The Castros Are Responsible for Cuba’s Failures, Not the U.S.

The Castros Are Responsible for Cuba's Failures, Not the U.S.

Jorge Benitez is the director of NATOSource and a senior fellow at the
Atlantic Council. He is on Twitter.

UPDATED OCTOBER 12, 2014, 7:30 PM

Let's avoid all the rhetoric about Cuba and focus on the facts. The
first relevant fact is that Cuba trades with 99 percent of the world.
Thus, the poor health of the Cuban economy is due to the disastrous
policies of the Castro government and not because it is deprived of trade.

This is not the fault of the United States, because we have the right to
prefer to trade with other countries that do not oppress their people.
The poverty in Cuba is also not the fault of the Cuban people because
the Castro regime has robbed them of the power to make economic decisions.

The government keeps most of the foreign money and hands out only
pennies to the Cuban people. Lifting U.S. sanctions would only add our
dollars to this corrupt trade.
It is the Castro regime that is totally responsible for the misery in
Cuba. The most overlooked fact in this debate is that every euro, ruble,
peso or Canadian dollar invested in Cuba goes directly to Castro and his
cronies. Foreign businesses are not allowed to pay wages to their Cuban
employees. Instead, they are required to turn the money over to the
state. The Castro government keeps most of the foreign money and hands
out only pennies to the Cuban people. Lifting U.S. sanctions would only
add our dollars to this corrupt trade.

Another relevant fact is that since John F. Kennedy imposed sanctions on
the dictator in Havana in 1962, every U.S. president and every Congress,
as well as the majority of the American public have supported sanctions
against the Castro government. Therefore, critics of the sanctions need
to stop their racist campaign of blaming a small ethnic group for
controlling U.S. policy on this issue.

The time to end U.S. sanctions is after Cuba has a democratically
elected government that allows fair trade. Until then, changing U.S.
policy to subsidize the Castro regime's exploitation of 11 million
Cubans will remain unpopular with the American people and against our
national interests.

Source: The Castros Are Responsible for Cuba's Failures, Not the U.S. -
NYTimes.com -
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/10/12/should-the-us-normalize-relations-with-cuba/the-castros-are-responsible-for-cubas-failures-not-the-us