President Obama and trade with Cuba

Joined
2 March 2003
Messages
4,344
Location
San Francisco
Note that I am only posting this article as a point of discussion. I am neither pro nor con on trade with Cuba.




Obama will use spring summit to bring Cuba in from the cold war.

US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo.

Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent The Observer, Sunday 8 March 2009

President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.

The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of "Yankee" cooperation.

The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.

"The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome," said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. "It just takes us back to the 1990s."

The provisions are contained in a $410bn (£290bn) spending bill due to be voted on this week. The legislation would allow Americans with immediate family in Cuba to visit annually, instead of once every three years, and broaden the definition of immediate family. It would also drop a requirement that Havana pay cash in advance for US food imports.

"There is a strong likelihood that Obama will announce policy changes prior to the summit," said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programmes at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of The Cuba Wars. "Loosening travel restrictions would be the easy thing to do and defuse tensions at the summit."

Latin America, once considered Washington's "backyard", has become newly assertive and ended the Castro government's pariah status. The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala have recently visited Havana to deepen economic and political ties. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to tell Obama on a White House visit this week that the region views the US embargo as anachronistic and vindictive. Easing it would help mend Washington's strained relations with the "pink tide" of leftist governments.

Obama's proposed Cuba measures would only partly thaw a policy frozen since John F Kennedy tried to isolate the communist state across the Florida Straits. "It would signal new pragmatism, but you would still have the embargo, which is the centrepiece of US policy," said Erikson.

Wayne Smith at the Centre for International Policy, Washington DC, said: "I think that the Obama administration will go ahead and lift restrictions on travel of Cuban Americans and remittance to their families. He may also lift restrictions on academic travel.

"There are some things that could be done very easily - for example it's about time we took Cuba off the terrorist list. It's the beginning of the end of the policies we have had towards Cuba for 50 years. It's achieved nothing, it's an embarrassment."

Wayne Smith, a former head of the US Interest Section in Havana, famously said Cuba had the same effect on American administrations as the full moon had on werewolves.

Cuban exiles in Florida, a crucial voting bloc in a swing state, sustained a hardline US policy towards Havana even as the cold war ended and the US traded with other undemocratic nations with much worse human rights records.

To Washington's chagrin, the economic stranglehold did not topple Fidel Castro. When Soviet Union subsidies evaporated, the "maximum leader" implemented savage austerity, opened the island to tourism and found a new sponsor in Venezuela's petrol-rich president, Hugo Chávez.

When Fidel fell ill in 2006, power transferred seamlessly to his brother Raúl. He cemented his authority last week with a cabinet reshuffle that replaced "Fidelistas" with "Raúlistas" from the military.

Recognising Castro continuity, and aghast at European and Asian competitors getting a free hand, US corporate interests are impatient to do business with Cuba. Oil companies want to drill offshore, farmers to export more rice, vegetables and meat, construction firms to build infrastructure projects.

Young Cuban exiles in Florida, less radical than their parents, have advocated ending the policy of isolation. As a senator, Obama opposed the embargo, but as a presidential candidate he supported it - and simultaneously promised engagement with Havana.

A handful of hardline anti-Castro Republican and Democrat members of Congress have threatened to derail the $410bn spending bill unless the Cuba provisions are removed, but most analysts think the legislation will survive.

Compared to intractable challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, the opportunity for quick progress on Cuba has been called the "low-hanging fruit" of US foreign policy.

That Obama has moved so cautiously has frustrated many reformers. But after decades of freeze, even a slight thaw is welcome, and there is speculation that more will follow.

Old enemies
President Kennedy imposed an economic and trade embargo on Cuba on 7 February 1962 after Fidel Castro's government expropriated US property on the island. Known by Cubans as el bloqueo, the blockade, elements have been toughened and relaxed under succeeding US presidents. Exceptions have been made for food and medicine exports. George Bush added restrictions on travel and remittances.

The sanctions regime

• No Cuban products or raw materials may enter the US

• US companies and foreign subsidiaries banned from trade with Cuba

• Cuba must pay cash up front when importing US food

• Ships which dock in Cuba may not dock in the US for six months

• US citizens banned from spending money or receiving gifts in Cuba without special permission, in effect a travel ban

• Americans with family on the island limited to one visit every three years.
 
In other words, like me you like to stir the pot. :wink:


















Maybe evan smoke it! HA! :smile:
 
Lifting the embargo will not help the Cuban people, in fact, within about a decade of the lift, the Cuban people will actually suffer more. Through coruption, the member of the government will steal as much as they can before actual business/free enterprise opportunities can enter Cuba.

