U.N. votes to end US embargo on Cuba; US and Israel oppose | Hacker News Reader

U.N. votes to end US embargo on Cuba; US and Israel oppose

reuters.com

92 pointsjlpcsl175 comments

It's quite sad. I really do broadly think of the US as "the good guys". And where they are not perfect, they tend to be better than most.

But things like this, and similar heavy handed botch jobs that America then continues to double down on... really sting.

Especially since, if you are a liberal, small "d" democrat, there isn't much alternative for world leadership. The EU is too sleepy to do it, and most of the other players (Russia, China, India etc) are either illiberal or focused on internal problems.

So even when the US decides to continue to dish out collective punishment on a nation with rich culture and history, even then there isn't much alternative to it.

> they tend to be better than most

Domestically, maybe. Internationally, well - ask those on the receiving end of US geopolitical and military shenanigans.

Even the word maybe is doing a lot of heavy lifting

Ask anyone on the receiving end of any geopolitical or military shenanigans how they feel about it. Most nations are far more disrespectful toward other nations they get involved with, they just have less power.

How many nations has China bombed in Africa? They’re quite involved there - building infrastructure, laying rail. Can you point to any US funded infrastructure projects there in the last 20 years?

Well, clearly. That's my point: that paired with, IMO, a really decent set of values, pragmatism and a will to lead, there's also some quota for such "geopolitical and military shenanigans". Which is disappointing.

> Internationally, well - ask those on the receiving end of US geopolitical and military shenanigans

Japan, Korea and Europe, for instance? The Philippines? We're not great. But we're better than our colonial predecessors, or their imperial precursors.

Anywhere in the middle east, anywhere in south east asia, Grenada, A dozen or so countries in Africa, anywhere in Central America or South America. But it's ok, they don't teach you these things in US schools.

The US treated the Philippines absolutely horribly and its still a basket case today.

South Korea for most of its post WW2 life has been a totalitarian dictatorship.

Europe was already civilized and fairly democratic before US occupation.

This can be over tomorrow. Release the political dissidents and hold open free elections. Sanctions will be lifted.

If those were the conditions to put an embargo on another country, I reckon the US would be quite busy.

Of course the difference between Cuba and most countries is that Cuba is in USAs back yard, while most countries aren’t.

This is a general pattern with the US. The communist coop in '65 illegally seized American property, illegally imprisoned Americans, and to this day the Cuban government oppresses and jails political dissidents.

American foreign policy tends to be fairly uniform this way, no?

If Iran released prisoners and held open elections, I suspect American would move to lift embargos and normalize relations. Same with Caracas, et al.

It seems that the issue is socialism, then?

It might be a role; but I think the pattern is that a strong-man government overthrows a democratically elected government. When that occurs, American sanctions follow.

To see this play out in real time, watch Niger.

https://www.state.gov/military-coup-detat-in-niger/

I think this is a naive perspective, historically speaking. For starters, Cuba was a dictatorship already before Castro rose to power, but Batista was backed by the US. Around the same time, Chile's Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist government with CIA's aid.

Currently, the US backs a handful of dictatorships, of which some are former democracies. Egypt may be an example of former democracy, albeit flawed, turned into a military dictatorship. And among de facto dictatorships that the US still maintain perfectly open relationships are Thailand, Myanmar, and Morocco.

Those might be good things to do, but what business does the US have dictating that to other nations? And to have the gall while maintaining diplomatic and trade relations with absolute monarchies like Saudi Arabia that hack up journalists and execute people for homosexuality...

The US has every right to decide who and who they do not wish to do business with.

In this case, _the_ difference is that Saudi Arabia has never been a liberal democracy. America hopes it's relationship with countries like Saudi Arabia helps to liberalize them. In that regard, Saudi Arabia is liberalizing, albeit very slowly. Just look up women's rights.

As for homosexual rights, that tends to be a religious issue that many Muslim countries have an unfortunate record of oppression on. America's freedom of religion tends to be tolerant of these people, even though its antagonistic to our liberal values.

> The US has every right to decide who and who they do not wish to do business with.

Who are "they" and "the US" here? I guess you are referring to the political elite. I rather not have someone else force me to boycott whatever they think they have a feud with.

>America hopes it's relationship with countries like Saudi Arabia helps to liberalize them.

US foreign policy is 100% not about this. If the US had no economic interests in keeping Saudi Arabia on its side, it wouldn't happen. That's all our foreign policy is about and lofty goals like this only matter if there's no economic interest.

Pax Americana. The empire is slowly but steadily crumbling.

