Running Head: US SANCTIONS ON CUBA 1

US Sanctions on Cuba

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The US can decide who it wants to do business with and who it doesn't. So can any other

country. Any country has this power. U.S. being a major economy is a house for huge Trade for

various countries and also a source of Security to them. It means it is a father and other countries

are like sons; they’ve to follow its orders, so they are aligned (ally) with U.S.

Hence, in case U.S. imposes sanctions on any country in “non-compliance” or “violating

an agreement”… means such a country (on whom International-sanctions have been imposed) can

no longer trade with the U.S. and its allies over a certain period of time, thus, affecting its trade

and economy badly.

However, the United Nations provides a forum for many countries to coordinate their

activities. The UN imposed sanctions on Iran because it felt that Iran was failing to live up to

treaties that it had signed.

In this paper, I will investigate whether the sanctions imposed on Cuba worked or not. It is

evident that the objectives did not work as expected, but in some way, it has helped both countries:

for US, it placated the Cuban exile in Florida and for Cuba it has been a scapegoat for their own

mistakes.

If somebody believes that you cannot find Microsoft Windows OS or HP printers (as

examples but it can be expanded to any product) in Cuba, he/she is totally wrong as it has been

seen frequently in the island of Cuba. They could get it via Mexico, with same shipping costs as

from US, or from European countries with a slight higher shipping costs. They can even buy other

substitutes (Linux instead of windows or Asian PCs/printers/peripherals), as any other product.

One can argue that the US market was closed to Cuban export and that's true. But, what

excess output would be exported? Sugar production went down very significantly within a few
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years after the revolution and the URSS made up the decrease in demand. Not many products left

as valued surplus to be exported, since everything, and more, is just needed in the country. In

addition, they could export anything they have to any country other than the US (Neuenkirch &

Neumeier, 2015).

So, boycott did not have neither any logic nor any significant impact for Cuba.

To fully understand the effect of Cuba Sanctions, one must first understand the

fundamental concept on what should a foreign policy achieve? First it should serve some

economic purpose. If US policy was to isolate Cuba, it should have benefited US economy

somehow (LeoGrande, 2015). But this did not happen. Cuban embargo lasted 5 decades, bringing

hardship to Cuba and USA also, only USA is large enough to absorb those. Again economically it

did not bring any benefit to USA.

Second, the policy should elevate your international standing. Cuban embargo did the

reverse. Over the years all the neighbors accepted Cuban regime and started dealing with it. USA

naturally got sidelined in Latin America. It has lost significant influence there due to this

policy. With Cuba by its side USA could have influenced many more events in Latin America.

Third, the policy should also improve the security of the nation. Post Cuban missile crisis

this was a problem. But after the fall of USSR , there was never really a Cuban threat to US

security. A country cannot risk annihilation at the risk of hurting US.

From a socio-economic angle. The sanctions against Cuba did not succeed in crumbling

their economy, and as a result the communist government has remained stable enough to provide

a very stable society (Morris, 2017).

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Cuba has the highest standard of living in the entire Caribbean. Including South America,

only Chile has a higher Human Development Index score. They have the best healthcare system,

by far, among all Caribbean and South American countries. In a lot of ways, their system is

superior to that of the USA, even after the Affordable Care Act. Cuba's spending on education is

very close to the world's highest (measured as a percentage of GDP.) (Gordon, 2016)

Cuba has less violent crime, relatively little drug crime, and essentially zero gun crime

compared to the rest of the region. Although the government doesn't release crime stats, you can

even see this as a tourist; Cuba is, comparatively, a very safe tourism destination. So, in relative

terms, Cuba as a society has been doing quite well despite the sanctions.

Clearly, the sanctions failed, as Cuba did not change. Cuba is no physical

threat. Moreover, clearly it is no longer an ideological threat. Obama was correct to instigate the

change. However, one can argue that it certainly worked well for Castro and his associates, giving

them a scapegoat for any failures by the Cuban state and a status as defiant leaders vs an American

bully. If the goal was to impoverish Cuba, it works somewhat well, but not well enough to bring

the Castros' overthrow, for the reason stated above (Brenner & Scribner, 2017).

In my opinion, Obama’s administration was right to change the relationship of Cuba and

USA in December 2014. This was an excellent decision, and long overdue. The Cold War ended

in 1989, and US intransigence on this issue was really more to do with US politicians sucking up

to the Cuban-American population for votes than anything else. America's allies have had normal

relations with Cuba for decades -- the British sometimes go there on vacation. The rest of Latin

America has asked us to get over it. Fidel is out of power, so he can't brag that he faced down the

big bad US.

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The US had no moral high ground on this issue; America routinely supported much nastier

dictators than Fidel -- the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein, for two.

The Republicans will of course scream bloody murder, but they would scream bloody

murder if Obama announced that the sky were blue. It's a win for the USA to stop obsessing about

a tiny little country that stopped being a problem 20 years ago.

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References

Brenner, P., & Scribner, C. (2017). Spoiling the Spoilers: Evading the Legacy of Failed Attempts

to Normalize US-Cuba Relations. CUBA-US RELATIONS, 385.

Gordon, J. (2016). Economic Sanctions as ‘Negative Development’: The Case of Cuba. Journal

of International Development, 28(4), 473-484.

LeoGrande, W. M. (2015). A policy long past its expiration date: US economic sanctions against

Cuba. Social Research: An International Quarterly, 82(4), 939-966.

Morris, E. (2017). The Cuban economy is less vulnerable to a reversal of US rapprochement than

many realise. LSE Latin America and Caribbean Blog.

Neuenkirch, M., & Neumeier, F. (2015). The impact of UN and US economic sanctions on GDP

growth. European Journal of Political Economy, 40, 110-125.