As for the cigars, for those who knows the cigar business, it will be a lot more expensive in the store than you can buy them local stores under the table. The federal/state government will tax the tobacco to death.

Vacationing in Cuba will be cool, but it will not be any different than now. All you have to do is fly to Cuban through either Mexico or Canada.

There are some benefit of lifting the embargo, which will eventually help Cuba move into a democratic state, and it may help US move Cuba away from Venezuela, but it's a long shot.

One thing I don't like to see is, listen to the Government say "look at Cuban Medical System, it's cheap and it's good. We should do the same."
 
Note that I am only posting this article as a point of discussion.

tl;dr on the article, but I am in favor of normalizing relations with Cuba. Yes, I get that Castro=BAD, but we have normal relations with many countries that are much worse. It is the inconistency of the US foreign policy that screws us over, again and again.
 
Castro's not that bad. Open up relations.
 
While the USA is becoming more of a Socialism state, we should open up trade and let them become more Capitalistic. Eventually, we'll meet somewhere in the middle. :rolleyes:
 
I tend to agree. Given all the recent change... and seeing as how we now share many common socialist ideals... why not open up trade with Cuba, as well as Nigeria, Iraq, and even North Korea.

Not just for commercial trade either. I think that anyone that wants an atomic bomb or long range missile delivery systems should be able to have those capabilities. Let's be fair, accommodating, and non-confrontational.

Who knows, maybe we can even have Christmas together and invite Libya and Syria over for some roast turkey at the white house.

That would be nice. :rolleyes:

(going back to my bomb shelter now)
 
Last edited:
Lifting the embargo will not help the Cuban people, in fact, within about a decade of the lift, the Cuban people will actually suffer more. Through coruption, the member of the government will steal as much as they can before actual business/free enterprise opportunities can enter Cuba.

As for the cigars, for those who knows the cigar business, it will be a lot more expensive in the store than you can buy them local stores under the table. The federal/state government will tax the tobacco to death.

Vacationing in Cuba will be cool, but it will not be any different than now. All you have to do is fly to Cuban through either Mexico or Canada.

There are some benefit of lifting the embargo, which will eventually help Cuba move into a democratic state, and it may help US move Cuba away from Venezuela, but it's a long shot.

One thing I don't like to see is, listen to the Government say "look at Cuban Medical System, it's cheap and it's good. We should do the same."

You're correct about most of this. Not sure what will happen immediately after the end of the embargo but you may be correct that a simple ending of the embargo, by itself, will result in more corruption initially.

All I know is that the Castros have used the embargo as an anti-American platform for a long time and when that goes it will be much tougher for them to continue to justify the dictatorship.

As for travel, yes, as of now it's fairly easy for Americans to get there through Can and Mex and the Cuban customs continues to not stamp American passports.

I can tell you that prices for Cuban cigars and rum have never been lower than now. Americans have been able to procure both of these items with relative ease for the last 10 years or so. I know the OFAC under the Bush admin. was starting to make some noise about this in 2005-2007 but not much since then and probably no more of that from here on out.

And yes, of course comparing the medical and educational systems of Cuba to the US is ridiculous. The amount of productivity that is stolen from the people of Cuba at gunpoint should certainly cover both of these. The Castros have used that one as anti-US propaganda for years for a reason.

Sure, they have great medical care and education but have no cell phones, color TVs and microwave ovens and make $1 a day.

It's pretty clear that the Castros are interested in maintaining the power above all else. The embargo has really done nothing except isolate the Cubans and saturate them with propaganda.

It is a long shot but clearly there is a better, more effective way to get Cuba to a better place. Access to real information and the free market is probably the only way. Let's try ending the embargo and take it from there.
 
I'm not really sure why we have the embargo (related to the Cuban missile crisis?) but I am in favor with opening trade with other countries.

I wish the US would get out of the "nation building" business though.

Steve
 
I'm not really sure why we have the embargo (related to the Cuban missile crisis?) but I am in favor with opening trade with other countries.

I wish the US would get out of the "nation building" business though.

Steve

Cuba was/is communist and that led to direct support by the USSR. Domino theory, proxy war w/ USSR, all that stuff.

Apparently suffocating them with an embargo was going to force them to cut ties with the USSR and end communism. The USSR actually collapsed before any ties were cut and they still have communism.

Any day now the embargo will work. :rolleyes:

I guess the policy has worked so well with China that the consensus is that it should be continued. Oh wait--China owns us now.
 
So are we now able to just go to Cuba w/o having to go through Mexico and Cananda?
 
So are we now able to just go to Cuba w/o having to go through Mexico and Cananda?

