Have you heard the one about the difference between U.S. policy towards Cuba and our policy towards China?
About a billion people.
That helps to explain why President Bush would take another opportunity today to say that the United States should maintain the travel and trade embargo on Cuba, and why his administration would only embark on new initiatives towards Cuba if a democratic opening were to take place.
Contrast today's remarks on Cuba with a very different speech that then-candidate Bush gave on the floor of a Boeing airplane factory during the debate over whether to grant normal trading relations to China. At the time, he said "trade with China will promote freedom," and that "economic freedom creates habits of liberty." He went on to say that "Our greatest export is not food or movies or even airplanes. Our greatest export is freedom."
"Simply put," Bush said, "China is most free where it is most in contact with the world economy."
The President was right then, and we should apply his arguments vigorously now when it comes to Cuba.
It may be inevitable that certain countries (particularly those of tremendous strategic and/or commercial importance to the United States) are held to different rules than others; yet, for a President who sees so much of the world in black and white, it is difficult to understand how he could have such conflicting views of the benefits of trade and engagement to two populations ruled by undemocratic elites.
President Bush is right in one sense -- there is a unique opportunity for the Cuban people. But it is also a unique opportunity for American policymakers. Unfortunately, the "if-the-Cubans-do-this, then-America-will-respond-like-this" steps that President Bush laid out today is a stale approach reminiscent of the two unhelpful reports produced by the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba.
Today the President wasted another opportunity to produce a meaningful plan to start to rebuild the relationship with Cuba and to help the Cuban people.
USA*Engage promotes trade, travel and humanitarian assistance because they are the best ways to encourage freedom, democracy, and American values among the people of Cuba, regardless of the policies of this or any Cuban government.
I agree with the recent statement by Senator Christopher Dodd that, "the United States' most potent weapon against totalitarianism is the influence of ordinary American citizens. They are some of the best ambassadors we have, and the free exchange of ideas and the interaction between Americans and Cubans are important ways to encourage democracy in Cuba."
The trouble is, not only have sanctions on Cuba been ineffective -- they have failed to bring about democratic change -- but they have been counterproductive as well by bolstering support for the Castro regime. As Ivan Eland, a fellow at the Independence Institute likes to say, sanctions have a "rally around the flag effect." In his words:
When attacked, either militarily or economically, by a foreign power, the populace of a country usually rallies around the existing leader -- no matter how odious he or she may be. Fidel Castro, despite the disastrous consequences of his centralization of the Cuban economy, has been able to blame poverty and economic stagnation on the coercive economic measures imposed by his powerful northern neighbor. In other words, the Cuban people likely would have thrown out Castro long ago if the United States hadn't declared him "enemy number one."
A fresh approach is needed -- not more stale rhetoric.
-- Jake Colvin