Relations

Lifting embargo key to preserving US imagePomerantz 1/1- Phyllis Pomerantz, licensed clinical social worker. She obtained her social work degree from New York University in 1994, and has extensive experience with adolescents in a variety of settings during her training and since obtaining her degree. Ms. Pomerantz provides individual, group and family therapy. Ms. Pomerantz is a member of the DBT treatment team at Rathbone & Associates. (“Now’s the Time to Lift the U.S. Embargo on Cuba”, The Globe and Mail, January 1, 2013, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/nows-the-time-to-lift-the-us-embargo-on-cuba/article6790494/, accessed: 6/27/13, LR)

The U.S. stand on Cuba is incomprehensible and only serves to look hypocritical and arbitrary in the eyes of a world that doesn’t understand the intricacies of American politics. Now that the election is over, there is a window of opportunity to open up a full commercial and diplomatic relationship. Mr. Obama should use the full extent of his executive powers to immediately relax restrictions, and Congress should pass legislation lifting the remaining legal obstacles.It’s time to forget about old grudges and remember that the best way to convert an enemy into a friend is to embrace him. Instead of admiring Havana’s old cars, Americans should be selling them new ones.

The embargo fails – counterproductive and bad for US imageEdmonds 12 – Kevin Edmonds, writer for the NACLA, focusing on the Caribbean. (“Despite Global Opposition, United States Votes to Continue Cuban Embargo”, North American Congress on Latin America, November 15, 2012, https://nacla.org/blog/2012/11/15/despite-global-opposition-united-states-votes-continue-cuban-embargo, accessed: 7/4/13, LR)

In many ways, the ongoing Cuban embargo is one of the most symbolic policies of U.S. imperial control in the Americas. That said, the impact is much more than merely symbolic for the Cuban people, as according to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, the embargo is “an act of aggression and a permanent danger to the stability of the nation.”While the Cuban embargo was ultimately created to isolate Cuba economically and politically, the routine imposition of harsher conditions has failed to bring down the Castro government. In 1992, President George H. Bush signed the Cuban Democracy Act (also known as the Torricelli Act) into law, which forbids subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba, U.S. nationals from traveling to Cuba and remittances being sent to the country. The Cuban Democracy Act also attempts to limit the amount of interaction the international community has with Cuba by “imposing sanctions on any country that provides assistance to Cuba, including ending U.S. assistance for those countries and by disqualifying them from benefiting from any programme of reduction or forgiveness of debt owed to the USA.” It was widely assumed that after the fall of the Soviet Union it would only be a matter of time before Castro fell as well.When that prediction didn’t materialize, President Bill Clinton signed the internationally condemned Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act in law (more commonly known as the Helms-Burton Act) in March 1996. This act further deepened the sanctions against Cuba as it sought to “strengthen international sanctions against the Castro government,” and to “plan for support of a transition government leading to a democratically elected government in Cuba.” The Helms-Burton Act allowed for any non-U.S. company that dealt with Cuba to be subjected to legal action and that the respective company's leadership could be barred from entry into the United States. This essentially meant that many international businesses were blackmailed to choose between operating in Cuba or the United States—which financially speaking isn’t much of a choice in regards to market size.Like any embargo—whether in Iran, Gaza, or Cuba—it is the regular people who suffer the most. While there is a wide disagreement on the exact amount of harm the embargo has done to the Cuban economy, the estimates range between one and three trillion $US. In 2008, the Indian Delegation to the United Nations stated that “The negative impact of the embargo is pervasive in the social, economic, and environmental

dimensions of human development in Cuba, severely affecting the most vulnerable socioeconomic groups of the Cuban population.”

Politics are changing and now is key – new generation, GOP decline, and foreign opposition to the embargo

Bandow, 12 – Doug Bandow, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, specializing in foreign policy and civil liberties. He worked as special assistant to President Reagan and editor of the political magazine Inquiry. He writes regularly for leading publications such as Fortune magazine, National Interest, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Times. Bandow speaks frequently at academic conferences, on college campuses, and to business groups. Bandow has been a regular commentator on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC. He holds a J.D. from Stanford University. (“Time to End the Cuba Embargo”, The National Interest, December 11, 2012, http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/the-pointless-cuba-embargo-7834?page=1, accessed: 6/27/13, LR)

But the political environment is changing. A younger, more liberal generation of Cuban Americans with no memory of life in Cuba is coming to the fore. Said Wayne Smith, a diplomat who served in Havana: “for the first time in years, maybe there is some chance for a change in policy.” And there are now many more new young Cuban Americans who support a more sensible approach to Cuba.Support for the Republican Party also is falling. According to some exit polls Barack Obama narrowly carried the Cuban American community in November, after receiving little more than a third of the vote four years ago. He received 60 percent of the votes of Cuban Americans born in the United States.Barack Obama increased his votes among Cuban Americans after liberalizing contacts with the island. He also would have won the presidency without Florida, demonstrating that the state may not be essential politically.Today even the GOP is no longer reliable. For instance, though Republican vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan has defended the embargo in recent years, that appears to reflect ambition rather than conviction. Over the years he voted at least three times to lift the embargo, explaining: “The embargo doesnt work. It is a failed policy. It was probably justified when the Soviet Union existed and posed a threat through Cuba. I think its become more of a crutch for Castro to use to repress his people. All the problems he has, he blames the American embargo.”There is essentially no international support for continuing the embargo. For instance, the European Union plans to explore improving relations with Havana . Spain’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gonzalo de Benito explained that the EU saw a positive evolution in Cuba. The hope, then, is to move forward in the relationship between the European Union and Cuba.The administration should move now, before congressmen are focused on the next election. President Obama should propose legislation to drop (or at least significantly loosen) the embargo. He also could use his authority to relax sanctions by, for instance, granting more licenses to visit the island.

The embargo must be repealed – US foreign policyLloyd 10 – Delia Lloyd, American writer based in London. Her work has appeared in The International Herald Tribune, The Financial Times and The Guardian Weekly. She is a regular contributor to www.PoliticsDaily.com, a subset of the Huffington Post. (“Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo”, Politics Daily, Huffington Post, August 24, 2010, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo/, accessed: 7/3/13, LR)

3. It's a double standard. Another reason to question the link between the embargo and human rights is that it's a double standard that flies in the face of U.S. foreign policy toward other high-profile authoritarian countries, most notably China. Stephen Colbert once quipped that Cuba is "a totalitarian, repressive,

communist state that -- unlike China -- can't lend us money." Unless and until the U.S. pursues a consistent policy of sanctions against politically repressive regimes, the case against Cuba doesn't hold up very well.4. It's out of date. To argue that U.S.-Cuban policy is an anachronism is putting it mildly. In an international climate marked by cooperation on issues ranging from terrorism to global financial crises, holding on to this last vestige of the Cold War foreign policy no longer makes sense. (Bear in mind that the young people now entering college were not even alive when Czechoslovakia existed.) Sure, there's still tension between the United States and Russia. But the recent renegotiation of the START agreement on nuclear proliferation reinforces the notion that the Cold War is no longer the dominant prism for understanding that bilateral relationship, much less the Cuban-American one.

Lifting embargo greatly beneficial to US economy and global imageFranks 12 – Jeff Franks, reporter for Reuters, an international news agency founded in London. (“Cuba says ending U.S. embargo would help both countries”, Reuters, September 20, 2012, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920, accessed: 7-3-13, LR)

(Reuters) - Both the United States and Cuba would benefit if Washington would lift its longstanding trade embargo against the island, but U.S. President Barack Obama has toughened the sanctions since taking office in 2009, a top Cuban official said on Thursday.The embargo, fully in place since 1962, has done $108 billion in damage to the Cuba economy, but also has violated the constitutional rights of Americans and made a market of 11 million people off limits to U.S. companies, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told reporters."The blockade is, without doubt, the principal cause of the economic problems of our country and the essential obstacle for (our) development," he said, using Cuba's term for the embargo."The blockade provokes suffering, shortages, difficulties that reach each Cuban family, each Cuban child," Rodriguez said.He spoke at a press conference that Cuba stages each year ahead of what has become an annual vote in the United Nations on a resolution condemning the embargo. The vote is expected to take place next month.Last year, 186 countries voted for the resolution, while only the United States and Israel supported the embargo, Rodriguez said.Lifting the embargo would improve the image of the United States around the world, he said, adding that it would also end what he called a "massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights."That violation includes restrictions on U.S. travel to the island that require most Americans to get U.S. government permission to visit and a ban on most U.S. companies doing business in Cuba, he said."The prohibition of travel for Americans is an atrocity from the constitutional point of view," Rodriguez said.Cuba has its own limits on travel that make it difficult for most of its citizens to leave the country for any destination.Rodriguez said the elimination of the embargo would provide a much-needed tonic for the sluggish U.S. economy."In a moment of economic crisis, lifting the blockade would contribute to the United States a totally new market of 11 million people. It would generate employment and end the situation in which American companies cannot compete in Cuba," he said.

Overwhelming support for embargo repeal – retaliatory actions growingGordon 12 – Joy Gordon, Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University, and Senior Fellow at the Global Justice Program, MacMillan Center for Area and International Studies, Yale University. (“The U.S. Embargo Against Cuba and the Diplomatic Challenges to Extraterritoriality”, Law Journal Library, Winter 2012, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/forwa36&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=journals, accessed: 7/2/13, LR)

Statements of condemnation

In addition to the WTO action and retaliatory legislation by Canada, Mexico, and the European Union, U.S. embargo measures have also met broad, consistent international condemnation. In 2009 and 2010, for example, statements of condemnation came from the XV Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement held in Egypt in 2009," the II Africa-South America Summit (ASA) in 2009,“ the Vll Summit of the countries of the Bolivarian Alliance For the Peoples of the Americas (ALBA) in 2009,“ the Unity Summit of 2010, consisting of the XXI Rio Group Summit and the II Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean on Integration and Development (CALC)," and the VI Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Union.“UN General Assembly resolutionsIt is not surprising that Cuba would have support from the devel-oping world, particularly its trading partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. A more dramatic demonstration of the breadth of international opposition to the legality of the U.S. embargo legislation was the series of annual votes before the UN General Assembly, which began in 1992. After the Torricelli law was passed, Cuba introduced a resolution before the UN General Assembly that called upon member states not to imple-ment its provisions and expressed concern about the extraterritorial effects and their consequent violation of the principle of equal sovereignty." The resolution passed by a vote of 59 to 3, with 71 abstentions and 46 nations not voting. International support forCubans resolutions has grown steadily from 1992 through the present, as states that had abstained in one voted “yes” the next, and then continue to do so each year. While the I992 resolution had 59 votes in favor, the next year’s resolution had 88 votes in favor, 4 opposed, and 92 abstaining or not voting. For each of the last several years, over 180 members – out of 193 in the United Nations – have joined Cuba in condemning this U.S. violation of international trade law. Most recently, in October 2011, 186 countries voted in support of Cuba’s resolu-tion, two opposed it, and three abstained.

The embargo decks diplomacy – international response provesGordon 12 – Joy Gordon, Professor of Philosophy at Fairfield University, and Senior Fellow at the Global Justice Program, MacMillan Center for Area and International Studies, Yale University. (“The U.S. Embargo Against Cuba and the Diplomatic Challenges to Extraterritoriality”, Law Journal Library, Winter 2012, http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/forwa36&div=11&g_sent=1&collection=journals, accessed: 7/2/13, LR)

Many analysts have criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba as an anachronistic holdover from the Cold War. Yet its problems go well beyond that. In many regards, the U.S. embargo against Cuba represents a caricature of the various American misapplications of economic sanctions: if the goal is to end the Castro regime this policy has not only Failed, but has spent half a century doing so. If the intent is to support Cubans in their aspirations for a different political system the sanctions have failed in that regard as well, since even the most vocal dissidents in Cuba criticize the embargo. In the Face of the “smart sanctions" movement to develop economic tools that target the leadership rather than the people, the embargo against Cuba represents the opposite pole: it impacts the Cuban population indiscriminately, affecting everything from family travel, to the publication of scientific articles by Cuban scholars, to the cost of buying chicken For Cuban households.This article will briefly describe the history and the main compo-nents of the U.S. embargo against Cuba, and the impact of the unilateral measures on Cubes economy. It will look at some of the ways in which the U.S. embargo is "extraterritorial"—impacting Cuba’s trade with third countries—as well as ways in which the United States’ unilateral embargo functions in effect as a global measure. It will then examine the over- whelming response of the international community, and in particular, the United Nations General Assembly, in condemning the embargo as a viola-tion of international law. This response represents a diplomatic challenge to the United States that is unparalleled in the last fifty years of global governance.

The embargo fails – hypocritical and regime-strengthening policy Brush 1/22 – Michael Brush, award-winning New York financial writer who has covered business and investing for The New York Times, Money magazine and the Economist Group. Michael studied at Columbia Business School in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship program. He is the author of "Lessons from the Front Line," a book offering insights on investing and the markets based on the experiences of professional money managers. (“Time to Invest in Cuba?”, MSN Money, 1/22/13, http://money.msn.com/investing/time-to-invest-in-cuba, accessed: 7/2/13, LR)

It is a commendable policy but, sadly, hypocritical. If this were consistent U.S. policy, we'd have no political or trade relations with Vietnam, Myanmar or even China, says Juan Carlos Hidalgo, a Latin America policy analyst at the Cato Institute, who notes that each of these countries fails to clear the Helms-Burton hurdles applied to Cuba.Thus, the Cuba embargo is a pretty glaring anomaly, which makes it vulnerable. "The only advantage of the embargo is that it allows the Cuban regime to blame the miserable Cuban economy on 'the blockade' as they call it," says Hidalgo.The embargo is also vulnerable because it's an obvious failure. After 50 years of embargo, the Castro brothers still rule Cuba, notes Tomas Bilbao, the executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a lobbying organization whose goal is "empowering" Cuban people by helping them start businesses and sell goods abroad. "I think we need to shift from an obsession with hurting the regime to an obsession with helping the Cuban people," he says.

