Posts Tagged ‘International Relations’

Cuba Policy Needs Updated

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

The House Foreign Affairs Committee held a hearing today on the federal ban on travel to Cuba. Supporters of the ban claim that allowing U.S. citizens to travel to Cuba would only serve to line the  pockets of Fidel and Raúl Castro, while opponents argue that the ban is an antiquated and failed policy experiment that infringes on the liberties of U.S. citizens.

Smeal’s Terrence Guay agrees with the latter:

U.S. policy toward Cuba is outdated. We have had travel, trade, and investment bans against Cuba for almost 50 years, and they have not achieved their intended purpose—to make the Cuban government more democratic. Economic sanctions usually don’t work unless a large number of countries participate in the process.  But that is not the case with Cuba, where the United States is the only country in the world enforcing sanctions. 

Certainly, Cuba challenged U.S. foreign policy interests during the Cold War, and it would be nice if it were more democratic today.  But the United States allows companies to trade with and invest in dozens of authoritarian countries around the world (China being the most prominent example), and U.S. citizens do not face similar travel restrictions by our own government to other locations.

The policy hurts U.S. interests at two levels.  Economically, it gives companies from other countries (e.g., in Europe and Asia) an advantage over U.S. firms because they can do business in Cuba. Politically, it makes the United States look silly to the rest of the world, particularly in Latin America where the U.S. has important strategic, political, and economic interests.  It would be great to see Congress and President Obama lift not just the travel ban, but all U.S. sanctions toward Cuba.  After all, the belief that economic engagement can lead to political reform has shaped U.S. relations with other countries around the world.  Unfortunately, such a radical shift of policy will be difficult to pull off, even 20 years after the end of the Cold War.

Tags: Globalization, Guay, International Relations, Politics
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Iranian Revelations and Relations

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Smeal’s Fariborz Ghadar appeared on public television’s “World Focus” recently to discuss Iran’s recently revealed uranium enrichment plant and its implications for today’s talks in Geneva on Tehran’s nuclear ambitions:

 

Tags: Ghadar, International Relations, Politics
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