As a 3rd world spectator I only have to say "it's about time"

The irony of the US having an embargo against Cuba...while also basing their war crime camp there is so ridiculous it's hard to believe.

You can’t make this shit up.

I think one problem right now is that the US policy class tried the strategy of economic engagement and integration with authoritarian China, expecting it to liberalize and democratize as a result.

But that backfired horribly, and the CCP used its newfound wealth to become increasingly authoritarian internally, belligerent externally, and to initiate the largest and fastest military buildup since Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

As a result there’s even less chance of the US policy class ever agreeing to that strategy again, especially not with Cuba. Unlike China, Cuba is a mere 90 miles away from the US, and just a few minutes flight time for a tactical nuclear missile to Washington DC.

The US will never take that risk again. Cuba will have to democratize first for that embargo to ever end.

> just a few minutes flight time

You realize that it is only for the, what, top 0.001% for which the exact flight time has any relevance, so that they have time to hide and spend the next 200 years underground belittling us for not being war mongers enough.

I think you missed the broader point. The point is there is a non-zero risk that dropping the embargo might enable Cuba to smuggle or develop weapons that could quickly hit anywhere in the Eastern half of the US or further, DC or elsewhere, with little or no warning or possibility of defense. You don't have to be a warmonger to see that any possibility of that is a non-starter.

Sure. But there are satellites to watch for that, and I reckon that while the embargo might make manufacturing or importing some long range high explosive missiles somewhat harder, it is probably mainly a matter of will, which friendly ness is way better to counter. I mean Hamas seems to make missiles out of scrap.

> But there are satellites to watch for that

Satellites can detect a launch, but if the launch is very close to its target it's still difficult or impossible to react in time and defend against. Maybe the US has some new secret tech for that we haven't seen yet, but based on what we know publicly it doesn't. As you mention, Hamas has shown you can overwhelm expensive missile defense systems with quantity of cheap rockets, though the distance from Cuba to the US is much greater and that wouldn't work as well there.

> friendly ness is way better to counter.

That's what everyone believed in the 90s and why the US policy establishment pushed to integrate China and Russia and others into the WTO and global economy. But they now know it's not universally true. It works with some countries like Vietnam, but failed with others like China and Russia. It now depends on the particular circumstances of each country. Cuba's circumstances are that it's just too close to the US for comfort, and with a history of threatening the US with nukes. So there won't be any policy of friendliness toward Cuba unless it renounces single-party authoritarian rule and fully democratizes.

> there isn't much alternative for world leadership.

I strongly suggest you glance through the Accidental Superpower.

Take what it says with a grain of salt, but it lays out a pretty strong case that the US's role in global politics is going away and that everything will be returning to a pre-Bretton Woods, "every people for themselves" world.

> US's role in global politics is going away and that everything will be returning to a pre-Bretton Woods, "every people for themselves" world

We're pretty much there. We don't need to be peaceful hegemony to project power where necessary. It's personally aggravating to see legitimate attempts as peacekeeping cast as colonialism. If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside from morality. And that standard is flexible in any civilization.

I want this so bad.

Can. We. Just. Fucking. Stop.

Seriously. Ukraine and Russia? None of our business.

Palestine and Israel? None of our business.

Defense of Europe and NATO membership? None of our business.

Let the world figure out their own shit.

It’s none of the US’s business until it is.

If China takes over Asia you think they will stop there?

Kill a monster when it’s small. Defense in depth.

Also shipping lanes.

If a nation takes unilateral action that the world wishes to prevent, then maybe it's the world's shared responsibility to respond. I have no problem with the US being an equal partner in that, but right now we're doing nearly everything, and the American tax payer is paying for it.

The US does it because

a) it's one of the few countries with global force projection capability

b) it's in both its long and/or short term interest to do so

Today, the US under Biden is pretty selective about intervention. For example, it isn't intervening on the the behalf of the Saudis anymore as their oil isn't as important to the US as it used to be.

> as their oil isn't as important to the US as it used to be

Riyadh--specifically, MBS--is also being petulant and immature in taking for granted American support. There is remarkable symmetry between Netanyahu and MBS in this respect, e.g. the former trashing Israel's formerly bipartisan image by allying with the GOP under Obama and Trump.

A) That costs money. More than 800 BILLION dollars a year, to be exact.

B) Extremely debatable. There's a lot we could do with 800B that would have a much more tangible impact on the average American.

If it's in our interest, it's in the worlds interest as well. Something tells me it wouldn't be too long before the UN had a maritime task force capable of defending shipping.