Embargo theory wrong –not suited for CubaLlosa 9 - Alvaro Vargas Llosa, Senior Fellow of The Center on Global Prosperity at the Independent Institute, nationally syndicated columnist for the Washington Post Writers Group and among his books, Liberty for Latin America, received the Sir Anthony Fisher International Memorial Award for its contribution to the cause of freedom in 2006. (“Should the Cuban Embargo Be Lifted?”, Real Clear Politics, April 29, 2009, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/04/29/should_the_cuban_embargo_be_lifted_96232.html, accessed: 7/3/13, LR)

But this is not the reasoning coming from the most vocal critics of U.S. sanctions these days. Many of them fail to even mention the fraud that is a system which bases its legitimacy on the renunciation of capitalism and at the same time implores capitalism to come to its rescue. There is also an endearing hypocrisy among those who decry the embargo but devote hardly any time to denouncing the island's half-century tyranny under the Castros.Another risible subterfuge attributes the catastrophe that is Cuba's economy on Washington's decision to cut off economic relations in 1962 after a wave of expropriations against American interests. The amnesiacs conveniently forget that in 1958, Cuba's socioeconomic condition was similar to Spain's and Portugal's and the standard of living of its citizens was behind only those of Argentines and Uruguayans in Latin America . Many of the critics also seem to suffer what French writer Jean-Francois Revel used to call "moral hemiplegia" -- a tendency to see fault only on one side of the political spectrum: I never heard Cuba's champions complain about sanctions against right-wing dictatorships.Sometimes, sanctions work, sometimes they don't . A study by Gary Hufbauer, Jeffrey Schott, Kimberly Elliot and Barbara Oegg titled "Economic Sanctions Reconsidered" analyzes dozens of cases of sanctions since World War I. In about a third of them, they worked either because they helped to topple the regime (South Africa) or because they forced the dictator to make major concessions (Libya). Archbishop Desmond Tutu told me a few

months ago in San Francisco that he was convinced that international sanctions were crucial in defeating apartheid in his home country. In the cases in which the embargo worked, the sanctions were applied by many countries and the affected regimes were already severely discredited or weakened . In the cases in which sanctions have not worked -- Saddam Hussein between 1990 and 2003, and North Korea today -- the dictatorships were able to isolate themselves from the effects and concentrate them on the population . In some countries, a certain sense of pride helped defend the government against foreign sanctions -- which is why the measures applied by the Soviet Union against Yugoslavia in 1948, China in 1960 and Albania in 1961 were largely useless.In the case of Cuba, the Castro regime has been able to whip up a nationalist sentiment against the U.S. embargo. More significantly, it has managed to offset much of the effects over the years in large part because the Soviets subsidized the island for three decades, because the regime welcomed Canadian, Mexican and European capital after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and because Venezuela is its new patron.

Castro decline, Obamas’ second term, and international disapproval are all reasons now is keyWilliams 12- Carol Williams, national affairs writer for the LA Times, Former foreign correspondent, 25 years covering Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. (“Widely condemned U.S. policy on Cuba unlikely to change soon”, Los Angeles Times, November 16, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/16/world/la-fg-wn-us-cuba-embargo-20121115, accessed:7/4/13, LR)

But this week's overwhelming international censure of the U.S. embargo against Cuba -- a 188-3 vote of condemnation by the U.N. General Assembly -- was a sobering reminder of how little has changed between the Cold War adversaries despite President Obama's 2008 campaign vow to end half a century of ideological standoff.Foreign policy analysts see possibilities that Obama may have more room to maneuver in a second term. Younger Cuban Americans care more about staying in touch with family on the communist-ruled island than did their embittered elders, who fled after Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution, vowing never to return until Cuba was free of the leftist firebrand.Castro, now 86 and ailing, seems likely to be out of the picture within the next four years, say Cuba watchers who predict the commandante's passing would ignite more profound rethinking of Cuban economic and foreign policy. Raul Castro, 81, has undertaken modest reforms, but he is seen as a placeholder who will be pushed aside once his brother dies.

The embargo is counterproductive – costs alliancesHanson, et. al. 13 – Daniel Hanson, Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. (“It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,” Forbes, 1/16/13, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/, accessed: 7/2/13, amf)

Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless . The State Department has argued that the cost of conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the embargo. For American multinational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.

Yet, estimates of the sanctions’ annual cost to the U.S. economy range from $1.2 to $3.6 billion, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect U.S. small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like Florida, where the unemployment rate currently stands at 8.1 percent.What’s worse, U.S. sanctions encourage Cuba to collaborate with regional players that are less friendly to American interests. For instance, in 2011, the country inked a deal with Venezuela for the construction of an underwater communications link, circumventing its need to connect with US-owned networks close to its shores.Repealing the embargo would fit into an American precedent of lifting trade and travel restrictions to countries who demonstrate progress towards democratic ideals. Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were all offered normal trade relations in the 1970s after preliminary reforms even though they were still in clear violation of several US resolutions condemning their human rights practices. China, a communist country and perennial human rights abuser, is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and in November, trade restrictions against Myanmar were lessened notwithstanding a fifty year history of genocide and human trafficking propagated by its military government.Which, of course, begs the question: when will the U.S. see fit to lift the embargo? If Cuba is trending towards democracy and free markets, what litmus test must be passed for the embargo to be rolled back?The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both dollar and moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with the help of America n charitable relief, business innovation, and tourism. A perpetual embargo on a developing nation that is moving towards reform makes little sense, especially when America’s allies are openly hostile to the embargo. It keeps a broader discussion about smart reform in Cuba from gaining life , and it makes no economic sense. It is time for the embargo to go.

Cuban relations with China and Venezuela saving the regimeFeinberg ‘11 – Richard Feinberg, Richard Feinberg is professor of international political economy at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. Feinberg served as special assistant to President Clinton and senior director of the National Security Council’s Office of Inter-American Affairs. He has held positions on the State Department's policy planning staff and worked as an international economist in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of International Affairs. (“Reaching Out: Cuba’s New Economy and the International Response,” The Brookings Institute, November 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/11/18-cuba-feinberg, accessed: 7/4/13, amf)

Five decades after Fidel Castro’s “26th of July Movement” marched victoriously into Havana on New Year’s Day, 1959, the United States and Cuba, separated by less than 100 miles of choppy waters, remain deeply distrustful neighbors entangled in a web of hostilities. Heated U.S. policy debates over how best to respond to the Cuban Revolution—through legislation in the Congress or executive orders issued by the Executive Branch—implicitly assume that there are only two players in contention: Washington and Havana. Yet, this conceit takes us very far from the realities of Cuba today.Since the collapse of its former patron, the Soviet Union, a resilient Cuba has dramatically diversified its international economic relations. Initially, Cuba reached out to Europe, Canada, and a widening array of friendly states in Latin America. Over the last decade, Cuba has reached out to forge economic partnerships with major emerging market economies—notably China, Brazil, and Venezuela. Spanish firms manage many of the expanding hotel chains in Cuba that cater to 2.5 million international tourists each year. A Canadian company jointly owns mining operations that ship high-priced nickel to Canada and China. In the next few years, China is poised to spend billions of dollars building a large petrochemical complex at Cienfuegos. A Brazilian firm will modernize the Mariel Port so that it can accommodate very large

container ships transiting the newly widened Panama Canal. Petroleum companies from ten or more countries have lined up to explore for deepsea oil in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite these advances, the Cuban economy remains in the doldrums (as described in Section 1). The main constraint slowing the Cuban economy is not U.S. sanctions (even as they have hit hard). Rather, it is Cuba’s own outdated economic model, inherited from the Soviet Union, of central planning. Cuba’s many commercial partners would like to invest more in Cuba and would prefer to purchase more Cuban exports to correct the imbalances in their bilateral trade accounts, but are frustrated by Cuba’s scant economic offerings. Section 2 of this policy paper tells the story of Cuba’s outreach to the dynamic emerging market economies, as seen from the perspective of Cuba and also through the eyes of its Chinese, Brazilian, Venezuelan and Mexican partners—examining their motivations as well as their anxieties and frustrations. How does Cuba fit into their international economic and geo-political strategies, and what are the domestic political drivers behind their friendships with Havana? Canadian interests are also explored, as Ottawa has sharply differentiated its Cuba policy from those of its close North American ally. While comprehensive U.S. sanctions attempt to undermine the Cuban economy, European countries have been sending development assistance, albeit in modest amounts. European aid targets its resources to empower municipalities, private farmers and cooperatives—to strengthen social forces less dominated by Havana’s powerful bureaucracies. Section 3 describes these European and Canadian cooperation programs as well as the creative initiatives of the non-governmental organization Oxfam, and draws lessons—pointing out potential pitfalls as well as opportunities—for future international development programs operating in the difficult Cuban context.

Cuba building relations with China now – recent talksLatino Daily News 6/19– Latino Daily News: Hispanically Speaking News. (“Cuban VP Strengthens Relations with China on Trip Abroad,” Latino Daily News, 6/19/13, http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/cuban-vp-strengthens-relations-with-china-on-trip-abroad/25261/, accessed: 7/4/13, amf)

Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a new push to longstanding bilateral relations with a meeting here Tuesday.“We want you to feel at home,” Xi told Diaz-Canel at the start of the meeting at the Great Hall of the People, which was only open to the media for a few minutes.Joined by a large political retinue, Diaz-Canel was the first senior Cuban leader to meet with Xi since he became China’s president in March.While the officials’ remarks to the media stayed within the bounds of diplomatic propriety, tangible steps to boost trade relations and other ties have been taken in recent weeks.Indeed, Diaz-Canel and Chinese counterpart Li Yuanchao on Monday presided over the signing of several bilateral cooperation accords.Those agreements included a donation by the Asian giant, an interest-free loan to Cuba and another credit for purchases of farm machinery and equipment.The amounts were not disclosed.“The two countries have learned from one another during the process of building socialism,” the Chinese vice president said Monday after a meeting with his Cuban counterpart, the official Xinhua news agency said.Diaz-Canel, for his part, said then that Cuba viewed its relations with China “from a strategic perspective” and was interested in bolstering bilateral cooperation.Beijing’s Communist Party secretary, Guo Jinlong, and Cuban President Raul Castro also met earlier this month in Havana, a sit-down that ended with the signing of cooperation accords in the areas of energy, transportation, tourism and biotechnology.

China is Cuba’s second-largest trading partner with two-way trade valued at more than $2 billion in 2011, up from $590 million in 2004, according to official figures.

The current embargo prevents cooperation on many issues.

Siegelbaum ‘11 [Portia. September 14. CBS News. Cuba: U.S. embargo causes $1 trillion in losses. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20106159-503543.html]

He also noted the embargo interfered with Cuba's cooperation with international agencie s giving the example of how in January 2011 , the U.S. Government seized over $4.2 million of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria because they were earmarked for the implementation of cooperation projects with Cuba. The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 further codified the original embargo into law so as to maintain sanctions on Cuba until Havana takes steps toward "democratization and greater respect for human rights." The Helms-Burton Act passed by Congress in 1996 added yet further restrictions to prevent U.S. citizens from doing business in or with Cuba. In 1999, President Bill Clinton expanded the embargo even more by prohibiting foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. This led among more serious moves to the removal of Cuban-made pajamas from shelves in Wal-Mart in Canada. Clinton did authorize the sale of certain humanitarian products to Cuba in 2000 only on a cash basis with no credit permitted. The policy has pitted pro-embargo Cuban-American exiles against many business leaders and agricultural producers who insist trade with Cuba would benefit American farmers, port workers and others. The U.S. Rice Federation has lobbied hard in Washington believing that Cuba could once again become the largest foreign market for American grown rice , a position currently held by Mexico. At present the U.S. State Department says the biggest obstacle to improving relations between the two countries is the imprisonment of an American aid worker Alan Gross. Gross was arrested in December 2009 and sentenced last March to 15 years in prison for bringing illegal communications equipment into Cuba as part of a program subcontracted to his employer by USAID. The Cubans say this program and others like it are intended to overthrow throw their government. Moreno refused at this morning's press conference to respond to a question on Gross. Former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson left Havana this morning after a week's efforts to see the American who is being held in a Havana military hospital. Yesterday Richardson told foreign journalists in Havana that the Cuban Government had rebuffed all his appeals. Nevertheless, President Obama said yesterday in Washington that his administration's relaxation of the travel ban that now allows more Americans to visit Cuba on educational, religious, cultural or people-to-people group trips would remain in effect as would the loosening of restrictions on the amount and frequency with which Cubans in the U.S. could send money to relatives on the island.

Cuba and Canada have strong relations.

Government of Canada ‘13 -- Government of Canada. (“Canada- Cuba relations” http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/cuba/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_cuba.aspx Accessed: July 2, 2013. AK_

Canada and Cuba enjoy a broad and diverse relationship built on a long history of mutually beneficial engagement, important and growing economic and commercial relations, and strong people-to-people ties across a wide range of sectors and interests. Canada’s approach is to engage with all elements of Cuban society - government, the business sector, non-governmental organizations and civil society at large. Canada supports the process of economic modernization being undertaken by the Cuban government, with greater opportunities for the development of non-state economic activity and private initiatives. Building on our successful cooperation experience in areas of economic policy development and institutional strengthening, Canada will seek to support the Cuban government’s intention to implement a process of economic modernization.

Cuba and Canada have strong relations.

