Embargo against Cuba: 60 years of a “total failure”

(New York) It was to be temporary. Tomorrow he will be 60 years old. The economic, commercial and financial embargo of the United States against Cuba, decreed on February 7, 1962, is a failure which… lasts.

Richard Hetu
special collaboration

John Fitzgerald Kennedy had just learned that his supply of little Cuban cigars had been replenished. Thus reassured, he gave the green light to the economic, commercial and financial embargo of the United States against the communist island of Fidel Castro, on February 7, 1962.

This is Pierre Salinger, spokesperson for 35^and president, who told the anecdote in 1992 in the magazine Cigar Aficionado. At Kennedy’s request, he had purchased more than 1,000 Upmann cigarillos, made in Havana, the day before an embargo came into force in retaliation for the expropriation and nationalization of American companies.

In 1994, Pierre Salinger was to reveal another secret: five days before he was assassinated, President Kennedy had asked a French journalist en route to Havana to deliver a message to Fidel Castro. Recognizing that the embargo was a mistake, he called on the leader of the Cuban revolution to begin negotiations to normalize relations between their countries.

Sixty years after its inception, the oldest embargo is no longer seen as a mistake, no offense to hardliners among Cuban exiles and their allies in the US Congress. “It’s a total failure,” said William LeoGrande, a professor at American University in Washington and a specialist in relations between the United States and Cuba.

“This is a measure that was put in place 60 years ago as part of a larger policy to overthrow the Cuban government. The embargo is still in place and so is the Cuban government. »

Change of attitude

On December 17, 2014, an American president himself acknowledged the failure of the embargo, which was reinforced in 1992 and 1996 by laws adopted by Congress and from which the island was able to partly protect itself for decades thanks to the help of the Russian and then Venezuelan ally.

“Sanctions have had relatively little effect, isolation has not worked,” said Barack Obama, announcing a historic rapprochement between the United States and Cuba that was to end more than 50 years of diplomatic blockage and lead to the revision of relations between the two countries.

This rapprochement coincided with a change in attitude within the Cuban-American community towards relations between the United States and Cuba. From 2010 to 2016, support for the embargo there fell from 56% to 34%, while support for diplomatic rapprochement rose from 54% to 72%, according to polls conducted by Florida International University.

These data lead Guillermo Grenier, professor of sociology at Florida International University, to say that the opinions of members of the Cuban-American community “are not set in stone, they are malleable”. “If you break the mold, like Barack Obama did, if you talk about Cuba as if it were another piece of U.S. foreign policy, I think you can change people’s minds. Cuban-Americans. The empirical data tells us that is what happened. And if Hillary Clinton had won in 2016, I think we would be talking about a different story. »

A disappointment called Biden

But Hillary Clinton, who had promised to continue Barack Obama’s Cuba policy, was defeated by Donald Trump, who abruptly ended the rapprochement initiated by his predecessor. During his tenure, the 45^and President multiplied the sanctions. Among them: a ban on stopovers in Cuba for American cruise ships; threats of legal action against foreign companies present on the island; obstacles to the sending of money by Cubans living abroad; inclusion of the country on the list of those who support terrorism.

During the election campaign, Joe Biden promised to reverse these sanctions and resume the policy of openness advocated by the president, of whom he was the right arm. But he shrugged off that pledge during his first six months in office. And the historic protests of July 11 in Cuba, which led to a wave of trials and heavy sentences against the participants, served as a pretext to maintain Donald Trump’s sanctions in place.

“Among people who are more progressive on the Cuba issue, the Biden administration was a big disappointment,” says Lisandro Pérez, who left Havana with his parents in 1960. But the professor and chair of the department of studies from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York is the first to admit that Cuba is not a paying subject politically for Joe Biden.

The Cuban-American vote

“If you want to attract the Cuban-American vote, which is particularly crucial in Florida, you have to maintain a hard line,” said Lisandro Pérez. And that’s part of the reason why there’s such great inertia around Cuban politics. There is no advantage for a President of the United States to change it. This may explain why the Biden administration left it untouched. And notice that Barack Obama waited until his second term to do so. »

Joe Biden won’t have to run for office in Florida until 2024. But the Democrats have not given up hope of wresting his seat from Republican Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and a hardliner in the US. regard to Cuba next November.

One of her most serious Democratic rivals, Florida Representative Val Demings, spoke out in favor of maintaining the embargo, from which food and medicine are exempt.

But some Republicans, including lawyer Jason Poblete, are themselves beginning to doubt the effectiveness of this measure. “On July 11, the Cuban people sent a powerful message, which has nothing to do with the embargo,” said the Florida native who practices law in the Washington area. “They want something different there. And we’re wasting our time with talking points dating back to the Cold War era. »

60 years of US embargo against Cuba

February 3 marks six decades of unilateral trade sanctions. Key dates.

1959

The Cuban Revolution drives out Fulgencio Batista. Prime Minister Fidel Castro approaches the Soviet Union.

1960

The United States reduces its purchases of Cuban sugar and bans exports to the island.

January 1961

The United States sever diplomatic relations.

February 3, 1962

John F. Kennedy decrees a trade embargo. Missile crisis.

October 1992

Torricelli law, under George HW Bush, hardened sanctions.

March 1996

Helms-Burton Act, under Bill Clinton, which allows the prosecution of foreign companies managing in Cuba property confiscated in 1959.

2009

Under Barack Obama, easing of travel restrictions and money transfers.

December 2014

Agreement between the two countries.

2015

The United States removes Cuba from the list of terrorist states, reestablishment of diplomatic relations.

June 2017

Donald Trump cancels the 2014 agreement, prohibits trade with companies controlled by the Cuban military.

May 2019

Donald Trump reactivates certain provisions of the Helms-Burton Act.

July 2021

Joe Biden castigates the “repression” of demonstrations, sanctions against Cuban officials.