All the UN's military power is provide by its member nations. If those nations willing to lend their military to the UN don't have global force projection capability, the UN doesn't have global force projection capability.

> If those nations willing to lend their military to the UN don't have global force projection capability, the UN doesn't have global force projection capability

To put this into context, the United States has 11 aircraft carriers, 38 overseas bases, 130,000 troops overseas and nukes [1]. Turkey has 1, 12 and 60,000, respectively; Russia 1, 10 and 50,000 (exempting Ukraine, I think).

You have to go from China to Australia--through India, Japan, France, Italy and the U.K.--to get to America's aircraft carrier fleet. U.K., Turkey and France for bases (this one is plausible). And none of this counts the massive logistics reserve the U.S. military has compared to the world.

America has built and funded a military designed to check global hegemony. It doesn't produce it, even if our policymakers sometimes pretend it does. But it prevents a global hegemony from emerging, with regional hegemons kept from dominating their neighbors. In general, it is difficult to read history without concluding this is the right approach. It's basically antitrust as geopolitics. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_projection#Power_project...

TBH, I don't really care. I don't mind the idea of the US being an equal partner as part of said UN task force, but I'm pretty much over the US being solely responsible for it

You have no idea how much we benefit from our interventions. We keep oil prices low and relatively stable, we keep long and complex supply chains from collapsing. We create and then maintain a global network of consumers for our goods.

Withdrawing our military globally would cost us so so much.

You think we invade and bomb countries because we are concerned for their welfare? Hah! We do it because it's long run profitable for us.

No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years. What makes us think that China would?

Communism doesn't have a great track record of building empires that span a millennia.

> No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years

i.e. multiple human lifetimes. Carthage and Athens were thriving polities. The potential fruits of their minds were permanently lost.

> No land-grab expanding empire from history has managed to survive more than a few hundred years. What makes us think that China would?

USA is a land-grab expanding empire, they still exist. Do you think USA will end just because it is the result of massive land grabs and conquest?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Indian_Wars

Now imagine what we could accomplish with even half of the 800+B dollar defense budget here at home.

For those saying there's no way we could afford it, we already spend 1.9T. If we spent the same as the UK with it's NHS it'd only be 1.6T, so you could argue we'd even save money.

> Let the world figure out their own shit

Isolationism has its limits. The world will figure out its own shit without you. Eventually, it will start figuring out yours. America alone would be poor and impotent. America overstretched, the same.

> Let the world figure out their own shit.

Price of owning the world is interfering in everyone's shit. If america stops doing that they start getting treated like a normal country instead of a super-power, which would bring a rude awakening to many ordinary americans.

>If america stops doing that they start getting treated like a normal country instead of a super-power, which would bring a rude awakening to many ordinary americans.

I'm not reading a downside, yet.

> If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside

Are you sure about that? America benefits a lot I think from the world being relatively peaceful and, more importantly, predictable place.

An instable free-for-all world is more difficult to navigate, and probably devastating for the economy.

> Are you sure about that? America benefits a lot I think from the world being relatively peaceful and, more importantly, predictable place

No, I'm being hyperbolic. (Sorry.)

We lose from isolation. But sometimes going down together--America, isolationist and the world in turmoil--seems like the preference of the ignorant.

> If a region wants to just buy arms and duke it out on their own, there is no downside to America aside from morality.

Instability tends to ignore borders, not least in the floods of migrants it unleashes towards more stable and prosperous countries.

Colonialism is good. It brought a high standard of living to the natives and increased life expectancy.

it brought exploitation and in some cases extermination of natives and pretty much extracted wealth from the colonies. It would be much better for the natives to merely trade their valuables in order to get access to western goods and technologies (and of course they had trade goods; that's the whole point of colonialism)

I've always taken Zeihan's assertions that world trade will collapse without the US playing world police as pretty laughable. It's in pretty much everyone's interest that world trade be protected. Even if the US were to sink into the ocean I could see the UN raising a fleet to ensure shipping was protected from piracy and harassment the next day.

But we are already seeing huge trade disruptions in the Gulf and the Black Sea and the UN is not even close to doing anything about it.

> It's in pretty much everyone's interest that world trade be protected.

That's not necessarily true. There are prominent exemptions - Russia, India, the US, and Iran, among others.

Huge disruptions? Really? If we're seeing 'huge' disruptions, you'd think the world would care enough to do something about it no? Why is it always our responsibility?

The world is complicated, but I honestly believe that last 70 years or so of geopolitics makes more sense if I start with the assumption that the USA are "the bad guys."