Government of Canada ‘13 -- Government of Canada. (“Canada- Cuba relations” http://www.canadainternational.gc.ca/cuba/bilateral_relations_bilaterales/canada_cuba.aspx Accessed: July 2, 2013. AK)

Canada supports a future for Cuba that fully embraces the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law. Canada has consistently recognized Cuba’s strong commitment to economic and social rights, with its particularly important achievements in the areas of education and health. At the same time, Canada has stressed the importance of basic civil and political rights, such as freedom of speech, association and the press. Canada’s public advocacy programme in Cuba promotes greater understanding of Canada and Canadians, and of the Canadian model of a multicultural, democratic and innovative society. One of the most successful Canadian-inspired events in Cuba is the annual run in honour of Terry Fox, a cancer victim and national hero who undertook a run across Canada to raise awareness of the importance of cancer research. The Terry Fox Run in Cuba has become the largest in the world outside of Canada. Knowledge of Canada, its history, geography, policies and programs, is also promoted through Canadian Studies Centres located in six universities across Cuba. Academic cooperation represents one of the most important aspects of the relationship between Canada and Cuba, with expanding networks of academics and researchers from both countries working together in a wide range of disciplines. While the Canadian Embassy in Havana does not directly fund or facilitate cultural or interpersonal exchanges, cultural and interpersonal ties contribute to strengthening people-to-people relations between Canadians and Cubans. To learn more about promoting Canadian culture and funding Canadian cultural projects, please consult Canadian Heritage or the Canadian Council for the Arts. For additional information, read our cultural FAQs for Canadians interested in Cuba. Cuba is the third most popular overseas destination for Canadians (after the United States and Mexico) and Canada is Cuba’s largest source of tourists, with over one million Canadians visiting annually (more 40 per cent of all visitors to Cuba). The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) manages Canada's bilateral development assistance program in Cuba. Current program priorities are sustainable economic growth and food security. Canada and Cuba have a well-established, significant and growing commercial and investment relationship. Cuba is Canada’s top market in the Caribbean/Central American sub-region and bilateral merchandise trade between the two countries is over one billion dollars annually. Canadian companies have significant investments in mining, power, oil and gas, agri-food and tourism.

Appointment of Diaz Canel does not mean normalization of relations.

Alam ‘13 Hannah Alam. Hannah is a writer for the Miami herald. (“Even if Raul Castro steps down in 2018, U.S.-Cuba relations may not thaw”. Miami Herald. McClatchy Newspapers. 2/25/13. Accessed: July 2, 2013.)

WASHINGTON -- Cuban President Raul Castro’s announcement over the weekend that he’ll step down in 2018 after the five-year term he just began ends starts the countdown for U.S. officials contemplating a thaw in relations with the island nation. But analysts caution that so far the regime’s reforms amount to window dressing. By law, the United States is restricted from normalizing relations

with Cuba as long as the island is ruled by the Castro brothers: ailing revolutionary leader Fidel, 86, and his brother Raul, 81. Raul Castro said Sunday that not only would he step aside in 2018, he also would propose term limits and age caps for future presidents, the latest in a series of moves that are hailed by some Cuba observers as steps toward reform but dismissed by others as disingenuous. But those are hardly the kinds of breakthrough reforms that State Department and independent analysts say will be needed to improve U.S.-Cuba relations, which froze after the Cuban revolution of 1959 that saw Fidel Castro align himself with the communist bloc and the United States impose a trade embargo that 54 years later remains in place. “Each side is making small, subtle moves, but since it’s a glacier, it’s not going to melt overnight,” said Alex Crowther, a former U.S. Army colonel and Cuba specialist whose published commentaries on bilateral relations include a 2009 essay calling for an end to the embargo. Analysts of U.S.-Cuban relations said that the latest moves are primarily self-serving for the regime, allowing the two elderly brothers to handpick an acceptable successor before they’re too infirm to administer the country. Raul Castro’s anointing of Communist Party stalwart Miguel Diaz-Canel, 52, as the favored successor was the most important takeaway from the president’s speech, several analysts agreed. “It doesn’t mean he’s being chosen to succeed Raul, but it does mean they’re leaving the gerontocracy and opening up the aperture to younger leaders,” Crowther said. Diaz-Canel is “an impressive career politician,” said Jorge Dominguez, a Cuban American professor of Mexican and Latin American politics and economics at Harvard University. He moved through the Communist Party ranks, serving as a provincial first secretary, minister of higher education, a member of the party’s political bureau and one of the Castro’s gaggle of vice presidents. “In those roles, he has a wider array of responsibilities that have positioned him well for the eventual succession,” Dominguez said. “He has also been traveling abroad with Raul to add foreign experience to what had been principally a domestic-policy resume.” When Castro elevated Diaz-Canel to first vice president and set a date for his own stepping aside, for the first time there was an expiration date for Castro rule of Cuba. “It is true that other would-be successors appeared from time to time, but none was anointed, and none had a formal designation as the successor,” Dominguez said. “Sure, there will be political fights in the future. Theirs is a political party, after all, and politicians will jockey for power and position. But Diaz-Canel is now the frontrunner.” The Castro brothers know by now that such moves also play well in the United States, where they just got a public relations boost with the remarks of a U.S. senator who led a delegation to Cuba this month to seek the release of Alan Gross, an American imprisoned on the island for illegally importing communications equipment while on a USAID-funded democracy-building program.

Cuba- US trade growing now.

Perales ‘10 -- Jose Perales. Perales is a senior program associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program. The Woodrow Wilson Center is one of Washington’s most respected institutions of policy research and public dialogue. Created by an act of Congress in 1966, the Center is a living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson and his ideals of a more informed public policy commu- nity in Washington. It supports research on in- ternational policy issues; organizes conferences, seminars, and working groups; and offers resi- dential fellowships for scholars, journalists and policymakers. Center director Lee H. Hamilton is a widely respected former member of Congress who chaired the House International Relations Committee. The Latin American Program focu- ses attention on U.S.-Latin American relations and important issues in the region, including democratic governance, citizen security, peace processes, drug policy, decentralization, and economic development and equality. (“The United States and Cuba: Implications of an Economic Relationship” WOODROW WILSON CENTER LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_Cuba_Implications.pdf August 2010 Accessed: July 3, 2013. AK)

The last decade has been marked by a significant growth in economic ties between the United States and Cuba, a response to the partial relaxation of certain embargo restrictions, explained Jose Raul Perales, Senior Program Associate of the Latin American Program.This has been particularly true within the agriculture and tourism industries. For instance, in 2000 the United States implemented the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act; in the following eight years bilateral agricultural trade and farm sales more than tripled. Furthermore, since 2003, the United States has

supplied annually more agricultural products to Cuba than any other nation; from 2003 to 2008 an estimated 35 percent of Cuba’s agricultural imports came from the United States. In terms of tourism, it is estimated that, by eliminating current restrictions on U.S. travel to Cuba, the island nation could expect 500,000 to one million tourism-related U.S. visits per annum.This would not only be a boost to the U.S. travel industry, it would also fundamentally transform the landscape of the entire Caribbean tourism industry. These data hint at the many benefits to a deeper U.S.- Cuban economic relationship. However, there are important pitfalls associated with deeper economic relations. In a April 29, 2010,hearing on H.R.4645,theTravel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act (designed to remove obstacles to legal sales of U.S.agricultural commodities to Cuba—by eliminating the cash- in-advance provision required for all such sales to Cuba—and to end travel restrictions on all Americans to Cuba), Representative Kevin Brady (R-TX), the Republican ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee, outlined some of these drawbacks. Cuba’s economic climate is intolerant of U.S. firms: there exists no accord on U.S. individual or corporate property claims. Indeed, in spite of the Obama administration’s move to allow U.S. telecommunication firms to apply for licenses to conduct business in Cuba, few such companies have rushed in. This is in no small part due to the important challenges associated with policy unpredictability under the current Cuban regime, not to mention significant questions arising from issues of human rights and labor relations. In spite of these considerations, at the time of this publication, H.R. 4645 had been approved in the House Agriculture Committee and awaited further consideration on the Foreign Affairs and Financial Services committees before reaching the House floor.

Baby steps aren’t enough.Perales ‘10 -- Jose Perales. Perales is a senior program associate at the Woodrow Wilson Center Latin American Program. Christopher Sabatini is the senior director of policy at the Americas Society and Council of the Americas. The Woodrow Wilson Center is one of Washington’s most respected institutions of policy research and public dialogue. Created by an act of Congress in 1966, the Center is a living memorial to President Woodrow Wilson and his ideals of a more informed public policy commu- nity in Washington. It supports research on in- ternational policy issues; organizes conferences, seminars, and working groups; and offers resi- dential fellowships for scholars, journalists and policymakers. Center director Lee H. Hamilton is a widely respected former member of Congress who chaired the House International Relations Committee. The Latin American Program focu- ses attention on U.S.-Latin American relations and important issues in the region, including democratic governance, citizen security, peace processes, drug policy, decentralization, and economic development and equality. (“The United States and Cuba: Implications of an Economic Relationship” WOODROW WILSON CENTER LATIN AMERICAN PROGRAM. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/LAP_Cuba_Implications.pdf August 2010 Accessed: July 3, 2013. AK)

Sabatini noted that the ability to affect significant change on the embargo falls within the scope of executive regulatory authority, particularly in areas such as telecommunications and some elements of travel—particularly in licensing for cultural and educational exchanges and even some elements of marketing trips. In this sense the Obama administration took a first step on April 13, 2009, when [he] President Obama announced an increased allowance for U.S. telecommunications companies to establish licensing agreements to allow roaming coverage on the island and establish a fiberoptic cable to Cuba, with the stated purpose

of helping Cubans communicate with the rest of the world. However, according to Sabatini, it turned out that despite

the fanfare, the regulations that came out of the U.S. bureaucracy five months later did little realistically to allow U.S. companies to establish the necessary and sufficient links to allow broad communication between Cubans and the rest of the world. For instance, in his announcement,

President Obama called for the establishment of a fiberoptic cable linking Cuba to the outside world. However, regulations prohibiting U.S. equipment transfers or sales to the island for commercial purposes persist. Similarly, the regulations continued to prevent the sale of handsets on the island for commercial purposes and blocks infrastructure investments such as cell phone towers, routers, and switchers. All of these sorts of now-prohibited equipment is essential if there is to be any meaningful broad- based access to the tools of communication.

After Chavez, A chance to rethink relationsWhite ’13 -- Robert E. White, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, was the United States ambassador to Paraguay from 1977 to 1979 and to El Salvador from 1980 to¶ 1981. (“ After Chavez, A Chance to Rethink Relations”, The New York Times, March 7, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/after-chavez-hope-for-good-neighbors-in-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0, Accessed: July 3, 2013, SD)¶ FOR most of our history, the United States assumed that its security was

inextricably linked to a partnership with Latin America. This legacy dates from the Monroe Doctrine,

articulated in 1823, through the Rio pact, the postwar treaty that pledged the United States to come to the defense of its allies in Central and South America. ¶ Yet for a half-century, our policies toward our southern neighbors have

alternated between intervention and neglect, inappropriate meddling and missed opportunities. The death this week of President Hugo

Chávez of Venezuela — who along with Fidel Castro of Cuba was perhaps the most vociferous critic of the United States

among the political leaders of the Western Hemisphere in recent decades — offers an opportunity to restore bonds with

potential allies who share the American goal of prosperity.¶ Throughout his career, the autocratic Mr. Chávez used our embargo as a wedge with which to antagonize the United States and alienate its supporters. His fuel helped prop up the rule

of Mr. Castro and his brother Raúl, Cuba’s current president. The embargo no longer serves any useful purpose (if it ever did at all); President Obama should end it, though it would mean overcoming powerful opposition from Cuban-American lawmakers in Congress.¶ An end to the Cuba embargo would send a powerful signal to all of Latin America that the United States wants a new, warmer relationship with democratic forces seeking social change throughout the Americas.¶ I joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in the 1950s and chose to serve in Latin America in the 1960s. I was inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s creative response to the revolutionary fervor then sweeping Latin America. The 1959 Cuban revolution, led by the charismatic Fidel Castro, had inspired revolts against the cruel dictatorships and corrupt pseudodemocracies that had dominated the region since the end of Spanish and Portuguese rule in the 19th century.¶ Kennedy had a charisma of his own, and it captured the imaginations of leaders who wanted democratic change, not violent revolution. Kennedy reacted to the threat of continental insurrection by creating the Alliance for Progress, a kind of Marshall Plan for the hemisphere that was calculated to achieve the same kind of results that saved Western Europe from Communism. He pledged billions of dollars to this effort. In hindsight, it may have been overly ambitious, even naïve, but Kennedy’s focus on Latin America rekindled the promise of the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and transformed the whole concept of inter-American relations.¶ Tragically, after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the ideal of the Alliance for Progress crumbled and “la noche mas larga” — “the longest night” — began for the proponents of Latin American democracy. Military regimes flourished, democratic governments withered, moderate political and civil leaders were labeled Communists, rights of free speech and assembly were curtailed and human dignity crushed, largely because the United States abandoned all standards save that of anti-Communism.¶ During my Foreign Service career, I did what I could to oppose policies that supported dictators and closed off democratic alternatives. In 1981, as the ambassador to El Salvador, I refused a demand by the secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., that I use official channels to cover up the Salvadoran military’s responsibility for the murders of four American churchwomen. I was fired and forced out of the Foreign Service.¶ The Reagan administration, under the illusion that Cuba was the power driving the Salvadoran revolution, turned its policy over to the Pentagon and C.I.A., with predictable results. During the 1980s the United States helped expand the Salvadoran military, which was dominated by uniformed assassins. We armed them, trained them and covered up their crimes.¶ After our counterrevolutionary efforts failed to end the Salvadoran conflict, the Defense Department asked its research institute, the RAND Corporation, what had gone wrong. RAND analysts found that United States policy makers had refused to accept the obvious truth that the insurgents were rebelling against social injustice and state terror. As a result, “we pursued a policy unsettling to ourselves, for ends humiliating to the Salvadorans and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the national interest.”¶ Over the subsequent quarter-century, a series of profound political, social and economic changes have undermined the traditional power bases in Latin America and, with them, longstanding regional institutions like the Organization of American States. The organization, which is headquartered in Washington and which excluded Cuba in 1962, was seen as irrelevant by Mr. Chávez. He promoted the creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States — which excludes the United States and Canada — as an alternative.¶ At a regional meeting that included Cuba and excluded the United States, Mr. Chávez said that “the most positive thing for the independence of our continent is that we meet alone without the hegemony of empire.”¶ Mr. Chávez was masterful at manipulating America’s antagonism toward Fidel Castro as a rhetorical stick with which to attack the United States as an imperialist aggressor, an enemy of progressive change, interested mainly in treating Latin America as a vassal continent, a source of cheap commodities and labor.¶ Like its predecessors, the Obama administration has given few signs that it has grasped the magnitude of these changes or cares about their consequences. After President Obama took office in 2009, Latin America’s leading statesman at the time, Luiz

