Latin-American Studies

It is widely noted that the United States has an embargo placed against Cuba. It meant that US companies may not trade with those of Cuba, plus any US citizen cannot travel to Cuba with the exception of special circumstances. The US Congress even fortifies the embargo with a bill that makes the embargo stronger and stricter, and imposes sanctions to any country that trades with Cuba. Countries that have been condemned by the international community because of misconduct can be put through an embargo. More clearly, an embargo is especially only in times of war. So why has the United States at war with Cuba- Cuba which can be classified to pose virtually no threat to the superpower that is the United States is put under the most drastic measure that any country can find.

The embargo of the United States against Cuba had been condemned by the United Nations General Assembly in 2003 but the government of U.S. is still continuing to impose it. This embargo has long been in force dating back to March 1960. It began during the time that armed dispute broke out between Batistas government and the rebels in Cuba. The import quote for the brown sugar was reduced by the United States in reaction the new revolutionary government of Cuba which captured or seized US properties.

The new government continuously made moves in confiscating the businesses and properties of the American so the Soviet Union responded to the Sugar Act and agreed to purchase the sugar as a substitute. As Cuba aligned with the Soviet Union in the midst of the Cold War, United States president John F. Kennedy extended the trade restrictions. Kennedy also enforced travel restrictions not long after. The Cuban Assets Control Regulations stated that the assets of the Cuban that were to be found in the United States were frozen and on hand limits and restraints were consolidated. Cuba got expelled from the OAS or Organization of American States in 1962. There were sanctions that were imposed to the Cuban government. The member suspension was lifted just last year, June 3, 2009.

In 1992, the 1963 embargo of the United States was reinforced through the Torricelli Law or the Cuban Democracy Act. The Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act or Helms-Burton Act also reinforced the embargo as it reprimanded foreign corporations that had deals and made businesses in Cuba, by forbidding these companies to do business in the United States. The constraints placed on U.S. citizens when it came to traveling to Cuba lapsed in 1977. The directive was renewable but then U.S. president Carter opted not to renew and lifted the regulation concerning U.S. dollars spending in Cuba. President Reagan in 1982 reinstated the embargo and had been modified afterward until present with the current regulation. The Cuban Assets Control Regulation, which took effect June 30, 2004, does not restrain U.S. citizens from travelling to Cuba but they cannot be in any business or transaction in Cuba without an issued license from the United States government.

The U.S. embargo has had harmful economic as well as social effects. Sure enough, an embargo would trigger harmful economic effects, more pointed to the direction of Cuba. A source directly from Cuba estimates that the damages caused by the institution of the US embargo in Cuba would tally more than 70 Billion dollars. The damages mostly affect the development services and exportation of the country, but also include monetary and financial restrictions, limited growth on the national production of goods and services, loss of human resources and social damages to population, and many more. All the sectors of Cuba would be affected by the embargo and thus be the impediment that would limit or inhibit the Cuban economic recovery. Investors, who would not dare to gamble inside the Cuban economy in any possible industry, cancelled any of their supposed projects in Cuba. Not even the pharmaceutical and the biotechnology sector would feel the supposed projects of cooperation from US companies, they were all cancelled. Serious penalties would be implemented against any violator of these restrictions.

The U.S. embargo had an enormous effect on the social progress of the Cuban society. With the restrictions laid down, Cubas food security, as well as nutritional health and stability had been threatened constantly. The effects of the embargo reached out to the education, health, and cultural aspects of the Cuban society. The Cuban government made efforts to maintain the pillars of its society through continuous guarantee of staple food to everyone in hospitals, schools, and elderly homes. The pressures from the embargo concerned a wide variety of goods that are essential to the health sector of the Cuban community like laboratory products, pregnant women supplements and medicines, etc. Due to the tight monetary resources of the government, free supply of food to the new-born infants also stopped. The shortages of the trade heavily affected different treatments and procedures in the medical aspect of the Cuban community. The U.S. embargo aggravated an unjustified and baseless suffering to the Cuban people.

Presently, the embargo still restrains U.S. citizens from conducting deals with Cuban interests. The trade embargo is believed to be the most enduring one in contemporary history, and its still in effect. The United States remain to be in the top five largest exporters to the nation of Cuba, in spite of the implementation of the embargo.