Today, the United States is taking historic steps to chart a new course in our relations with Cuba and to further engage and empower the Cuban people. We are separated by 90 miles of water, but brought together through the relationships between the two million Cubans and Americans of Cuban descent that live in the United States, and the 11 million Cubans who share similar hopes for a more positive future for Cuba.
It is clear that decades of U.S. isolation of Cuba have failed to accomplish our enduring objective of promoting the emergence of a democratic, prosperous, and stable Cuba. At times, longstanding U.S. policy towards Cuba has isolated the United States from regional and international partners, constrained our ability to influence outcomes throughout the Western Hemisphere, and impaired the use of the full range of tools available to the United States to promote positive change in Cuba. Though this policy has been rooted in the best of intentions, it has had little effect – today, as in 1961, Cuba is governed by the Castros and the Communist party.
We cannot keep doing […]
I visited Cuba for the first time this past spring. A tour operator, very educated, as so many people are in Cuba who work in the hotel industry, told us; if we stamp your passport showing you visited Cuba as a CDN, you will not be allowed to enter the USA for 6 months. He also said that tourism, was responsible for 80% of Cuba’s economy and that Cuba marketed 80% of their ad $$ towards Canada. As an American, if you wish to visit Cuba, you must first come to Canada to fly there. The Cubans I met were warm generous people. There was no overt military presence there as there is in Mexico, or with the paramilitaries in Guatemala. The decades of the blockade have really hurt this small island country. Many operative restrictions towards countries landing supplies by plane or boat on Cuba where detailed. I hope this madness ends, that the USA soon gives up Guantanamo back to the people who live there. What hubris! What arrogance!
Absolutely, John. We are all Global citizens now. Any advance toward a cooperative world society requires the USA to give up it’s exclusionism toward others who do not fit the “American Standards” and let our overzealous corporations who wish to exploit everyone else’s resources at the expense of that country’s natural rights to do things their own way is wrongheaded, in my opinion. I know many Cubans living in America now who would relish the opportunity to come and go to and from Cuba to visit their relatives. It should be a Natural Right.
P.S. I recently read an article that said that Cuba exports more organic food than any other country in the world. If that is true, I really would think that the USA would want a close neighbor to purchase them from, since a lot of us really want nothing but organic produce.
Another factor we should look at closely is the fact that Cuba has a great educational system which produces many M.D.’s in the world and even send them to impoverished zones in Africa when they are needed. I think Cuba is a great country.