Inácio Lula da Silva, then the president of Brazil, urged Mr. Obama to normalize relations with Cuba. ¶ Lula, as he is universally known, correctly identified our Cuba policy as the chief stumbling block to renewed ties with Latin America, as it had been since the very early years of the Castro regime.¶ After the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, Washington set out to accomplish by stealth and economic strangulation what it had failed to do by frontal attack. But the clumsy mix of covert action and porous boycott succeeded primarily in bringing shame on the United States and turning Mr. Castro into a folk hero.¶ And even now, despite the relaxing of travel restrictions and Raúl Castro’s announcement that he will retire in 2018, the implacable hatred of many within the Cuban exile community continues. The fact that two of the three Cuban-American members of the Senate — Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas — are rising stars in the Republican Party complicates further the potential for a recalibration of Cuban-American relations. (The third member, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, but his power has been weakened by a continuing ethics controversy.)¶ Are there any other examples in the history of diplomacy

where the leaders of a small, weak nation can prevent a great power from acting in its own best interest merely by staying alive?¶ The re-election of President Obama, and the death of Mr. Chávez, give America a chance to reassess the irrational hold on our imaginations that Fidel Castro has exerted for five decades. The president and his new secretary of state, John Kerry, should

quietly reach out to Latin American leaders like President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of American States. The message should be simple: The president is prepared to show some flexibility on Cuba and asks your help.¶

Such a simple request could transform the Cuban issue from a bilateral problem into a multilateral challenge. It would then be up to Latin Americans to devise a policy that would help Cuba achieve a sufficient measure of

democratic change to justify its reintegration into a hemisphere composed entirely of elected governments.¶ If, however, our present policy paralysis continues, we will soon see the emergence of two rival camps, the United States versus Latin America. While Washington would continue to enjoy friendly relations with individual countries like Brazil, Mexico and

Colombia, the vision of Roosevelt and Kennedy of a hemisphere of partners cooperating in matters of common concern would be reduced to a historical footnote.

U.S. Constituencies want to normalize relations with CubaHanson and Lee ’13, Stephanie Hanson, associate director and coordinating editor of the Council on Foreign Relations. Brianna Lee, Senior Production Editor of the Council on Foreign Relations. (“U.S.-Cuba Relations”, Council on Foreign Relations, January 13, 2013,

http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113#p3, Accessed: July 3, 2013, SD)¶ What is U.S. public opinion on

the isolation of Cuba?¶ Some U.S. constituencies would like to resume relations. U.S. agricultural groups already deal with Cuba, and other economic sectors want access to the Cuban market. Many Cuban-Americans were angered by the Bush administration's strict limits on travel and remittances, though a small but vocal contingent of hard-line Cuban exiles, many of them

based in Florida, does not want to normalize relations until the Communist regime is gone. "When they're polled, the majority of Cuban-Americans say that the embargo has failed, and support lifting the travel ban or loosening the embargo or

some steps along that continuum of liberalization and normalization," says Julia E. Sweig, CFR director of Latin American studies. ¶ Ending the economic embargo against Cuba would require congressional approval. Opinions in Congress are mixed: A group of influential Republican lawmakers from Florida, including former representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Mario

Diaz-Balart, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen are stridently anti-Castro. Still, many favor improving relations with Cuba. In 2009,

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the top-ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, released a report

calling for U.S. policy changes. He said: "We must recognize the ineffectiveness of our current policy and deal with the Cuban regime in a way that enhances U.S. interests" (PDF).

Lifting Embargo key to Regional RelationsSheridan ’09 , Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post Reporter (“U.S. Urged to Relax Cuba Policy to Boost Regional Relations”, the Washington Post, May 29, 2009, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-05-29/politics/36798831_1_cuba-scholar-oas-members-travel-restrictions, Accessed: July 3, 2013, SD)

¶ Eliminating the Cold War-era ban would be largely symbolic, because Cuba has shown no sign of wanting to return to the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere. But the debate shows how central the topic has become in U.S. relations with an increasingly assertive Latin America. The wrangling over Cuba threatens to dominate a meeting of hemispheric foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, scheduled for Tuesday in Honduras.¶ ¶ "Fifty years after the U.S. . . . made Cuba its litmus test for its commercial and diplomatic ties in Latin America, Latin America is turning the tables," said Julia E. Sweig, a Cuba scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. Now, she said, Latin countries are "making Cuba the litmus test for the quality of the Obama administration's approach to Latin America."¶ ¶ President Obama has taken steps toward improving ties with Cuba, lifting restrictions on visits and money transfers by Cuban Americans and offering to restart immigration talks suspended in 2004. But he has said he will not scrap the longtime economic embargo until Havana makes

democratic reforms and cleans up its human rights record. Ending the embargo would also entail congressional action.¶ ¶ Obama is facing pressure to move faster, both from Latin American allies and from key U.S. lawmakers.

Bipartisan bills are pending in Congress that would eliminate all travel restrictions and ease the embargo.¶ ¶ Cuba has sent mixed signals about its willingness to respond to the U.S. gestures.¶ ¶ Latin American leaders say that

isolating Cuba is anachronistic when most countries in the region have established relations with communist nations such as China. The OAS secretary general, José Miguel Insulza, has called the organization's 1962 suspension of Cuba "outdated" -- noting it is based on the island's alignment with a "communist bloc" that no longer exists. However, he has suggested that OAS members could postpone Cuba's full participation until it showed democratic reforms.¶ ¶ Cuban exile organizations and some U.S. lawmakers are strongly opposed to readmitting the island.¶ ¶ "If we invite Cuba back in, in spite of their violations, what message are we sending to the rest of the hemisphere -- that it's okay to move backwards away from democracy and human rights, that there will be no repercussions for such actions?" Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban American, demanded in a speech. He threatened to cut off U.S. funding for the OAS -- about 60 percent of its budget -- if the measure passed.¶ ¶ Clinton said last week that Cuba should be readmitted only if it abided by the OAS's Democratic Charter, a set of principles adopted in 2001 that commits countries to hold elections and to respect human rights

and press freedoms.¶ ¶ Most Latin American countries broke relations with Cuba after its 1959 revolution. Nearly all have restored diplomatic ties, and the United States will soon be the only holdout in the hemisphere.¶ ¶ The Cuba ban could be lifted by a two-thirds vote of the OAS foreign ministers on Tuesday. However, the organization generally works by consensus, and several countries have indicated they do not want a showdown with the United States.¶ ¶ Diplomats have been trying in recent days to hammer out a compromise. U.S. diplomats introduced a resolution that would instruct the OAS to open a dialogue with Cuba about its "eventual reintegration," consistent with the principles of "democracy and full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."¶ ¶ A diplomat said last night that the United States appears to be softening its opposition to lifting the ban as long as Cuba's full reinstatement is contingent on moving toward democracy. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.¶ ¶ Venezuela, an ally of Cuba, has indicated it will not support any resolution that includes such conditions. "This is 'Jurassic Park,' " fumed Venezuelan Ambassador Roy Chaderton. "We're still in the Cold War."¶ ¶ Some Latin American diplomats worry that the Cuba imbroglio (misunderstanding) could further marginalize the OAS. The organization is respected for monitoring elections, and it has tried to broker disputes in the hemisphere. But critics lambaste it as largely a debating society.¶ ¶ Venezuela has threatened to quit the organization and form an alternative regional group. It has set up a leftist trade alliance known as ALBA with several poor countries in Latin America. Cuba has derided the OAS as a U.S.-dominated tool of the United States.¶ ¶ Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, said the Cuba resolution has trapped the Obama administration between two of its priorities: democracy promotion and better relations with its neighbors. In 2001, the U.S. government supported the Democratic Charter, a milestone in a region once known for dictatorships. But Obama told hemispheric leaders in Trinidad and Tobago last month that he wanted to form closer

partnerships and not have the United States dictate policy.¶ ¶ "There's really two different values at play here: multilateralism versus democracy. You can't have multilateralism and then let one country, i.e. the U.S., make the decision for a multilateral organization," Hakim said.

Lifting the embargo makes the US more credible Crowther 09 --- Colonel Glenn A. Crowther, research professor at Strategic Studies Institute (“KISS THE EMBARGO

GOODBYE”, February 2009, SSI, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub906.pdf, accessed July 4, 2013,MY)The United States has a motive and a history of operating against the Cuban ¶ government, and therefore against the Cuban people. The proof that

the United States is ¶ still operating against them is obvious—the embargo. The government uses the ¶ embargo as the only excuse for maintaining its internal security apparatus. If we were ¶ to drop the embargo, either

Cuba would have to dismantle its security apparatus, or be ¶ revealed as being hypocritical. Either result would be good for both the United States ¶ and the Cuban people. Dismantling the repressive security structure would provide a ¶ modicum of freedom for the Cubans. Maintaining the security apparatus would¶ significantly delegitimize the Cuban

government domestically and internationally and ¶ could only hasten the demise of the current system.¶ Lifting the embargo would be a strong sign to the international community that the ¶ United States is magnanimous and inclusive. Maintaining it makes us look petty and ¶ vindictive to the rest of the world. We cannot convince anyone that Cuba is a threat to ¶ the United States, nor can we make the case internationally that more of the same will ¶ have a positive

impact. Lifting the embargo would signal that we are ready to try ¶ something different to bring democracy to Cuba.

Lifting the embargo improves democracy, relations, and US global reputationHanson, Batten, & Ealey 1/16 --- Daniel Hanson, Dayne Batten & Harrison Ealey, Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst (“It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba”, January 16, 2013, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/, accessed June 28, 2013, MY)

For the first time in more than fifty years, Cuban citizens can travel abroad without permission from their government. The move, part of a broader reform package being phased in by Raul Castro, underscores the irrationality of America’s continuation of a five-decade old embargo.¶ While the embargo has been through several legal iterations in the intervening years, the general tenor of the U.S. position toward Cuba is a

hardline not-in-my-backyard approach to communism a la the Monroe Doctrine. The official position is outdated, hypocritical, and counterproductive. ¶ The Cuban embargo was inaugurated by a Kennedy administration executive order in 1960 as a response to the confiscation of American property in Cuba under the newly installed Castro regime. The current incarnation of the embargo – codified primarily in the Helms-Burton Act – aims at producing free markets and representative democracy in Cuba through economic

sanctions, travel restrictions, and international legal penalties.¶ Since Fidel Castro abdicated power to his brother Raul in 2008, the

government has undertaken more than 300 economic reforms designed to encourage enterprise, and restrictions have been lifted on property use, travel, farming, municipal governance, electronics access, and more. Cuba is still a place of oppression and gross human rights abuse, but recent events would indicate the 11 million person nation is moving in the right direction. ¶ Despite this progress, the U.S. spends massive amounts of money trying to keep illicit Cuban goods out of the United States. At least 10 different agencies are responsible for enforcing different provisions of the embargo, and according to the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. government devotes hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours to administering the embargo each year.¶ At the Miami International Airport, visitors arriving from a Cuban airport are seven times more likely to be stopped and subjected to further customs inspections than are visitors from other countries. More than 70 percent of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control inspections each year

are centered on rooting out smuggled Cuban goods even though the agency administers more than 20 other trade bans. Government resources could be better spent on the enforcement of other sanctions, such as illicit drug trade from Columbia, rather than the search for contraband cigars and rum. ¶ At present, the U.S. is largely alone in

restricting access to Cuba. The embargo has long been a point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada. Every year since 1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies nationalized during the Castro takeover have dropped their claims.¶ Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless. The State Department has argued that the cost of conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the embargo. For American multinational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.¶ Yet, estimates of the sanctions’ annual cost to the U.S. economy range from $1.2 to $3.6 billion, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect U.S. small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like

Florida, where the unemployment rate currently stands at 8.1 percent.¶ What’s worse, U.S. sanctions encourage Cuba to collaborate with regional players that are less friendly to American interests. For instance, in 2011, the country inked a deal with Venezuela for the construction of an underwater communications link, circumventing its need to connect with US-owned networks close to its shores.¶ Repealing the embargo would fit into an American precedent of lifting trade and travel restrictions to countries who demonstrate progress towards democratic ideals. Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were all offered normal trade relations in the 1970s after preliminary reforms even though they were still in clear violation of several US resolutions condemning their human rights practices. China, a communist country and perennial human rights abuser, is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and in November, trade restrictions against Myanmar were lessened notwithstanding a fifty year history of genocide and human trafficking propagated by its military government. Which, of course, begs the question: when will the U.S. see fit to lift the embargo? If Cuba is trending towards democracy and free markets, what litmus test must be passed for the embargo to be rolled back?¶ The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both dollar and moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with the help of American charitable relief, business innovation, and tourism.¶ A perpetual embargo on a developing nation that is moving towards reform makes little

sense, especially when America’s allies are openly hostile to the embargo. It keeps a broader discussion about smart reform in Cuba from gaining life, and it makes no economic sense. It is time for the embargo to go.