Vietnam, Iraq, Iran in the 50s, Chile in the 70s, Israel/Palestine since the beginning, the list goes on. Hell, even in WWII where the USA was ostensibly on the "right side" of the war, the USA ended it in such an profoundly evil way by dropping two nuclear bombs, killing thousands and thousands of people. There's a good list of US-invovled regime change on Wikipedia, for anyone looking for a starting place: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...

Besides armed conflict, the way the USA exploits the third world in the name of mining resources and cheap manufacturing is abhorrent. Conditions that are illegal within the USA's borders are common elsewhere, and then the USA turns a blind to that suffering while enjoying cheap food, clothes, and gadgets

Not dropping nukes would have resulted in way more casualties. It was a calculated decision to minimize loss of life, not be an evil enemy.

I agree in principle but have always wondered if a purely military target could have been chosen, at least for the first demonstration. Something like a military port or base.

After that it could have been made clear that arms manufacturing centers may be targeted next, followed by political centers.

(They did not know we had only two bombs and would need time to make more.)

As far as I know the reasoning was that the Japanese public would have to see it, but I wonder if a suitable military target on the mainland could have been found that would have minimized civilian casualties while being impossible for the regime to hide.

So here I disagree. You list a number of wars that turned out to be disasters, and in hindsight were possibly a bad idea to get involved in. But I see you missed off Korea - a very bloody war, which however cemented a free(ish) South Korea. I'd imagine present day South Koreans are quite glad to not be under Kim Jong Sun's thumb. Had the Vietnam war succeeded, would we see it similarly?

As for Iraq wars, terrible as they turned out to be, I see a kernel of wanting to contain, then remove, a really awful tyrant. That Hussein was terrible seems to be beyond any question. Alas, the medicine was perhaps more bitter than the disease.

I think it's just hard to be the world's policeman, and maybe you get even most things wrong. That in itself doesn't mean you're a bad guy. I'm not defending the outcomes, just to be clear.

As for America as "the bad guys"... It seems you don't live in a country neighboured by a proper baddie. At worst, I would say that the worst, most terrible, isolated atrocities of the American wars of last 30 years perhaps match the daily reality of what Russia does in Ukraine.

176k people in Afghanistan died during the war[1]. Up to 1 million died due to the Iraq war[2]. We left almost all of Korea and Vietnam completely destroyed after those wars.

The US has actually has been at war for nearly every year of its existence[3]. I find it really hard not to consider America "the bad guys".

I don't think there are "proper baddies" though. The US acts just as much of a baddie as any other country. Every country will do what it wants to advance its interests (especially a superpower)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualties_in_the_war... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...

So, for one, I'm not arguing the outcomes of these wars was good. Rather, that (a) the intentions may well have been good, and also (b) we would really need to compare to the counterfactual of these wars not happening in the first place. Then there are also mitigating circumstances.

Vietnam wasn't started or even fanned up by the US, but rather by the French. The US "inherited" an awful situation. And lest we forget, North Vietnamese did awful purges to the South Vietnamese after the war.

Afghanistan to me is the least ambiguous of them, at least in the early years. US was attacked by a terrorist unit, given official shelter in Afghanistan, whose government also refused to give them up. Not just that, but the propped up regime did things we care about as good. Since NATO withdrawal the Taliban brought thei own variety of peace and associated poverty, and it's not particularly good either. Sure, not a deadly war, but not exactly a niceout come either.

Time and time again the West, lead by the US, faces the nasty choice between seeing evil be done and standing by, or intervening, by means of war, to protect some notion of goodness. And yes, mostly this failed - and maybe the lesson is, don't get involved. But I don't think it's a straightforward a priori obvious thing.

Oh, and if you say there are no "baddie" countries, that just means you aren't familiar with being invaded by one. It's not immutable in time, tables turn etc. But just read up for 2 mins about say Russian atrocities in Ukraine and you may well think warmly of the other wars.

The US absolutely chose to get involved in the Vietnam war. The US could have easily just stayed out of it and let North Vietnam conquer South Vietnam from the start. That's what ultimately happened but a million Vietnamese could have kept their lives.

It was also insane that the US was paying France billions before the war in order to help them maintain their Vietnamese colony. We usually consider colonial powers to be "the baddies".

We should never have invaded Afghanistan. If we wanted to kill the Al-Qaeda leaders then we should have sent the CIA or special forces (which is what we ultimately did). The Taliban did not attack us. We might not like how the Taliban runs the country but we have no business in invading a sovereign country over that. Invading other countries is usually a baddie move.

I think its absolutely straight forward. Just don't start offensive wars if you really think you aren't one of the baddies.

