Fidel Leaves, Embargo Stays

When a policy fails to achieve its stated goal, it is usually changed. Pragmatism ultimately trumps ideology. Or so rationalism dictates. America’s Cuba policy, largely embodied by the 1962 trade embargo, does not follow this course. But with the recent abdication of Fidel Castro, handing over the reigns of government to his brother Raul after over four decades of autocratic rule, there might be an opening to correct the misguided policies of the past and ease the embargo.

After the Cuban revolution in the late 1950s, when communist rebel Fidel Castro deposed the pro-US military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, the U.S. reevaluated relations with Cuba. With the Cold War in full force and the Soviets quickly lending support to Havana, the U.S. pulled out all the stops to quell the revolution raging in its backyard.

In the 1960s, the communist regime and the embargo withstood the Bay of Pigs invasion; the Cuban missile crisis; and several assassination attempts on Castro—some did not seek to kill him, one plot involved thallium salts in an effort to emasculate the charismatic leader by forcing his hair, beard and all, to fall out.

Despite America’s best efforts, Castro remained—emboldened from survival. Yet when Castro’s main benefactor and bankroller, the Soviet Union, crumbled in the early 1990s, Cuba was mired in political and economic chaos. Without subsidies from its communist comrades in Moscow, Christopher Caldwell notes, “Cuba turned into a basket case. People worked by candlelight and in restaurants the silverware was chained to the tables.”

In Washington, the end of Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union should have resulted in a re-think, but the opposite resulted: a strengthened embargo. Indeed, rather than stepping in to help them pick up the pieces, hardliners determined the embargo was needed now more than ever. The thinking was: Castro is going under; all he needs is a little push.

This nudge came in the form of the 1992 Cuba Democracy Act (CDA) and the 1996 Helms-Burton Act. The former stated that the fall of Castro and the inception of democracy on the island had to precipitate the lifting of the embargo, while the latter added sanctions on third countries which trade with Cuba.

These acts did little to curb Castro’s autocracy. And despite the end of Soviet support and the strengthening of the embargo, the regimes obituary was never written. Now, Fidel has stepped aside, and still Washington will not budge. Why?

If the policy was dictated by geopolitics, in a rational goal-oriented fashion, the embargo would have been lifted after the fall of the Soviet Union, when the small island was no longer threatening. Another paradox lies in the fact that Cuba has become an outlier among communist nations: U.S. relations with China and Vietnam have warmed by leaps and bounds and are now marked by burgeoning trade flows. Moreover, there would be no embargo if economics took precedence—American exporters stand to gain from access to the Cuban market. Agricultural trade was loosened in 2000, and now U.S. food exports to Havana total over $400 million.

The primary answer to this foreign policy question, however, oddly enough lies in the domestic realm. As the importance of Cuba as a Cold War strategic battleground waned, domestic politics gained precedence. The Cuban-American lobby—chiefly made up of hard line exiles represented by the Cuban-American National Foundation (CANF)—stepped in to fill the power vacuum, funding and pressuring candidates to support anti-Castro policies.

The strategic location of these hardliners—concentrated in the swing states, Florida and New Jersey—gives them an electoral advantage. It is telling that the two major pieces of legislation above passed in election years: 1992 and 1996. No candidate attempting to win the presidency can fully support lifting the embargo without the fear of losing votes in Florida, where less than a thousand votes separated Al Gore and George W. Bush in the 2000 election.

Recent case in point: Mike Huckabee. As Arkansas governor in 2002, he wrote a letter to President Bush in favor of lifting the embargo. Now, in the race for the presidency, he approves of the economic sanctions on Cuba, a stance he defended just prior to the Florida Republican Primary, declaring, “Rather than seeing it as some huge change, I would call it, rather, the simple reality that I'm running for president of the United States, not for reelection as governor of Arkansas.” Unfortunately, he is dead right.

Other than in Miami during election time, does Cuba even matter? It was pertinent in 1962 when the Soviets maintained nuclear missiles, and during the Cold War in general when it was a communist ally to Moscow. But now, Cuba seems irrelevant on the international stage. Not so—Cuba still looms large in the region, where an ideological conflict is brewing between Anti-American populists, led by Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez, and more centrist, Pro-American countries like Colombia. Opening up to Cuba, which receives subsidized oil from Caracas and publicly backs Chavez, would send a positive signal and could do wonders for regional diplomacy.

In more abstract terms, Cuba also gets to the heart of a crucial foreign policy debate. What is the best way to induce positive change in other countries: isolation or engagement? Washington currently tends to support the former when dealing with rival dictatorships—witness U.S. policy toward Iran, Syria, North Korea and, of course, Cuba. Autocrats only respond to pressure; so crank it up. Critics, many residing in Brussels, disagree. Leverage is lost when relations are broken; engagement can help change things from the inside.

Both views are well-argued, but regarding Cuba, the debate should be over. Isolation clearly has not reached its goal of triggering the end of communism in Cuba. It is time to give engagement, at least economically, a try. Softening the policy would not only make economic sense, but would also make it more difficult for the regime to use the embargo and the U.S. as scapegoats for its failings.

Fidel’s abdication gives Washington an excuse to readjust the policy. Shifting Cuban-American sentiment, particularly among the younger generation, may help provide political cover. According to a Florida International University poll from last year, 57.5% of Cuban-Americans support the embargo, nearly a ten point drop from the year before. All these factors point to the need for a change in policy.

Former British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston once quipped that nations have no permanent friends, only permanent interests. Ending the embargo is in America’s interest and may eventually gain it a friend. Hopefully the next president will agree.