Lifting the embargo increases our sphere of influence Grisworld 05 --- Daniel Griswold is director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies (“Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba”, October 12, 2005, http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba, accessed July 3, 2013, MY)

Yes, more American dollars would end up in the coffers of the Cuban government, but dollars would also go to private Cuban citizens. Philip Peters, a former State Department official in the Reagan administration and expert on Cuba, argues that American tourists would boost the earnings of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate restaurants in their homes. Those dollars would then find their way to the

hundreds of freely priced farmer’s markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders, and other entrepreneurs.¶ Second, restrictions on remittances should be lifted. Like tourism, expanded remittances would fuel the private sector, encourage Cuba’s modest economic reforms, and promote independence from the government. ¶ Third, American farmers and medical suppliers should be allowed to sell their products to Cuba with financing arranged by private commercial lenders, not just for cash as current law permits. Most international trade is financed by temporary credit, and private banks, not taxpayers, would bear the risk. I oppose subsidizing exports to Cuba through agencies such as the Export-Import Bank, but I also oppose

banning the use of private commercial credit.¶ Finally, the Helms-Burton law should be allowed to expire. The law, like every other aspect of the embargo, has failed to achieve its stated objectives and has, in fact, undermined American influence in Cuba and alienated our allies. ¶ Lifting or modifying the embargo would not be a victory for Fidel Castro or his oppressive regime. It would be an overdue acknowledgement that the four-and-a-half decade embargo has failed, and that commercial engagement is the best way to encourage more open societies abroad. The U.S. government can and should continue to criticize the Cuban government’s abuse of human rights in the U.N. and elsewhere, while allowing expanding trade and tourism to undermine Castro’s authority from below. ¶ We should apply

the president’s sound reasoning on trade in general to our policy toward Cuba. The most powerful force for change in Cuba will not be more sanctions, but more daily interaction with free people bearing dollars and new ideas. ¶ How many decades does the U.S. government need to bang its head against a wall before it changes a failed policy?

People don't want the embargo anymore Crowther 09 --- Colonel Glenn A. Crowther, research professor at Strategic Studies Institute (“KISS THE EMBARGO

GOODBYE”, February 2009, SSI, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub906.pdf, accessed July 4, 2013,MY)

Although many believe there is unity in thinking among all Cubans in the United ¶ States, conversations with people from each of these groups demonstrate that this is not ¶ true. Although the

diminishing group of original exiles still tends to be extremely antiCastro, many of the others just want the whole thing to end so that they can either go ¶ home, or get this all behind them. Others just want to be able to help their families at ¶ home or be free to travel back and forth at will. The offspring of the original exiles (the ¶ oldest of whom are now in their early 50s) tend to be anti-Castro, however many of ¶ them are not as enthusiastic as their parents about overthrowing the Revolution. Most ¶ desire that the Castro regime go away and Cuba be free, but they feel that time will ¶ make this happen, and they are not usually dedicated to this cause like their parents. In ¶ private conversation, however, a

trend appears. Very few Cubans in the United States ¶ actually want the embargo to continue.

Now is the time for engagement, diplomatic transition, Florida, and KerryPadgett 7/3 --- Tim Padgett is WLRN-Miami Herald News' Americas correspondent covering Latin America and the Caribbean from Miami. He has covered Latin America for almost 25 years, graduate of Northwestern University (“Why This Summer Offers Hope For Better U.S.-Cuba Relations”, July 3, 2013, WLRN, http://wlrn.org/post/why-summer-offers-hope-better-us-cuba-relations, accessed July 3, 2013, MY)

And yet, despite all that recent cold-war commotion, could this finally be the summer of love on the Florida Straits? Last month the Obama Administration and the Castro dictatorship started talks on re-establishing direct mail service; this month they’ll discuss immigration guidelines. Diplomats on both sides report a more cooperative groove.¶ New Diplomacy¶ So what happened that’s suddenly making it possible for the two governments to start some substantive diplomatic outreach for the first

time in years?¶ First, Castro finished crunching the numbers on Cuba’s threadbare economy, and the results scared him more than one of Yoani Sánchez’s dissident blog posts. To wit, the island’s finances are held up by little more than European tourists

and oil charity from socialist Venezuela. He’s adopted limited capitalist reforms as the remedy, and to make them work he has to loosen the repressive screws a turn or two.¶ That finally includes letting Cubans travel freely abroad, which gives them better opportunities to bring back investment capital. As a result, says Carlos Saladrigas, a Cuban-American business

leader in Miami and chairman of the Washington-based Cuba Study Group, “The timing is right” for some U.S.-Cuban rapprochement.¶ “Cuba is clearly in a transitionary mode,” says Saladrigas. “They need to change to reinsert themselves in the global order, they need to become more normal in their relations with other nations.”¶ Changing Attitudes¶ Second, although the White House is still intimidated by the Cuban exile lobby, it’s had its own numbers to ponder --

namely, poll results from South Florida’s Cuban-American community.¶ Over the past five years, surveys have consistently shown that. ¶ Over the past five years, surveys have consistently shown that Cuban-Americans, especially the more

moderate younger generation and more recently arrived Cubans, favor engagement with Cuba as a way of promoting democratization there. Some polls even indicate that a majority want to ditch the failed 51-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. ¶ As a result, Obama -- who according to one exit poll won 48% of Florida’s Cuban vote in last year’s presidential election, which would be a record for a Democratic candidate -- feels more elbow room

for diálogo with the Castro regime. The Administration even recently let González return to Cuba.¶ “The Cuban-American community in Miami is definitely changing,” says Cuban-American Elena Freyre, president of the Foundation for Normalization of U.S.-Cuba Relations in Miami. “It’s reached kind of a critical mass at this point, and I think people are ready to try something different.”¶ Freyre notes that Obama’s appointment this year of former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry as the new U.S. secretary of state is

also having an impact.¶ “Mr. Kerry has always felt [the U.S.’s] position with Cuba made no sense,” she says. “He’s been very vocal about thinking that if we engage Cuba we will get a lot further.” Kerry, for example, believes the U.S. should lift its ban on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba.

The time is right, US and Cuba moving forward on relations Haven 6/21 --- Paul Haven, Associated Press bureau chief in Havana (“Cuba, US Try Talking, but Face Many Obstacles”, June

21, 2013, Associated Press, http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/cuba-us-talking-face-obstacles-19457659#.Uc2ttT7wJ9k, accessed June 28, 2013, MY)

They've hardly become allies, but Cuba and the U.S. have taken some baby steps toward rapprochement in recent weeks that have people on this island and in Washington wondering if a breakthrough in relations could be just over the horizon.¶ Skeptics caution that the Cold War enemies have been here many times before, only to fall back into old recriminations. But there are signs that views might be shifting on both sides of the Florida Straits.¶

In the past week, the two countries have held talks on resuming direct mail service, and announced a July 17 sit-down on migration issues. In May, a U.S. federal judge allowed a convicted Cuban intelligence agent to return to the island. This month, Cuba informed the family of jailed U.S. government subcontractor Alan Gross that it would let an American doctor examine him, though the visit has apparently not yet happened. President Raul Castro has also ushered in a series of economic and social changes, including making it easier for Cubans to travel off the island.¶

Under the radar, diplomats on both sides describe a sea change in the tone of their dealings. ¶ Only last year, Cuban state television was broadcasting grainy footage of American diplomats meeting with dissidents on Havana streets and publically

accusing them of being CIA front-men. Today, U.S. diplomats in Havana and Cuban Foreign Ministry officials have easy contact, even sharing home phone numbers.¶ Josefina Vidal, Cuba's top diplomat for North American affairs, recently traveled to Washington and met twice with State Department officials — a visit that came right before the announcements of resumptions in the two sets of bilateral talks that had been suspended for more than two years. Washington has also granted

visas to prominent Cuban officials, including the daughter of Cuba's president.¶ "These recent steps indicate a desire on both sides to try to move forward, but also a recognition on both sides of just how difficult it is to make real progress," said Robert Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University and former national security adviser on Latin America during the Carter administration. "These are tiny, incremental gains, and the prospects of going backwards are equally high."

Embargo doesn’t work and only hurts international relationsHanson et al 13- Daniel Hanson, economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, Dayne Batten, affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy ,Harrison Ealey, financial analyst, (“It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,” 1/16/13, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/, 7/2/13, CAS)

At present, the U.S. is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba. The embargo has long been a point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada. Every year since 1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies nationalized during the Castro takeover have dropped their claims.Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless. The State Department has argued that the cost of

conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the embargo. For American multinational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.

Lifting the embargo reduces international perception of the U.S. as punitive and hypocriticalDickerson 10 – Sergio Dickerson, Lt.Col. in U.S. Army [“United States Security Strategy in Cuba”, DTIC, 1/14/10, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf, accessed: 7/3/13, JK]

The argument can also be made that the U.S. has foreign relations with China, Saudi Arabia and other non-democratic governments while

applying a different standard towards Cuba. With growing perception that Cuba no longer poses a credible threat to the U.S., it appears that U.S. policy has changed from coercive to punitive following the end of the Cold War. With a renewed focus on multilateralism, President Obama could go a long way to break this image by spreading the seeds of a “new beginning” in U.S.-Cuba relations

The embargo is counterproductive – costs alliancesHanson, et. al. 13 – Daniel Hanson, Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. (“It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,” Forbes, 1/16/13, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/, accessed: 7/2/13, amf)

Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless . The State Department has argued that the cost of conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the embargo. For American multinational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.Yet, estimates of the sanctions’ annual cost to the U.S. economy range from $1.2 to $3.6 billion, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect U.S. small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like Florida, where the unemployment rate currently stands at 8.1 percent.What’s worse, U.S. sanctions encourage Cuba to collaborate with regional players that are less friendly to American interests. For instance, in 2011, the country inked a deal with Venezuela for the construction of an underwater communications link, circumventing its need to connect with US-owned networks close to its shores.Repealing the embargo would fit into an American precedent of lifting trade and travel restrictions to countries who demonstrate progress towards democratic ideals. Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were all offered normal trade relations in the 1970s after preliminary reforms even though they were still in clear violation of several US resolutions condemning their human rights practices. China, a communist country and perennial human rights abuser, is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and in November, trade restrictions against Myanmar were lessened notwithstanding a fifty year history of genocide and human trafficking propagated by its military government.Which, of course, begs the question: when will the U.S. see fit to lift the embargo? If Cuba is trending towards democracy and free markets, what litmus test must be passed for the embargo to be rolled back?The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both dollar and moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with the help of America n charitable relief, business innovation, and tourism. A perpetual embargo on a developing nation that is moving towards reform makes little sense, especially when America’s allies are openly hostile to the embargo. It keeps a

broader discussion about smart reform in Cuba from gaining life , and it makes no economic sense. It is time for the embargo to go.

Cuban relations with China and Venezuela saving the regimeFeinberg 11 – Richard Feinberg, Richard Feinberg is professor of international political economy at the Graduate School of International Relations and Pacific Studies, University of California, San Diego. Feinberg served as special assistant to President Clinton and senior director of the National Security Council’s Office of Inter-American Affairs. He has held positions on the State Department's policy planning staff and worked as an international economist in the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of International Affairs. (“Reaching Out: Cuba’s New Economy and the International Response,” The Brookings Institute, November 2011, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2011/11/18-cuba-feinberg, accessed: 7/4/13, amf)

Five decades after Fidel Castro’s “26th of July Movement” marched victoriously into Havana on New Year’s Day, 1959, the United States and Cuba, separated by less than 100 miles of choppy waters, remain deeply distrustful neighbors entangled in a web of hostilities. Heated U.S. policy debates over how best to respond to the Cuban Revolution—through legislation in the Congress or executive orders issued by the Executive Branch—implicitly assume that there are only two players in contention: Washington and Havana. Yet, this conceit takes us very far from the realities of Cuba today.Since the collapse of its former patron, the Soviet Union, a resilient Cuba has dramatically diversified its international economic relations. Initially, Cuba reached out to Europe, Canada, and a widening array of friendly states in Latin America. Over the last decade, Cuba has reached out to forge economic partnerships with major emerging market economies—notably China, Brazil, and Venezuela. Spanish firms manage many of the expanding hotel chains in Cuba that cater to 2.5 million international tourists each year. A Canadian company jointly owns mining operations that ship high-priced nickel to Canada and China. In the next few years, China is poised to spend billions of dollars building a large petrochemical complex at Cienfuegos. A Brazilian firm will modernize the Mariel Port so that it can accommodate very large container ships transiting the newly widened Panama Canal. Petroleum companies from ten or more countries have lined up to explore for deepsea oil in Cuban waters in the Gulf of Mexico. Despite these advances, the Cuban economy remains in the doldrums (as described in Section 1). The main constraint slowing the Cuban economy is not U.S. sanctions (even as they have hit hard). Rather, it is Cuba’s own outdated economic model, inherited from the Soviet Union, of central planning. Cuba’s many commercial partners would like to invest more in Cuba and would prefer to purchase more Cuban exports to correct the imbalances in their bilateral trade accounts, but are frustrated by Cuba’s scant economic offerings. Section 2 of this policy paper tells the story of Cuba’s outreach to the dynamic emerging market economies, as seen from the perspective of Cuba and also through the eyes of its Chinese, Brazilian, Venezuelan and Mexican partners—examining their motivations as well as their anxieties and frustrations. How does Cuba fit into their international economic and geo-political strategies, and what are the domestic political drivers behind their friendships with Havana? Canadian interests are also explored, as Ottawa has sharply differentiated its Cuba policy from those of its close North American ally. While comprehensive U.S. sanctions attempt to undermine the Cuban economy, European countries have been sending development assistance, albeit in modest amounts. European aid targets its resources to empower municipalities, private farmers and cooperatives—to strengthen social forces less dominated by Havana’s powerful bureaucracies. Section 3 describes these European and Canadian cooperation programs as well as the creative initiatives of the non-governmental organization Oxfam, and draws lessons—pointing out potential pitfalls as well as opportunities—for future international development programs operating in the difficult Cuban context.