Those past wars included millions of casualties and tons of atrocities. You don't want to be invaded by a baddie and you definitely don't want to be invaded by the US!

Maybe you know more about the history of South Korea, but the time between the USAMGIK and the Sixth Republic, but calling South Korea free - even "-ish"- sounds like a stretch.

The Fifth Republic was a military dictatorship that promised democratic reforms that never materialized. The June 29 Declaration specifically called for the holding of direct presidential elections and restoration of civil rights - two items which don't exactly scream free.

I don't think this should be downvoted. I don't know anything about the post-war history of Korea, but your comment led me to look it up, and according to Wikipedia, between 1948 and 1987, South Korea was ruled by a succession of corrupt authoritarian elected governments and military dictatorships.

Not a great triumph of America's professed values, but consistent with America's actual support for anti-communist dictators around the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Republic_of_Korea

My point of reference is North Korea. I don't know much about SK internal politics, but I know which one I'd rather live in.

Can't we choose any country to compare it to NK and say it's free?

I have standards and they say that living under a dictator with civil rights suspended isn't free even if the neighbor is worse. What are your standards?

"I think it's just hard to be the world's policeman..."

What some people call being the "world's policeman," I call being a bully. The USA only occupies such a role by having the most weapons and the most money. The USA its military and economic might to further strengthen its power, not to mete out justice. And when I say "USA," I don't just mean the government, but also the biggest corporations. Sometimes it's in the best of the USA, Coca-Cola, Facebook, and Raytheon that people live, and sometimes its in their interest that people die. Some people get to live very comfortable lives, and some people must live in squalor. Those countries that buy fighter jets and McDonald's tend to earn the USA's favor, and those that do not are forces into compliance or brutally punished. Cuba wanted to nationalize its oil industry in the 60s, and the Cuban trade embargo began (and has lasted ever since). The USA will describe it as fighting authoritarian dictators or whatever, but its all about whether a nation will agree to play by the USA's rules of capitalism or not.

Proponents of the USA and capitalism like to tout it as the most morally superior system in the world so far devised, but it is no coincidence that the richest country in the world also has the largest military in the world. The USA maintains its position by violence.

I think you're exposing the problem with neo-liberalism and why the USA are the bad guys. It's not our role to impose our (meaning the establishment's) will on other people. We should not be "spreading" our ideals or way of life. That's colonialism. That's why the USA are the bad guys.

If you start with US are bad guys and it would have been better for Hitler to be in power or Russia or imperialist Japan then I'd love to learn about your ideal worldview. Most of those wars were a counterweight to Russia taking over countries.

Free trade gave you cheap clothes, food and gadgets. The US isn't exploiting poorer countries those countries want to sell their goods and services. They are cheaper only because wages/costs are higher here (plus transport). Going back to tariffs is a productivity drop globally and a way to keep poorer countries down.

> The world is complicated, but I honestly believe that last 70 years or so of geopolitics makes more sense if I start with the assumption that the USA are "the bad guys."

The world makes more sense if you assume there are no good and bad guys, but just self-interested actors. USA does good things when it benefits them but also bad things when it benefits them. Same with everyone else, usa just is slightly more incentivized to take a soft power approach.

if you want to talk about US evils in ww2 i think it makes more sense to emphasize the firebombing of tokyo rather than the atomic bombs. they were way worse, and curtis lemay famously said he expected to be tried for war crimes if the us lost the war

(the dresden bombing was also quite bad but i'm not sure how they compare)

You’re just jumping on the anti American bandwagon. It’s a cold dark forest. Conflict and self interest are immutable characteristics of humankind. You act as if we’re the only nation who’s ever committed acts of violence.

There’s no objective “good guys” or “bad guys.”

if you take a step back, double blind every country's name and judge them based on their history, i doubt most, if any, would rate the US as the good guy.

it has a history of starting wars, especially in places far from their territory, and has overthrown/destabilized many governments for their own interest. it's civil rights records isn't the best either, but it constantly criticizes internal politics or other countries. sooner or later they'll have burnt enough bridges people won't forget.

No, you are not the good guys. Not at all.

I used to stupidly think the US were the "good guys" too. Until Libya and then Syria occurred. U.S. media were telling one story about "moderate rebels" and "freedom fighters" while my friends - actual citizens there - told another story. The U.S. political system is merely a puppet of its War Industry which eggs on war year after year to make its oligarchs richer and richer while causing extensive mass slaughter in the name of "democracy".

I kinda want us to end the embargo just so the failures of the state of Cuba stopped being blamed on the USA.

