Cuba in Crisis
In his 2015 State of the Union Address, Barack Obama announced, “In Cuba, we are ending a policy that was long past its expiration date.” From 1962, the United States maintained an iron fist over Cuba, isolating it from the global economy and ruthlessly punishing it for its aggressive support of communist revolutions in the Western hemisphere. Fifty years later, not much progress has been made. Refusing to liberalize under the Chinese example, Fidel and Raúl Castro formed state-owned industries and created barriers to keep foreign investors out of the domestic economy. The Cuban government continues to suppress the freedom of expression and effectively regulates all private media outlets. As President Donald Trump decides whether to promote Obama’s legacy in Cuba, he must ask himself: Can sanctions move Cuba closer to democracy?
I believe they cannot. In fact, keeping sanctions will not only damage Cuba, but also deny our own American export industries access to a sizeable market. Lifting travel restrictions increases business opportunities for several American industries and creates jobs in the United States. The past 10 years have seen a major growth in Cuba’s tourism industry, and the United States has largely missed out on investing in the rapidly expanding sector, letting countries like Spain and Germany expand their tourism industries into Cuba. Given that the Cuban population often suffers from food shortages and malnutrition, trade liberalization would boost the American agricultural sector and make produce cheaper and more accessible for the Cubans.
The Center for Democracy in the Americas estimates that lifting the embargo would generate close to $1.08 billion a year in additional U.S. output and the creation of 9,285 to 15,417 new jobs. This would greatly benefit both Cuba and America's economies. Our airline industries would benefit from the flow of people across borders and access to a lucrative market for leisure travel. In addition to potential exports, the United States could import biotechnology products from Cuba, which has made notable advances in the field of alternative medicine. Cuba’s medical research centers have produced 400 biotech patents and are in the process of developing cancer and cholera vaccines. These medical products go to Canada and England, but unfortunately not to the United States.
More concerning is that the embargo prevents democratization by promoting Castro’s narrative that the United States is the source of Cuba’s problems. External restrictions produce solidarity with the targeted regime if the government paints the sanctions as hostile to the nation’s sovereignty and well-being. This sense of misery only augments the domestic political support for an authoritarian dictator, as it allows the leader to scapegoat other governments. A few months after Obama implemented sanctions on Russia in 2014, Putin’s popularity rose to new record highs. Economic coercion incentivizes governments to restrict democratic freedoms in an effort to quell domestic dissent and opposition.
Political dissidents in Cuba want engagement with the United States. Indeed, the embargo has made Cuba’s transition to a free market economy more difficult. Political prisoners realize that only increased contact with the United States will spur democratic changes in Cuba. China’s economic transformation started in 1978—a few years after Nixon’s visit to Beijing. When foreign companies invested vigorously in the private sector, they laid the seeds for a more open society and gave rise to millions of entrepreneurs; in just a few years, abandoned coastal provinces turned into booming megacities with vibrant trade networks across the world.
The same can be done with Cuba. In recent years, the Cuban government has moved to give its enterprises more flexibility and freedom, passing reforms in 2013 that would loosen their tax burden. Now is the time for the United States government to let go of its outdated, inefficient policy and support the democratic destiny of the Cuban people.