Cuba building relations with China now – recent talksLatino Daily News 6/19/13 – Latino Daily News: Hispanically Speaking News. (“Cuban VP Strengthens Relations with China on Trip Abroad,” Latino Daily News, 6/19/13, http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/latino-daily-news/details/cuban-vp-strengthens-relations-with-china-on-trip-abroad/25261/, accessed: 7/4/13, amf)

Cuban First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel and Chinese President Xi Jinping gave a new push to longstanding bilateral relations with a meeting here Tuesday.“We want you to feel at home,” Xi told Diaz-Canel at the start of the meeting at the Great Hall of the People, which was only open to the media for a few minutes.Joined by a large political retinue, Diaz-Canel was the first senior Cuban leader to meet with Xi since he became China’s president in March.While the officials’ remarks to the media stayed within the bounds of diplomatic propriety, tangible steps to boost trade relations and other ties have been taken in recent weeks.Indeed, Diaz-Canel and Chinese counterpart Li Yuanchao on Monday presided over the signing of several bilateral cooperation accords.Those agreements included a donation by the Asian giant, an interest-free loan to Cuba and another credit for purchases of farm machinery and equipment.The amounts were not disclosed.“The two countries have learned from one another during the process of building socialism,” the Chinese vice president said Monday after a meeting with his Cuban counterpart, the official Xinhua news agency said.Diaz-Canel, for his part, said then that Cuba viewed its relations with China “from a strategic perspective” and was interested in bolstering bilateral cooperation.Beijing’s Communist Party secretary, Guo Jinlong, and Cuban President Raul Castro also met earlier this month in Havana, a sit-down that ended with the signing of cooperation accords in the areas of energy, transportation, tourism and biotechnology.China is Cuba’s second-largest trading partner with two-way trade valued at more than $2 billion in 2011, up from $590 million in 2004, according to official figures.

Lifting the embargo makes the US more credible Crowther 09 --- Colonel Glenn A. Crowther, research professor at Strategic Studies Institute (“KISS THE EMBARGO GOODBYE”, February 2009, SSI, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub906.pdf, accessed July 4, 2013,MY)The United States has a motive and a history of operating against the Cuban ¶ government, and therefore against the Cuban people. The

proof that the United States is ¶ still operating against them is obvious—the embargo. The government uses the ¶ embargo as the only excuse for maintaining its internal security apparatus. If we were ¶ to drop the embargo, either Cuba would have to dismantle its security apparatus, or be ¶ revealed as being hypocritical. Either result would be good for both the United States ¶ and the Cuban people. Dismantling the repressive security structure would provide a ¶ modicum of freedom for the Cubans. Maintaining the security apparatus would¶ significantly delegitimize the Cuban government domestically and internationally and ¶ could only hasten

the demise of the current system.¶ Lifting the embargo would be a strong sign to the international community that the ¶ United States is magnanimous and inclusive. Maintaining it makes us look petty and ¶ vindictive to the rest of the world. We cannot convince anyone that Cuba is a threat to ¶ the

United States, nor can we make the case internationally that more of the same will ¶ have a positive impact. Lifting the embargo would signal that we are ready to try ¶ something different to bring democracy to Cuba.

Lifting the embargo is key to Obama’s credibility- solves a litany of global conflictsDickerson 10- Lieutenant Colonel Sergio M. Dickerson of the US Army War College, (“United States Security Strategy Towards Cuba,” 1/14/10, Strategic Research Project, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA518053-Accessed-6-27-13,RX)Today, 20 years have passed since the fall of the Berlin Wall – it’s time to chip away at the diplomatic wall that still remains between U.S. and Cuba. As we seek a new foreign policy with Cuba it is imperative that we take into consideration that distrust will characterize negotiations with the Cuban government. On the other hand, consider that loosening or lifting the embargo could also be mutually beneficial. Cuba’s need and America’s surplus capability to provide goods and services could be profitable and eventually addictive to Cuba. Under these conditions, diplomacy has a better chance to flourish.

If the Cuban model succeeds President Obama will be seen as a true leader for multilateralism. Success in Cuba could afford the international momentum and credibility to solve

other seemingly “wicked problems” like the Middle East and Kashmir. President Obama could leverage this international reputation with other rogue nations like Iran and North Korea who might associate their

plight with Cuba.35 The U.S. could begin to lead again and reverse its perceived decline in the greater global order bringing true peace for years to come.

Lifting the Embargo key to boost relations with Europe, South America, and CanadaHanson, Batten and Ealey, 1/16- Daniel Hanson, Dayne Batten, and Harrison Ealey. Daniel is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, Dayne is affiliated with the UNC Department of Public Policy, and Ealy is a financial analyst at Forbes, (“It’s Time for the U.S. to End its Senseless Embargo of Cuba” Forbes 1/16/13 http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/Accessed-7-2-13-RX)At present, the U.S. is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba.  The embargo has long been a point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada.   Every year since 1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies nationalized during the Castro takeover have dropped their claims.

US-Canada relations key to solve oil, the environment, disease, and terrorMilne 2007- Noella Milne, Partner, Borden Ladner Gervais LLP, Canada's oldest and largest speakers' forums with a membership comprised of some of Canada's most influential leaders from the professions, business, labour, education and government, (“Canada-U.S. Relations: Our Common Cause Agenda in a Perilous World,” January 22 2007 http://speeches.empireclub.org/62962/data-Accessed-7-2-13-RX)In the energy field, Canada and the U.S. have a strong relationship, with the U.S. being the world's largest energy producer, consumer and importer, and Canada the largest foreign-energy supplier to the United States of oil, natural gas, uranium and electricity. We both see eye-to-eye on the importance of a market-based approach to energy resource development--our oil sands being a great example, growing

from a pipe dream in the early '80s to production today of a million barrels a day, on the way to three million or more by 2015.¶ We see increasing amounts of oil and natural gas production being controlled by government-- Russia, for example, using its energy strength for wider geo-political ends. Also nationalization by Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.¶ At the recent G-8 meeting in St. Petersburg, Prime Minister

Harper succeeded in getting the market-based approach to energy resources development agreed in a number of important texts.¶ In our approach to environmental stewardship, the United States and Canada both afford an important role to technology and innovation as important means of addressing global

challenges and finding solutions. For example, we are already partners, along with other countries and the private sector,

in the Weyburn project in Saskatchewan to study the possibility of capturing and storing carbon dioxide in geological forms such as oil

fields.¶ Another area of multilateral co-operation where the embassy has been active has been the preparedness for pandemics . Canada and the United States are concerned about the potential for a human influenza pandemic that would have significant global health, economic and social consequences. Canada, drawing on our SARS experience, and the United States have worked

together to raise international consciousness and preparedness for another pandemic.¶ While the pandemic threat is global, the co-ordinated response must be also at the regional and country level. And in this regard, Canada and the United States have each developed its own Influenza Pandemic response plans, which are continually updated and shared. We at the embassy follow this issue closely.¶ I would like to add a final area of common endeavour--one closer to home. It is

directed towards the most important responsibility a government has. That is to protect and defend the freedom, independence and sovereignty of our two countries. ¶ NORAD is an emblem of common endeavour. It stands for shared strategic vision for defence of the continent, shared decision making, and unrivalled interoperability of our personnel, radars and aircraft. ¶ NORAD is evolving in the post 9/11 world. Last year, we renewed the NORAD agreement in perpetuity, ending the previous five-year cycles. The new agreement gives NORAD added responsibility for maritime warning. ¶ We have a proud tradition and history of Canada-U.S. defence co-operation--arguably the most complex in the world. Over 80 treaty-level agreements, and more than 250 memoranda of understanding.¶ More than 600 members of the Canadian Forces serve in the U.S. and on exchange with U.S. forces. Canadian Forces have the distinction of being the most interoperable with the United States of any of the NATO allies. We train together, patrol together, serve together.¶ The Defense Development and Defense Production Sharing Agreements manage defence industry trade, and the related research and development--approximately $2 billion in trade flows annually. We are an integral part of the U.S. defence industrial and technology base and the largest foreign supplier, contributing to both economic growth and jobs on both sides of the border, and to the interoperability of our forces in the field. One example is the current Joint Strike Fighter project, supporting interoperability but also access to up to $8 billion in industrial participation opportunities.¶ The embassy in Washington plays a key part in this activity. We have an active and robust Defense Liaison Office, which interacts daily with our Department of National Defense on policy and operational issues, including co-operation on Afghanistan.¶ I myself have already visited NORAD twice, and the AWACS base in Oklahoma once, to underscore the importance Canada attaches to this relationship. The embassy has taken a lead role in addressing the current ITARS problem, in defence procurement, and tomorrow, we host a visit of the Minister of National Defence to his new U.S. counterpart. On Capitol Hill, our job is to make members of Congress aware of the significant Canadian role in defending the continent and our major contribution to the campaign in Afghanistan.¶ Before I conclude, I want to come back to perhaps our greatest personal and economic common cause--"daily" life along our shared borders--whether it be truckers delivering auto parts between Windsor and Detroit, day shoppers travelling between Montreal and Plattsburg, or friends and family making a spontaneous trip across the border to visit one another in Toronto or Buffalo or

Vancouver and Bellingham.¶ The shared protection and mobility across our shared border is our most important economic bi-lateral common cause issue with the United States. After all, the border is not an imaginary line across the 49th parallel; it is an ever-evolving complex entity that interconnects our lives, our economies and our continued prosperity.¶ Canada has seen a gradual thickening of the border over the past four years, initiatives that jeopardize our long-standing commercial and people-to-people connections.¶ Recently we have seen measures introduced in food inspection and the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI)--the new passport rules--both initiatives which, if not implemented carefully, will undermine the foundation of NAFTA, the backbone of our economic integration, as well as our 140 years of shared friendship and family connections.¶ The air rule for WHTI will be implemented tomorrow. I expect this will go smoothly since passport usage is around 95 per cent and the U.S. intends to demonstrate flexibility in the implementation.¶ And while land and sea implementation is still 11 or potentially more months away, we are still encouraging the U.S. to take all of the necessary time required to get this right. We cannot rush into this and have a "cold turkey" implementation without appropriate flexibility and phasing-in. But we are encouraged by recent indications that the Administration and Congress may be more flexible in the implementation of WHTI related to land crossings.¶ Let me conclude.¶ I've said on a number of occasions the paradox of the Canada-U.S. relationship is that the steadier it is, the more attention is given to any difference that may arise between us.¶ Yes, we've had disputes. I know when things are bumpy, having lived through the softwood lumber issue. But we solved it.¶ And yes, we have a problem in the defence co-operation realm. And we're working to solve it.¶ My point to you is that, if you overlook those areas where things are smooth, you miss the fundamental nature of our relationship. You are looking only at the occasional blemish on the skin, not grasping the basic sinews that connect our two countries--and that give us important strengths and advantages.¶ You also risk overlooking how Canada's international agenda is supported and how national interests are furthered by our common cause endeavour with the United States. And that, to me, would do not just a disservice to our

neighbours to the south, and our bilateral relationship, it would also impede reaching our national objectives as a country.¶ So whether it is Afghanistan, weapons of mass destruction, the Western Hemisphere, trade,

pandemics, energy and the environment or the defence of North America, there are many ways

where the national interest of the United States and Canada converge. This brings real meaning to a recent observation of a senior member of the U.S. Administration, "We often speak of our two countries as being friends, neighbours and allies. Canada is also a good and reliable partner."

Lifting the embargo is key to regaining international reputationHolmes 10- Michael G. Holmes, MA The School of Continuing Studies, Georgetown (“SEIZING THE MOMENT,” June 21, 2010, Georgetown, https://repository.library.georgetown.edu/bitstream/handle/10822/553334/holmesMichael.pdf?sequence=1-Accessed-7-2-13-RX]From an image stand point repealing the sanctions and removing the embargo is symbolic . It shows Cuba and the world that although the United States is pro democracy , it does not wish to impose its values on other nations . The Cuba Democracy Act was an attempt to force democratic changes in Cuba.10 By repealing the act the United States, illustrates that it respects the sovereignty of nations. Considering that this Act did allow for the application of U.S. law in a foreign country11, repealing it not only sends the message about U.S. views on sovereignty but also shows that the administration is taking steps to ensure that sovereignty is actually respected.

Repealing the Helms-Burton Law will certainly stimulate foreign investment in Cuba as well . Many foreign countries were leery of investing in Cuba out of fear of being sued or losing property under the provisions

established by the Helms-Burton Act.12 This return of foreign investment will further secure Cuba's place in the global marketplace . It also will help to silence skeptics who will question U.S. intentions. Since the sanctions against Cuba were unilateral U.S. actions, an unsolicited change in course will undoubtedly spark speculation.

Allowing all countries to invest in Cuba again underscores the United States' position of desiring for all countries to participate in the global market place. It is difficult to imagine that the benefits of lifting the embargo will not be immediate and substantial in regards to the U nited S tates reputation in the world . Looking at the long-term benefits of removing the sanctions, the two benefits that stand out the most are trade and fuel.