So your hypothesis is that a country under decades of embargo would somehow do worse or at least no better after that embargo is lifted?

Hmm seems possible although unlikely. Last time we had more than a decade of free trade with Cuba we had quite the incentive to support Batista and various us interest dictators. The embargo probably helps keep certain interests out of their hair.

Just that they expect it to keep failing, I think. Presumably there is some threshold for success, and a slight enough improvement would still constitute failure.

I also am fairly confused by that point. Cuba is effectively maintaining itself under an international embargo and somehow trains medical professionals from even the United States. Cuba also designed and produced multiple COVID vaccines that have held up compared to the vaccines rolled out globally.

I am fairly impressed by what Cuba has accomplished under these conditions and resent how difficult the US has made it to vacation there (buying +1 hop of a plane ticket through Mexico). I go to Cuba from time to time for free health checks ups and cheap healthcare.

> maintaining itself

this is not the best success metric in the modern world.

> that have held up compared to the vaccines rolled out globally.

probably according to Cuban government.

Cuba isn't under international embargo, it's basically just the US. And the UN has voted on this resolution with the exact same result for 30 years.

Yea, but this point is a bit disingenuous because ships that make port in Cuba can't then also then make port in the US.

https://ofac.treasury.gov/faqs/779

The US has a huge amount of influence on all global trade, regardless of it's with the US or not.

Europe and Asia do have trade with Cuba. In fact Cuba imports more from US than from Canada or Mexico.

https://oec.world/en/profile/country/cub?yearlyTradeFlowSele...

That sounds like a minor inconvenience, at worst.

Do you know much about shipping and logistics? It's all about finding efficiencies. If a ship visits Cuba, it can't visit any American port for 180 days. Considering how close they are and how much smaller a market Cuba is, I imagine shippers would charge more for freight to/from Cuba because now that ship can't be used for trade with the US. That ship is limited to/from places farther than Cuba (which are also smaller and poorer than the US).

There are regular routes from Cuba to Europe and China. It maybe costs slightly more, but shipping isn't that expensive in the first place.

The biggest problem selling to Cuba is that you would sell to the Cuban state. That problem is much smaller today since Cuba opened up for capitalist a couple of years ago, so now private companies are importing goods to Cuba.

Can read about Cuban imports here, the problem wasn't the embargo the problem was communist and now that problem starts to get solved even if the embargo isn't lifted:

"But what has caught the attention of experts tracking the numbers is that, unlike in previous years when Alimport, a Cuban government company, did most of the importing of chicken, soybean or corn, the list of exports now includes unexpected products: organic coffee, cheese, coffee creamers, ice cream, chocolate, cookies, pastries, potato and corn chips, spices, popcorn, peanut butter, maple syrup and many others that are going to the private sector."

The Cuban government didn't think the people needed spices or chocolate or cookies, so they didn't import any of that. you can see how this hurts the ability to trade more than an embargo from a single country.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas...

Cuba has trade with all of the rest of Latin America. A ship just needs to deliver goods to any other country in the region - which they'd presumably do in the normal course of international trade - then someone takes whatever to Cuba.

It's a minor inconvenience that's trivially worked around.

Cuba has some highlights which it can use to get some international prestige, but otherwise ...

In comparison to today's Cuba, the 1990s Eastern Europe was a fun and prosperous place. (got to enjoy both)

That’s not how history works

It's how things can work going forward

You gotta give them 70 years before evaluation tho.

Sometimes i wonder if cuba would collapse if usa ended the embargo.

Having an external enemy you can legit say is treating you unfairly is one hell of a unifying force.

Cuba wont fail if the embargo ended today, they are already moving to a capitalist economy like China did. Started 2021.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2023/7/19/as-cubas-private...

I still do not understand what the US might get out of this in 2023.

It's all about politics. There is a very strong anti-cuba lobby in the US

Buy why?

I suspect it’s mostly Cuban Americans in south Florida.

No idea what Israel’s interest is.

Cheap way to pay back a patron, to vote with them on issues that don't matter to you at all.

Military Aid.

Un general assembly votes are almost always about politics and not what the vote is actually about.

They are essentially popularity contests.

I imagine in this case, usa has recently given israel a ton of support in its time of need so they want to be positive towards its interests.

Israel is essentially the 51st USA state. They will always vote in lock-step with each other on everything, regardless of worldwide support or lack of support.

Cuba has a history of hostility towards Israel, including sending troops: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba%E2%80%93Israel_relations

>No idea what Israel’s interest is.