I may be incorrect, but my understanding is that applies to those with relatives in Cuba.
 
I may be incorrect, but my understanding is that applies to those with relatives in Cuba.

Dang it. I've heard about it being a beautiful and "cheap" vacation ..LOL
 
Dang it. I've heard about it being a beautiful and "cheap" vacation ..LOL

You can't legally do it but it's been easily done for years and it's even easier now. They still don't stamp US passports in Cuba so there's really no way for anyone to know you've been there.

I can't imagine the Obama administration is going to be focusing any amount of resources on enforcement of this anyway.

Direct relatives have always been able to go but have been limited in their frequency and duration of stay. Now they can stay as long as they want in Cuba but can still only travel there once a year. Prior to Obama one was limited to only a few months.
 
So are we now able to just go to Cuba w/o having to go through Mexico and Cananda?

There is a direct flight our of LAX every day to Cuban. However, it is only for academic, none profit organization (church), and diplomatic related members.

I was in Cuban is 2002 for the annual Habanos Cigar dinner. It is not cheap to go to Cuba, but you get a lot for it. Make sense?

You can go to Cuban right now from Mexico or Canada. You will need your US passport on you. What they will do is stamp the entry visa on a piece of paper and staple it to your passport, so you can take it off when you leave.

I was there with my friend who supplies cigars in Cancun and and S. Cal. We did not stay at the hotel but at the beach front apartment. We rented it by the week and is has it's own kitchen and bathroom. Most tourists will stay in the hotel, which will cost about $100 to 200 per day.

I had a great time there. We spend $40 bucks and had a nice beach front dinner at some Cuban's home. We got authentic Cuban cuisine and some nice hand roll cigars. The people in Cuba is allowed to have little side income like that. Interestingly, small batteries and flash lights are hot trading commodities over there. Outside of Havana, electricity is not available 24/7. The music was great, so was the mojitos... And some of chick you see there... OMG.....

Americans vacation in Jamaica, Europeans vacation in Cuba.
 
Last edited:
There is a direct flight our of LAX every day to Cuban. However, it is only for academic, none profit organization (church), and diplomatic related members.

I was in Cuban is 2002 for the annual Habanos Cigar dinner. It is not cheap to go to Cuba, but you get a lot for it. Make sense?

You can go to Cuban right now from Mexico or Canada. You will need your US passport on you. What they will do is stamp the entry visa on a piece of paper and staple it to your passport, so you can take it off when you leave.

I was there with my friend who supplies cigars in Cancun and and S. Cal. We did not stay at the hotel but at the beach front apartment. We rented it by the week and is has it's own kitchen and bathroom. Most tourists will stay in the hotel, which will cost about $100 to 200 per day.

I had a great time there. We spend $40 bucks and had a nice beach front dinner at some Cuban's home. We got authentic Cuban cuisine and some nice hand roll cigars. The people in Cuba is allowed to have little side income like that. Interestingly, small batteries and flash lights are hot trading commodities over there. Outside of Havana, electricity is not available 24/7. The music was great, so was the mojitos... And some of chick you see there... OMG.....

Americans vacation in Jamaica, Europeans vacation in Cuba.

Yes, there are many flights direct from US to Cuba for approved travellers such as media, students, religious groups and family. During the Bush admin. they really became strict about those groups--not every journalist, student or religious group that wanted to go could.

This was not the case so much during the Clinton years. I knew several groups that signed people up for "religious excursions" no matter who you were and just about any member of the media could go no questions asked. That changed after 2000.

I've also heard the way to go is to rent a villa/house instead of hotel. And yes, the females there can be quite enticing.

I'll be going sooner than later--it looks like possibly early November or for the Habanos festival in Feb 2010--or maybe both!
 
Yes, there are many flights direct from US to Cuba for approved travellers such as media, students, religious groups and family. During the Bush admin. they really became strict about those groups--not every journalist, student or religious group that wanted to go could.

This was not the case so much during the Clinton years. I knew several groups that signed people up for "religious excursions" no matter who you were and just about any member of the media could go no questions asked. That changed after 2000.

I've also heard the way to go is to rent a villa/house instead of hotel. And yes, the females there can be quite enticing.

I'll be going sooner than later--it looks like possibly early November or for the Habanos festival in Feb 2010--or maybe both!

California State University Long Beach offered summer courses in University of Havana during 2002 to 2005.
 
Where can I find them? Are they real Cuban cigars? They always tell me they are not Cuban cigars.

90% of the Cubans are fake. Either the seller's lack of knowledge or flat out cheating the customers, even when you go to Mexico.

Next time you're in S. Cal, I'll treat you one!!! A real one.
 
Back
Top