Lifting the embargo improves democracy, relations, and US global reputationHanson, Batten, & Ealey 1/16 --- Daniel Hanson, Dayne Batten & Harrison Ealey, Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute. Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy. Harrison Ealey is a financial analyst (“It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba”, January 16, 2013, Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/, accessed June 28, 2013, MY) For the first time in more than fifty years, Cuban citizens can travel abroad without permission from their government. The move, part of a broader reform package being phased in by Raul Castro, underscores the irrationality of America’s continuation of a five-decade old embargo.¶ While the embargo has been through several legal iterations in the intervening years, the general tenor

of the U.S. position toward Cuba is a hardline not-in-my-backyard approach to communism a la the Monroe Doctrine. The official position is outdated, hypocritical, and counterproductive. ¶ The Cuban embargo was inaugurated by a Kennedy administration executive order in 1960 as a response to the confiscation of American property in Cuba under the newly installed Castro regime. The current incarnation of the embargo – codified primarily in the Helms-Burton Act – aims at producing free markets and representative democracy in Cuba through economic sanctions, travel restrictions, and international legal penalties.¶ Since

Fidel Castro abdicated power to his brother Raul in 2008, the government has undertaken more than 300 economic reforms designed to encourage enterprise, and restrictions have been lifted on property use, travel, farming, municipal governance, electronics access, and more. Cuba is still a

place of oppression and gross human rights abuse, but recent events would indicate the 11 million person nation is moving in the right direction. ¶ Despite this progress, the U.S. spends massive amounts of money trying to keep illicit Cuban goods out of the United States. At least 10 different agencies are responsible for enforcing different provisions of the embargo, and according to the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. government devotes hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours to administering the embargo each year.¶ At

the Miami International Airport, visitors arriving from a Cuban airport are seven times more likely to be stopped and subjected to further customs inspections than are visitors from other countries. More than 70 percent of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control inspections each year are centered on rooting out smuggled Cuban goods even though the agency administers more than 20 other trade

bans. Government resources could be better spent on the enforcement of other sanctions, such as illicit drug trade from Columbia, rather than the search for contraband cigars and rum. ¶ At present, the U.S. is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba. The embargo has long been a point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada. Every year since 1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies nationalized during the Castro takeover have dropped their claims.¶ Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese, and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless. The State Department has argued that the cost of conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the embargo. For American multinational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.¶ Yet, estimates of the sanctions’ annual cost to the U.S. economy range from $1.2 to $3.6 billion, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect U.S. small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like Florida, where the

unemployment rate currently stands at 8.1 percent.¶ What’s worse, U.S. sanctions encourage Cuba to collaborate with regional players that are less friendly to American interests. For instance, in 2011, the country inked a deal with Venezuela for the construction of an underwater communications link, circumventing its need to connect with US-owned networks close to its shores.¶ Repealing the embargo would fit into an American precedent of lifting trade and travel restrictions to countries who demonstrate progress towards democratic ideals. Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary were all offered normal trade relations in the 1970s after preliminary reforms even though they were still in clear violation of several US resolutions condemning their human rights practices. China, a communist country and perennial human rights abuser, is the U.S.’s second largest trading partner, and in November, trade restrictions against Myanmar were lessened notwithstanding a fifty year history of genocide and human trafficking propagated by its military government. Which, of course, begs the question: when will the U.S. see fit to lift the embargo? If Cuba is trending towards democracy and free markets, what litmus test must be passed for the embargo to be rolled back?¶ The cost of the embargo to the United States is high in both dollar and moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with the help of American charitable relief, business innovation, and tourism.¶ A perpetual

embargo on a developing nation that is moving towards reform makes little sense, especially when America’s allies are openly hostile to the embargo. It keeps a broader discussion about smart reform in Cuba from gaining life, and it makes no economic sense. It is time for the embargo to go.

Lifting the embargo increases our sphere of influence Grisworld 05 --- Daniel Griswold is director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies (“Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba”, October 12, 2005, http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba, accessed July 3, 2013, MY)Yes, more American dollars would end up in the coffers of the Cuban government, but dollars would also go to private Cuban citizens. Philip Peters, a former State Department official in the Reagan administration and expert on Cuba, argues that American tourists would boost the earnings of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate restaurants in their homes. Those dollars would then find their way to the hundreds of freely priced farmer’s markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders, and other entrepreneurs.¶

Second, restrictions on remittances should be lifted. Like tourism, expanded remittances would fuel the private sector, encourage Cuba’s modest economic reforms, and promote independence from the government. ¶ Third, American farmers and medical suppliers should be allowed to sell their products to Cuba with financing arranged by private commercial lenders, not just for cash as current law permits. Most international trade is financed by temporary credit, and private banks, not taxpayers, would bear the risk. I oppose subsidizing exports to Cuba

through agencies such as the Export-Import Bank, but I also oppose banning the use of private commercial credit.¶ Finally, the Helms-Burton law should be allowed to expire. The law, like every other aspect of the embargo, has failed to achieve its stated objectives and has, in fact, undermined American influence in Cuba and alienated our allies. ¶ Lifting or modifying the embargo would not be a victory

for Fidel Castro or his oppressive regime. It would be an overdue acknowledgement that the four-and-a-

half decade embargo has failed, and that commercial engagement is the best way to encourage more open societies abroad. The U.S. government can and should continue to criticize the Cuban government’s abuse of human rights in the U.N. and elsewhere, while allowing expanding trade and tourism to undermine Castro’s authority from below. ¶ We should

apply the president’s sound reasoning on trade in general to our policy toward Cuba. The most powerful force for change in Cuba will not be more sanctions, but more daily interaction with free people bearing dollars and new ideas. ¶ How many decades does the U.S. government need to bang its head against a wall before it changes a failed policy?

People don't want the embargo anymore Crowther 09 --- Colonel Glenn A. Crowther, research professor at Strategic Studies Institute (“KISS THE EMBARGO GOODBYE”, February 2009, SSI, http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub906.pdf, accessed July 4, 2013,MY)Although many believe there is unity in thinking among all Cubans in the United ¶ States, conversations with people from each of these groups demonstrate that this is not ¶ true. Although the diminishing group of original exiles still tends to be extremely antiCastro, many of the others just want the whole thing to end so that they can either go ¶ home, or get this all behind them. Others just want to be able to help their families at ¶ home or be free to travel back and forth at will. The offspring of the original exiles (the ¶ oldest of whom are now in their early 50s) tend to be anti-Castro, however

many of ¶ them are not as enthusiastic as their parents about overthrowing the Revolution. Most ¶ desire that the Castro regime go away and Cuba be free, but they feel that time will ¶ make this happen, and they are not usually

dedicated to this cause like their parents. In ¶ private conversation, however, a trend appears. Very few Cubans in the United States ¶ actually want the embargo to continue.

Now is the time for engagement, diplomatic transition, Florida, and KerryPadgett 7/3 --- Tim Padgett is WLRN-Miami Herald News' Americas correspondent covering Latin America and the Caribbean from Miami. He has covered Latin America for almost 25 years, graduate of Northwestern University (“Why This Summer Offers Hope For Better U.S.-Cuba Relations”, July 3, 2013, WLRN, http://wlrn.org/post/why-summer-offers-hope-better-us-cuba-relations, accessed July 3, 2013, MY)And yet, despite all that recent cold-war commotion, could this finally be the summer of love on the Florida Straits? Last month the Obama Administration and the Castro dictatorship started talks on re-establishing direct mail service; this month they’ll discuss immigration

guidelines. Diplomats on both sides report a more cooperative groove.¶ New Diplomacy¶ So what happened that’s suddenly making it possible for the two governments to start some substantive diplomatic outreach for the first time in years?¶ First, Castro finished crunching the numbers on Cuba’s threadbare economy, and the results scared him more than one of Yoani Sánchez’s dissident blog

posts. To wit, the island’s finances are held up by little more than European tourists and oil charity from socialist Venezuela. He’s adopted limited capitalist reforms as the remedy, and to make them work he has to loosen the repressive screws a turn or two.¶ That finally includes letting Cubans travel freely abroad, which gives them better opportunities to bring back investment capital. As a result, says Carlos Saladrigas, a Cuban-American business leader in Miami and

chairman of the Washington-based Cuba Study Group, “The timing is right” for some U.S.-Cuban rapprochement.¶ “Cuba is clearly in a transitionary mode,” says Saladrigas. “They need to change to reinsert themselves in the global order, they need to become more normal in their relations with other nations.”¶ Changing Attitudes¶ Second, although the White House is still intimidated by the Cuban exile lobby, it’s had its own numbers to ponder --

namely, poll results from South Florida’s Cuban-American community.¶ Over the past five years, surveys have consistently shown that. ¶ Over the past five years, surveys have consistently shown that Cuban-Americans, especially the more moderate younger generation and more recently arrived Cubans, favor engagement with Cuba as a way of promoting democratization there. Some polls even indicate that a majority want to ditch the failed 51-year-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. ¶ As a result, Obama -- who according to one exit poll won 48% of Florida’s Cuban vote in last year’s presidential election, which would be a record for a Democratic candidate -- feels more elbow room for diálogo with the Castro regime. The Administration even

recently let González return to Cuba.¶ “The Cuban-American community in Miami is definitely changing,” says Cuban-American Elena Freyre, president of the Foundation for Normalization of U.S.-Cuba Relations in Miami. “It’s reached kind of a critical mass at this point, and I think people are ready to try something different.”¶ Freyre notes that Obama’s appointment this year of

former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry as the new U.S. secretary of state is also having an impact.¶ “Mr. Kerry has always felt [the U.S.’s] position with Cuba made no sense,” she says. “He’s been very vocal about thinking that if we engage Cuba we will get a lot further.” Kerry, for example, believes the U.S. should lift its ban on U.S. citizen travel to Cuba.

Lifting Embargo key to Regional RelationsSheridan ’09 , Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post Reporter (“U.S. Urged to Relax Cuba Policy to Boost Regional Relations”, the Washington Post, May 29, 2009, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2009-05-29/politics/36798831_1_cuba-scholar-oas-members-travel-restrictions, Accessed: July 3, 2013, SD)The U.S. government is fighting an effort to allow Cuba to return to the Organization of American States after a 47-year suspension. But the resistance is putting it at odds with much of Latin America as the Obama administration is trying to improve relations in the hemisphere.¶ Eliminating the Cold War-era ban would be largely symbolic, because Cuba has shown no sign of wanting to return to the OAS, the main forum for political cooperation in the hemisphere. But the debate shows how central the topic has become in U.S. relations with an increasingly assertive Latin America. The wrangling over Cuba threatens to dominate a meeting of hemispheric foreign ministers, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, scheduled for Tuesday in Honduras.¶ ¶ "Fifty years after the U.S. . . . made Cuba its litmus test for its commercial and diplomatic ties in Latin America, Latin America is turning the tables," said Julia E. Sweig, a Cuba scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations. Now, she said, Latin countries are "making Cuba the litmus test for the quality of the Obama administration's approach to Latin America."¶ ¶ President Obama has taken steps toward improving ties with Cuba, lifting restrictions on visits and money transfers by Cuban Americans and offering to restart immigration talks suspended in 2004. But he has said he will not scrap the longtime economic embargo until Havana makes democratic reforms and cleans up its human rights record. Ending the embargo would also entail congressional action.¶ ¶

Obama is facing pressure to move faster, both from Latin American allies and from key U.S. lawmakers. Bipartisan bills are pending in Congress that would eliminate all travel restrictions and ease the embargo.¶ ¶ Cuba has sent mixed signals about its willingness to respond to the U.S. gestures.¶ ¶ Latin American leaders

say that isolating Cuba is anachronistic when most countries in the region have established relations with communist nations such as China. The OAS secretary general, Jose Miguel Insulza, has called the organization's 1962 suspension of Cuba "outdated" -- noting it is based on the island's alignment with a "communist bloc" that no longer exists. However, he has suggested that OAS members could postpone Cuba's full participation until it showed democratic reforms.¶ ¶ Cuban exile organizations and some U.S. lawmakers are strongly opposed to readmitting the island.¶ ¶ "If we invite Cuba back in, in spite of their violations, what message are we sending to the rest of the hemisphere -- that it's okay to move backwards away from democracy and human rights, that there will be no repercussions for such actions?" Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), a Cuban American, demanded in a speech. He threatened to cut off U.S. funding for the OAS -- about 60 percent of its budget -- if the measure passed.¶ ¶ Clinton said last week that Cuba should be readmitted only if it abided by the OAS's Democratic Charter, a set of principles adopted in 2001 that commits countries to hold elections and to respect human rights and press freedoms.¶ ¶ Most Latin American countries broke relations with Cuba after its 1959 revolution. Nearly all have restored diplomatic ties, and the United States will soon be the only holdout in the hemisphere.¶ ¶ The Cuba ban could be lifted by a two-thirds vote of the OAS foreign ministers on Tuesday. However, the organization generally works by consensus, and several countries have indicated they do not want a showdown with the United States.¶ ¶ Diplomats have been trying in recent days to hammer out a compromise. U.S. diplomats introduced a resolution that would instruct the OAS to open a dialogue with Cuba about its "eventual reintegration," consistent with the principles of "democracy and full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."¶ ¶ A diplomat said last night that the United States appears to be softening its opposition to lifting the ban as long as Cuba's full reinstatement is contingent on moving toward democracy. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks.¶ ¶ Venezuela, an ally of Cuba, has indicated it will not support any resolution that includes such conditions. "This is 'Jurassic Park,' " fumed Venezuelan Ambassador Roy Chaderton. "We're still in the Cold War."¶ ¶ Some Latin American diplomats worry that the Cuba imbroglio (misunderstanding) could further marginalize the OAS. The organization is respected for monitoring elections, and it has tried to broker disputes in the hemisphere. But critics lambaste it as largely a debating society.¶ ¶ Venezuela has threatened to quit the organization and form an alternative regional group. It has set up a leftist trade alliance known as ALBA with several poor countries in Latin America. Cuba has derided the OAS as a U.S.-dominated tool of the United States.¶ ¶ Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank in Washington, said the Cuba resolution has trapped the Obama administration between two of its priorities: democracy promotion and better relations with its neighbors. In 2001, the U.S. government supported the Democratic Charter, a milestone in a region once known for dictatorships. But Obama told hemispheric leaders in Trinidad and Tobago last month that he wanted to form closer

partnerships and not have the United States dictate policy.¶ ¶ "There's really two different values at play here: multilateralism versus democracy. You can't have multilateralism and then let one country, i.e. the U.S., make the decision for a multilateral organization," Hakim said.