Continued support from us for them to do their ethnic cleansing.

sometimes, I believe the answer is that it's a tradition by now. Like the lack of metric system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban%E2%80%93American_lobby#M... looks like a good start

> The Cuban–American lobby is usually seen to be anti-Castro and recognizing the Cuban government as repressive, although it has become much more moderate since the late 1990s. However, the most influential organizations and politicians within the political sector of the lobby are still conservative. They advocate for punitive maintenance of the embargo unless Cuba privatizes its economy.[2][3] The most notable organization with this viewpoint is the Cuban American National Foundation. Other organizations advocate for an easing or lifting of the embargo before or regardless of whether Cuba changes its government structure and policies.

Cuban-Americans don't reflect a random sample of Cubans. A lot of the capital-owning class left Cuba for obvious reasons and came to the US. The political interests of Cuban-Americans today reflects this historical animosity toward the Cuban-government.

The Cuban revolution started 70 years ago? Everyone alive and participating has to be in their 90s by now. What is this, generational animosity?

yes

Yes

>What is this, generational animosity?

I imagine the money doesn't simply go poof when people die.

But Cuban-Americans' money won't go poof if Cuba is let free of the embargo either, nor will they magically get more money if the embargo continues. What do second- and third-generation Americans with Cuban ancestry get out of a continued embargo?

Yes

I thought everybody knew this about Cubans in Florida

Yes, and the kind of folks leaving Cuba now, tend to be the most desperate to be free from the government, so would only reinforce the animosity. You simply don't have people who are fans of the Cuban government coming here, so it's all negatively reinforcing.

The castro regime confiscated a bunch of people's stuff. They left for the US and they're still salty about their lost inheritance.

if progressives took power in the US this is 100% what i would expect to happen here

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cuba

its a stealing contest for five hundred years !

That seems dismissive of a lot of death and suffering.

The reactionary right, which seems to be the most powerful political movement in the US and world right now, is not policy-oriented; it is politically oriented: anti-left (thus, 'reactionary').

They associate Cuba with the left wing (here meaning, all things left of center): Cuba is and has been run by Communists, people left of center such as Obama have advocated recinding the embargo, etc.

Therefore, the reactionary right is against ending the embargo. They would change that tomorrow if it somehow suited their political agenda, and people in the center and left would call them hypocrites. They aren't hypocrites; their policy is inconsistent but that is not their aim. Their politics are consistent - extremely consistent.

It's really not that simple.

That said, it's interesting to note that 3 active senators, and 2 outstanding voices of the right, are all Cuban American and children of Cuban immigrants who came over during the Cuban Revolution themselves:

    - Ted Cruz
    - Marco Rubio
    - Bob Menendez

Representatives and other notable state faculty are also listed on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban%E2%80%93American_lobby#C...

> It's really not that simple.

Could you say more? I mean, that response is ironically the extreme of simple. :)

Cuban-American votes in Florida?

Though that's less "the US", and more "politicians in the US".

Sure, but it's not like the current administration is winning those votes in the first place. This is why Obama eased some travel and trade restrictions during his term and Trump put them back in place.

Actually, not winning the votes is exactly why obama did what he did. Previously, if a cuban made it onto US soil (dry foot), they can get a green card in a year and vote 5 years after than. Cubans who made it to fl aren't exactly voting for the party people think is "socialist".

So obama ended the wet foot dry foot policy and made it so cubans who made it to fl is no different than someone crossing the mexian border from another country illegally.

Yeah, I also think it's dumb.

Cuba is still a dictatorship and I'm not sure about fully normalizing all relations, but the embargo seems dumb. It's not like we don't have lots of trade with other autocracies too.

The embargo was enacted by law, so it requires a vote of Congress to abolish it. That's going to require some degree of acquiescence from both parties, no matter who is in office.

And, yes, it's absolutely stupid and self-harming at this point. But it's very important to a constituency in a swing state, to whom the issue is likely important enough that they will punish whichever party makes a serious effort to abolish it, and reward their opponents, regardless of their views on other issues.

What does anyone get out of punishment?

At first I thought you meant you didn’t understand what the US got out of the UN, but I guess you meant Cuba policy. Those questions probably have the same answer.

It's mainly due to the electoral college with florida being a swing state (in those apps where you can assign swing states to candidates, assigning fL to candidate X updates their chance of winning to 99%). Whoever wins florida, usually wins the presidency. Alot of the people who fled cuba are extremely anti current regime/socialism etc. If the US normalizes relations to cuba, those cubans in florida would flip the vote for the other party.

Ironically as florida becomes solid red, the cubans in FL would no longer have leverage to flip and the current white house party can then proceed with normalizing relations.

