As the people of Cuba have revolted, this month, taking to the streets in huge marches, complete with waving of American flags, leftists in America — who love socialism and hate the Stars and Stripes — have been put in an awkward position.
The Biden administration, in its continual prostration before progressives, initially attributed Cuban unrest to lack of COVID vaccine access. But then leftists began blaming the United States’ embargo for that and for Cuba’s sorry economic mess, blaming the U.S. as the cause of Cuban misery.
Not Cuba’s Castro communist government!
The problem is U.S. foreign policy, or so the memes assert. Some claim that the embargo amounts to a blockade of all international trade with Cuba.
Is this true?
“Embargo is the official term used by the U.S. government to describe the sanctions on Cuba,” Politifact explains. “While the nuances in the U.S. embargo can make it difficult for foreign companies to trade with the country, there is no evidence that they can’t,” concluding with “We rate this claim False.”
Indeed, other popular memes show that the U.S. is the only country on the planet not trading with the communist-run tyranny due south of Florida.
More interesting is the clarification of the embargo by Senator Marco Rubio. “There’s only two embargoes, here: the embargo against government-owned companies and the embargo that the Cuban regime imposes on its own people.”
It is entirely legal for Cubans and Americans to trade, says Florida’s senior U.S. senator. But the Cuban tyranny won’t let them.
All my life the U.S. has been engaged in an embargo against Cuban socialism. Against slavery. Against a government at war with its people.
It has not yet “worked,” but I know why Cubans wave American flags.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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1 reply on “Embargo Socialism?”
“popular memes show that the U.S. is the only country on the planet not trading with the communist-run tyranny due south of Florida.”
Countries don’t trade. People and companies do. And people and companies with a commercial presence in the US, wherever they may be otherwise based, are not allowed to trade with companies and people in Cuba on pain of prosecution and seizure of their assets in the US.
So yes, a French company or a British company can export to or import from Cuba — as long as they’re willing to give up the US market entirely.