First of all, let me say this. The Cuban gummit is crap. The Castro regime has repressed its civvies, supported terrorists around the world, and generally acted in a sucky manner. If the Cuban peeps rose up and overthrew their gummit today, well, that would be a good thing.
I'ma say this, too: our sanctions have done squat to end this repressive regime. Most likely, our sanctions have strengthened the hold of the Castro regime upon its people. The Cato Institute, a conservative think tank, states the following:
“Using trade as a weapon of foreign policy has harmed America’s economic interests in the world without significantly advancing national security.
“The proliferation of trade sanctions in the last decade has been accompanied by their declining effectiveness. From Cuba to Iran to Burma, sanctions have failed to achieve the goal of changing the behavior or the nature of target regimes. Sanctions have, however, deprived American companies of international business opportunities, punished domestic consumers, and hurt the poor and most vulnerable in the target countries.”
The Cato article, linked below, gives numerous reasons why sanctions fail to accomplish USA goals. Obviously, the goal of sanctions against Cuba is to lead the Cuban people to overthrow the Castro regime. Well, as Bert Woodall said today, “I hate to see the US abandon its Cuba embargo, just when it was only three or four decades away from starting to work.”
Consider China. A huge former Commie nation that had the potential to be a Gawd-awful enemy to the USA. Billions and billions of people (OK, 1.357 billion in (2013). A military that would resemble a horde of orcs from Lord of the Rings on the battlefield. Well, thanks to rapprochement, in the form of the USA being a consumer of Chinese goods, and China supplying employees for American corporations (GM, f'instance, which builds cars for local consumption there), China is not really a threat to the USA by any measure that counts. Sure, we have occasional issues with China misbehaving by hacking computer systems, but China would be ruining their own economy and harming their citizens should they ever decide to invade or otherwise seriously harm the USA. The growing Chinese middle and wealthy class would probably rise up and revolt against their gummit if China harmed the USA. As Forbes recently noted, “The Chinese economy increased its dependence on the United States last year (2011) according to recently released trade figures from Beijing and Washington.”
So, my belief that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar has a basis in reality. Cuba is just offshore from Florida. If you want Cuba to be a good neighbor, to make some dough off of Cuban citizens, and lessen the danger from and effectiveness of a despotic dictator 90 miles away, then get 'em dependent upon trade with the huge economy that is the USA. That works elsewhere!