Relations Advantage

Plan Solves / Embargo KeyLifting the embargo against economic engagement solves relations, Cuba’s economy, and democratic stability Whiting ’13 (Ashley, LEEHG Institute for Foreign Policy, Policy Recommendation to Lift the Cuban Embargo, 1/30/13, http://www.leehg.org/?p=467)

The U nited S tates’ embargo against Cuba has failed to fulfill its purpose even half a century after its implementation. Although the Cold War ended over twenty years ago, the United States still utilizes this outdated mindset in their relations towards Cuba . The Cuban embargo is one of the last relics of the Cold War era, and it is time to move forward in terms of foreign policy. During a time when containment was the overruling policy of foreign affairs, imposing an embargo against Cuba was rational diplomacy. In today’s times though, using failed and outdated tactics against Cuba will not yield the results that the United States desires. The time has come to reform relations with Cuba. The Cuban embargo should be lifted due to the sanctions’ ineffectiveness, the correlation between wealth and democracy, the benefits of free trade, and the disapproval by the international community. Before entering into the core arguments against the embargo, it is important to understand the history of U.S.-Cuban relations. The embargo was implemented in 1960, during the height of the Cold War, when the Cuban government nationalized U.S. businesses on their land. The Castro regime has still not paid their reparations, and most likely will not do so anytime soon. With the rising communist government, the support from the Soviet Union, and the looming danger of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the embargo was a highly reasonable decision at that time. Although U.S.S.R.-Cuban relations troubled the U.S. fifty years ago, this relationship is no longer an issue. The Helms-Burton act, implemented during the Clinton Administration, strengthened the sanctions but allowed for humanitarian aid. Although critics of the embargo hoped that President Obama would ease these trade restrictions in 2009, the President has openly stated that he shall continue the embargo until Cuba shows signs of democratization. One of the core arguments against the embargo is that the sanctions have failed to spread democracy to Cuba. Although economic sanctions provide an attractive alternative to full-scale military intervention against an antagonistic nation, they often prove to be ineffective. According to research by Abel Escriba-Folch and Joseph Wright in their publication, Dealing with Tyranny: International Sanctions and the Survival of Authoritarian Rulers, a sanction will fail if it is unsuccessful at affecting the citizens in a leader’s support coalition. This concept correlates perfectly with the core arguments of the rational political ambition theory. A leader’s support coalition is the percentage of people which a leader must satisfy in order to remain in office. If a leader wants to maintain power, then domestic policies must be focused on satisfying the winning coalition. Considering this hypothesis, dictators will value private goods due to the small size of their winning coalition, whereas democratic leaders will distribute more public goods due to the large size of their winning coalition.[5] Although research shows that sanctions are more effective against other democracies, the United States generally imposes sanctions against authoritarian governments. These sanctions may be used to destabilize a totalitarian state, or to simply demonstrate disapproval. Unintentionally, sanctions against dictatorships generally harm those citizens outside of the electorate. These citizens cannot choose their leaders, but they still face the extreme consequences of their government’s policies. If a sanction fails to negatively alter the support coalition’s loyalty, then the leader shall remain in office. Some studies suggest that imposed sanctions strengthen a dictatorship since the leader must reinforce oppression in response to rising foreign pressure. If this is true, then one could argue that the embargo strengthens the Castro regime more than Cuba’s chances of democratization.[5] Considering the correlation between wealth and democracy, lifting the embargo can serve as a beneficial strategy in democratizing Cuba. Research from Freedom House and GDP measurements have demonstrated a strong correlation between a state’s economic growth and level of democracy. Considering the gruesome fate that generally awaits a dictator after leaving office, it is predictable for totalitarian leaders to avoid implementing democratic reforms. Since the United States cannot force Castro to reform, the U.S. must take a different approach. By strengthening the Cuban middle class, the U.S. can indirectly push Cuba further down the path of

democratization. One well-known hypothesis, created by political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, states that, “The more well-to-do a nation, the greater the chances that it will sustain a democracy“.[3] Various examples in history have supported this hypothesis, such as with the prosperity of South Korea. A once autocratic nation, South Korea has flourished after decades of industrialization and urbanization. A strong middle class is the core of a democracy, since economic stability allows for more political participation. Increased economic inequality may not directly decrease democratic stability, but an impoverished population certainty will. If the majority of a population lacks the necessary resources to fulfill their basic needs, then the probability of them participating in politics is quite low. Without such opportunities, these oppressed people can only change their government in the form of a revolution. Even so, revolutions are rare, unpredictable, chaotic, and catastrophic to those directly involved. When considering basic macroeconomic ideas, free trade is theoretically preferable over pure self-reliance. In this age of globalization, the increased rise of economic interdependency must not be ignored. If each country produces that which they have a comparative advantage in, then all states can capitalize on their own prosperity. A tariff on trade generally helps those companies that cannot compete, but such restrictions defeat the purpose of comparative advantage. Even the concept of free trade between international markets injures communism at its core. Lifting the trade embargo shall not only stimulate the United States’ economy, but shall also improve the living conditions of the Cuban population. By opening up the markets in Cuba , the country may slowly move towards capitalist ideals. [4] The Cuban embargo has become increasingly unpopular through the eyes of the public. The international community overwhelmingly condemns the Cuban embargo, with the U.N. General Assembly member states voting 186-2 against the embargo in 2011.[2] Critics of the embargo argue that the United States uses a double standard towards foreign policy with Cuba. The U.S. does not always trade with other capitalist democracies. China is a communist country, and is also one of the United States’ most important trading partners. Saudi Arabia is commonly defined as a dictatorship, yet the U.S. receives oil and other valued resources from this state. In the long run, Castro’s communism shall eventually crumble. However, the Cuban embargo has not helped this process of democratization. The embargo has failed at destabilizing the Castro regime, and succeeded in unintentionally harming the civilian population. These sanctions are ineffective since they have failed at directly harming Castro’s support coalition. The lack of a strong middle class decreases Cuba’s chances of democratizing, and enables Castro to continue his oppression. Instead of coercing Castro into making top-down democratic reforms, the U nited S tates can stimulate the Cuban economy and encourage reform from the bottom-up. From a more liberal viewpoint, free trade shall benefit the United States economy since it may allow a new source of income and a wider access of resources. All things considered, the United States should lift this failed embargo and take a new approach in influencing the domestic politics of Cuba.

Engagement KeyIncreased economic engagement is uniquely keyPiccone ’13 (Joseph, Brookings Institute Senior Fellow and Deputy Director, Foreign Policy, Opening to Havana, 1/17/13, http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2013/01/opening-to-havana)

Your second term presents a rare opportunity to turn the page of history from an outdated Cold War approach to Cuba to a new era of constructive engagement that will encourage a process of reform already underway on the island. Cuba is changing, slowly but surely, as it struggles to adapt its outdated economic model to the 21st century while preserving one-party rule. Reforms that empower Cuban citizens to open their own businesses, buy and sell property, hire employees, own cell phones, and travel off the island offer new opportunities for engagement . Recommendation:You can break free of the straitjacket of the embargo by asserting your executive authority to facilitate trade, travel and communications with the Cuban people. This will help establish your legacy of rising above historical grievances, advance U.S. interests in a stable, prosperous and democratic Cuba, and pave the way for greater U.S. leadership in the region.

Now KeyNow is the key time – both economic and political issues align Tisdall ’13 (Simon, 4/8/13, Time for U.S. and Cuba to kiss and make up, http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/08/opinion/opinion-simon-tisdall-cuba)

But Obama's approach is the antithesis of the politics of hate and division. He broke that mold last year, making big gains among the Cuban American electorate. This result suggested the polarized ethnically-based politics of the past may be breaking down, said Julia Sweig of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations in a recent article in The National Interest. "Having won nearly half of the Cuban American vote in Florida in 2012, a gain of 15 percentage points over 2008, Obama can move quickly on Cuba. If he were to do so, he would find a cautious but willing partner in Raúl Castro, who needs rapprochement with Washington to advance his own reform agenda," Sweig said. Little wonder Republicans like Ros-Lehtinen are worried. If things go on like this, they could lose a large piece of their political raison d'etre. There are other reasons for believing the time is right for Obama to end the Cuba stalemate. The recent death of Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's influential president, has robbed Havana of a strong supporter, both political and financial. Chavez was not interested in a rapprochement with the U.S., either by Cuba or Venezuela. His revolutionary beliefs did not allow for an accommodation with the American "imperialists." His successors may not take so militant a line, especially given that Venezuela continues to trade heavily with the U.S., a privilege not allowed Cuba. The so-called "pink tide" that has brought several left-wing leaders to power in Latin America in the past decade is not exactly on the ebb, but the hostility countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia felt towards the Bush administration has abated. In fact, according to Sweig's article, U.S. business with Latin America as a whole is booming, up 20% in 2011. The U.S. imports more crude oil from Venezuela and Mexico than from the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. The U.S. does three times more business with Latin America than with China. The stand-off over Cuba is an obstacle to advancing U.S. interests and business in Latin America n countries, and vice versa. The continuation of the embargo has left the U.S. almost totally isolated at the United Nations, and at sharp odds with its major allies, including Britain and the EU. But more importantly, the continued ostracism of Cuba's people -- for they, not the Havana government, are the biggest losers -- is unfair, unkind and unnecessary. If the U.S. wants full democracy in Cuba, then it should open up fully to ordinary Cubans. Tear down the artificial walls that separate the people of the two countries and, as Mao Zedong once said, let a hundred flowers bloom.

AT – Russia Impact D

Furthermore, this is the only scenario for global conflict – all other conflicts are contained locallyROZZOFF 2009 (Rick, Manager of STOP NATO International, February 27, “Baltic Sea: Flash Point for NATO-Russia Conflict”, http://rickrozoff.wordpress.com/2009/08/27/baltic-sea-flash-point-for-nato-russia-conflict/, accessed January 28, 2010, JN) The world has been on edge for a decade now and a form of numbing has set in with many of its inhabitants; a permanent condition of war apprehension and alert has settled over others, particularly those in areas likely to be directly affected. Over the past six years the worst and most immediate fears have centered on the prospects of three major regional conflicts, all of which are fraught

with the danger of eventual escalation into nuclear exchanges. The three are a renewed and intensified Indian-Pakistani conflict, an outbreak of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula and an attack by the U.S., Israel or both in unison against Iran. The first would affect neighbors both in possession of nuclear weapons and a combined population of 1,320,000,000. The second could set Northeast Asia afire with China and Russia, both having borders with North Korea, inevitably being pulled into the vortex . The last could lead to an explosion in the Persian Gulf and throughout the Middle East, with the potential of spilling over into the Caspian Sea Basin, Central and South Asia, the Caucasus and even the Balkans, as the U.S. and NATO have strategic air bases in Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Iraq, Afghanistan and, at least for the time being, Kyrgyzstan that would be employed in any major assault on Iran, and the

latter would retaliate against both land- and sea-based threats as best it could. In the event that any of the three scenarios reached the level of what in a humane and sensible world would be considered the unthinkable – the use of nuclear weapons – the cataclysmic consequences both for the respective regions involved and for the world would be incalculable. Theoretically, though, all three nightmare models could be geographically contained. There is a fourth spot on the map, however, where most any spark could ignite a powder keg that would draw in and pit against each other the world’s two major nuclear powers and immediately and ipso facto

develop into a world conflict. That area is the Baltic Sea region . In 2003, months before NATO would grant full membership to the Baltic nations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the Russian Defense Minister at the time, Sergei Ivanov, warned that such a development would entail the deployment of NATO, including American, warplanes “a three-minute flight away from St. Petersburg,” Russia’s second largest city. And just that occurred. NATO air patrols began in 2004 on a three month rotational basis and U.S. warplanes just completed their second deployment on January 4 of this year. Had history occurred otherwise and Soviet warplanes alternated with those of fellow Warsaw Pact nations in patrolling over, say, the St. Lawrence Seaway or the Atlantic Coast off Nova Scotia, official Washington’s response wouldn’t be hard to imagine or long in coming. A 2005 report by the Natural Resources Defense Council confirmed that the U.S. maintained 480 nuclear bombs in Europe, hosted by six NATO allies, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey.

More recent estimates indicate that over 350 American nuclear weapons remain in Europe to the present time. If the six above-mentioned nations continue to host nuclear arms, what would new NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – the first and third currently

governed by former U.S. citizens, president Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Valdas Adamkus, respectively – deny the Pentagon? In the interim between the accession of the three Baltic states and former Soviet republics into NATO and now, the Alliance as a whole and the U.S. in particular have expanded their permanent military presence within all three nations : Estonia and Latvia which both border the main body of Russia and Lithuania which abuts the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad.