WITH THE nearly 40-year-old US embargo still in place, some 140,000 US residents are expected to travel to Cuba this year. Those are the visitors officially approved by the US government for reasons ranging from going to see relatives to cultural, academic, sport or other people-to-people exchanges. As many as 50,000 other US residents, it is estimated, are sneaking into Cuba via third countries, including Jamaica, in breach of the embargo.
In this presidential election year, the embargo itself is up for its most candid review. CARICOM has consistently opposed the isolation of Cuba. Canada, the UK and a number of other Western European countries maintain open contact and trade links with the communist state, a situation which the Helms-Burton legislation has sought to curtail with a big stick.
To date, arguments about the inappropriateness (to use diplomatic language) of the American position in trading with China and other communist states, including former war enemy Vietnam, while clamping an embargo on Cuba, have had little effect in Washington. But the US political establishment is now steadily dividing, across party lines, over the retention of the embargo against Cuba which obviously has not worked in bringing down the Castro regime.
The arguments against and for run essentially along the following lines: the Cold War is over and Cuba is no threat; expose the communist state to the values of democracy and capitalism through travel and trade and let the thirst for freedom undermine Castro's regime. But trade with Cuba is likely to prop up the communist regime by providing an inflow of hard currency into the sagging Cuban economy.
Licensed travel represents a relaxation of the embargo and a turn to 'citizen diplomacy'. No one believes there will be any turning back. Fidel Castro has already survived nine US Presidents. Despite his low opinion of the two contenders this year as boring and insipid and pale shadows of some former Presidents, the winner is likely to seek to do him in, while boosting his own popularity, by lifting the outdated and diplomatically unjustifiable embargo.
Cuba is now welcoming the trickle of American visitors with open arms. The country expects five million American tourists per year, post-embargo. Jamaica should think about that.
The opinions on this page, except for the above, do not necessarily reflect the views of The Gleaner.
