuba has undergone the adoption of a strong Marxist-Leninist political ethos, cooperation with the Soviet Union, Cuban expropriation of US business interests, and a face-off with the United States in the “Bay of the Pigs” incident. During this time, the island’s economy has stagnated. Today, problems abound, from inadequate agricultural production and restricted diets to non-operational plumbing and broken street lamps. Additionally, the island’s major industry is tourism, including approximately 200,000 US nationals who visit each year, more than a quarter of whom travel illegally via third countries. This reality of the economy has caused the salaries of busboys in beach hotels (through tips) to rise above those of many doctors and lawyers and has led to a worrisome amount of prostitution. The average Cuban is forced to subsist on meager wages, making it hard to afford even the bare minimum of living essentials.

Given that Castro had been in office for less than three years before the United States imposed the embargo, he has since been able to deride the sanctions as the source of Cuba’s economic woes, even though its communist economy would likely have lagged independent of outside intervention. In recent years, Cuba, free to trade with the rest of the world, has diversified its trading partners (dependence on Russia plunged from 80 percent in 1989 to 15 percent today), but has only seen minimal improvements in living standards. Indeed, more than the US embargo, Cuba stagnates under the weight of its communist government.

Moreover, the economic pressures placed on the island by the embargo pale in comparison to the political gains that Castro has realized in the minds of his people. The embargo is quite effective at stirring strong anti-US sentiments, and Castro has utilized it to demonize the United States and distract Cubans from the failures of his own regime. For example, when the United States passed the restrictive Helms-Burton Act in 1996, seeking to impose sanctions on countries trading with or investing in Cuba, Castro organized numerous island-wide demonstrations and protests.

The dictator has also managed to rally other countries to his side, only serving to bolster his government’s propaganda; since 1994, the UN General Assembly has voted (by margins as large as 157 to 2) to advocate the blockade’s repeal. Moreover, powerful figures such as Pope John Paul II have criticized the “unjust and ethically unacceptable” US embargo, helping Castro seize the moral high ground.

Nonetheless, the United States continues to steadily tighten restrictions on Cuba, maintaining that the embargo will force an end to Castro’s regime. After more than 40 years of failure, this is an inane argument, not to mention a stark inconsistency when compared to the recent US embrace of trade with communist China—trade that many lawmakers openly hope and contend will lead to democratic reforms within that state.

National security arguments also fall flat, since with the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba is no longer the threat that it posed in the days of the Cuban missile crisis when the embargo was first imposed. The embargo even hurts the United States by keeping a multi-billion dollar market off-limits to US businesses. Nearly US$1 billion dollars per year are sent to Cubans by expatriate friends and families, all spent in stores owned by the Cuban government which cannot sell US products.

The United States should thus eliminate the antiquated, counterproductive embargo. While the 2000 US Congressional action allowing US companies to sell commodities to Cuba on a case-by-case basis (exports to the island could reach US$1 billion by 2005) was a step in the right direction, until the United States opens trade completely, Castro can continue to deride the “discriminatory and humiliating terms” imposed by the United States. The embargo is Castro’s most powerful tool in rallying anti-US, pro-government sentiments, and the US government continues to underestimate its potency. With open borders, the resulting communication, travel, and trade will lend itself to the exchange of information and ideas. Hence, the foundation of Castro’s propaganda machine will collapse, and Castro will find himself without excuses and unable to rile his people against the United States with the same fervor that he can now. After almost a half-century of failure, it is time to consider abolishing the embargo and renew hopes of future democracy in Cuba.