Don't Reward Cuba's Dictators

PUBLICADO PARA HOY 26 DE AGOSTO

Por: Capitol Hill Cubans


Excerpt from Jeff Jacoby's column in today's Boston Globe:

Lift embargo on Cuba? Not so fast

Clearly, there are men and women of good will on both sides of this debate. And clearly the end of the Castro reign is a consummation devoutly to be wished. But will that day really be brought closer by allowing American tourists, exports, and cash to pour into Cuba?

The argument might be more plausible if Cuba were a Caribbean North Korea, cut off from contact with the world. It isn't. Ordinary Cubans may live with poverty and repression, but the government has turned the island into a major tourist attraction, complete with deluxe hotels and beach resorts. Some 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba last year, more than 800,000 of them Canadians. For that matter, tens of thousands of Americans make it to Cuba each year, despite the restrictions. Yet for all that exposure to foreign citizens, money, and ideas, the power of the Castro brothers is undiminished.

By the same token, if international commerce had the power to undo the regime, wouldn't it have been undone by now? The US embargo, after all, doesn't stop Cuba from trading with any other country in the world. Indeed, even with the "embargo,'' the United States is one of Cuba's top five trading partners.

The transformative power of free trade is not to be denied, but trade with Cuba isn't free. There is no Cuban parallel to the economic openness and flourishing private sector that has transformed China. Jerry Haar, a dean of business administration at Florida International University, observes in the Latin Business Chronicle that one unavoidable fact of life faces exporters to Cuba: "The entire distribution chain is in the hands of the Cuban military and intelligence services.'' Foreign investors are compelled to deal with the state and its subsidiaries, since they control the "hotels, foreign trade operations, equipment sales, and factories.''

As long as the Castros maintain their stranglehold on the Cuban economy, enriching that economy enriches — and entrenches — them.

The travel ban and embargo have not ended Cuba's misery, but lifting them unilaterally will only make that misery worse. Rewarding the dictators who keep Cuba in chains is not the way to set Cubans free.