Reply #73: Baltimore Sun article about the Embargo (from 2000) [View All]

[Catchawave]

From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/views/030500-101.htm



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The biggest loser in the economic warfare the United States is waging against Cuba are the U.S. businesses that are missing out on this country's modest, but steady economic growth.

Since 1990, Canadian, Mexican, Italian, Spanish, French and Dutch companies have invested nearly $2 billion in joint ventures with the Cuban government. They're overhauling the country's telephone system, building hotels and exploring for offshore oil.

Last year, the head of the American Farm Bureau said U.S. agricultural sales would jump from $500 million to $2 billion annually if the embargo were lifted. Three months later, Illinois Gov. George Ryan visited Cuba and discovered an "opportunity for a great market" for farmers in his state.

But instead of making deals, Mr. Ryan had to go home empty-handed -- thanks to a four-decade-old embargo that doesn't work.

When Congress passed a bill in 1992 that tightened the embargo in the wake of Cuba's loss of Soviet aid, New Jersey Sen. Robert Torricelli, the law's author, said the measure would "shorten the suffering of the Cuban people by isolating Castro and forcing him out."

It didn't.

When Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act -- a law that further tightened the embargo's noose and foolishly sought to penalize foreign companies that do business with Cuba -- Dan Burton proclaimed that the bill "is the last nail" in Mr. Castro's coffin.

It wasn't.

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