This is really the answer to all these tangential questions in this thread. It's domestic US politics because of Cuban-Americans in Florida and the Republican party.

Socialism is a bad example for the population of the united states. The people might think that the government could be used to do something useful for them. Can't have that.

> non-binding resolution

Does the US have outstanding claims against the current Cuban government that leaves the embargo in place?

Was there an end state or goal to the embargo?

Does the Cuban government restrict trade with the US or any other countries?

Cop killing fugitives iirc, that Cubans won't hand over (Assata Shakur et al)

France has an US citizen in custody for killing an abortion doctor in the US. Can't extradite him because that would be accessory to death penalty, which a European treaty forbids, I don't remember if the US sent the file to procecute him in France. I don't think France is under embargo.

Can't you just promise not to kill him?

Canada also refuses to extradite people to places with the death penalty unless they promise not to use it, but extradites to usa all the time.

US diplomatic assurances aren't considered reliable (e.g. [1], also you can look up the case of David Mendoza). My understanding is that the State Department makes the promises, and then the Justice Department's policy is to assume that since their department didn't make the assurances, that the assurances that were made don't actually apply to them.

1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplom...

Specifically, it's that due the structure of the US government, it's nigh-impossible for the US to make binding agreements at all, especially in one-off cases like this. Our diplomatic representatives are under the Executive branch, which is subject to change every 4 years, and successors have no obligation to uphold agreements that their predecessors made. The power to actually make law that binds American citizens falls to Congress under the Legislative branch, which has to pass law making any agreement the diplomats make legally binding internally, which they may or may not do, and the diplomats negotiating such terms have no power to sway that one way or another. Then the actual execution of the agreement would fall to the courts, which could potentially find a deal that managed to be negotiated by the diplomats and legislated by congress contradictory to the Constitution, and nullify it.

Add on top of this the difficulty the US has passing any legislation whatsoever, and you've got a whole mess on your hands.

And I almost forgot that the accused would likely be facing charges in an individual state, which adds another layer to the mess, wherein the state likely has the sovereignty to execute one of its residents regardless of any international agreements that the Executive branch of the federal government makes.

Your and other comments below are fascinating, but she was already sentenced to life instead of death, and after her jailbreak was granted asylum as a free woman in Cuba

> Does the US have outstanding claims against the current Cuban government that leaves the embargo in place?

The Gulf of Mexico is of enormous strategic importance to America. Control of Cuba could blockade New Orleans and thus the Mississippi. I think the embargo has far outlived its usefulness. But keeping the island out of foreign hands is a legitimate geopolitical priority for D.C.

Why would an embargo be in alignment with the goal of keeping foreign influences from controlling Cuba?

> Why would an embargo be in alignment with the goal of keeping foreign influences from controlling Cuba?

When it was initiated, it was to kick the Soviets out. Presently, it signals how seriously D.C. takes the issue. (Cuba is presently allying with Beijing [1].)

I don't think we should embargo or even sanction non-violent actors. (Threatening to blockade the port of New Orleans would be tantamount to a violent threat.) But the history of Havana's actions explains the embargo's origin. Havana's mismanagement of the Cuban economy explains why there isn't a material incentive to prioritize reversal.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/cuba-china-spying-fa...

This wikipedia enry gives a lot of detail which is missing from the comments in this thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

Like many actions taken by nation states it mostly resulted in the opposite of the intended effect. Cuba became closely aligned with the Soviet Union because of the sanctions which have been widely regarded as complete policy failure.

For real? Who cares about the hypothetical risk of a naval blockade of New Orleans.

> Who cares about the hypothetical risk of a naval blockade of New Orleans

People who consider the future.

I don't see any scenario where the people of New Orleans are left to care and some country can put a naval blockade on the US.

> Control of Cuba could blockade New Orleans and thus the Mississippi.

For a few minutes, maybe, before whoever attempted to use control of Cuba for that purpose ceased to exist, along with all of the facilities they were using for that purpose.

The US military may fail at constructing stable democratic regimes on the far side of the globe, but obliterating someone doing that from Cuba wouldn't be a challenge.

> But keeping the island out of foreign hands is a legitimate geopolitical priority for D.C.

Its a foreign country. Unless the US invades and annexes it, whatever hands its in are going to continue to be foreign.

> whatever hands its in are going to continue to be foreign

Fair enough. Out of an adversary's hands.

Sea trade aside. Missiles from Cuba can reach many important metropoles within minutes. Some would even hit before the gouvernment knows what was hit.

My understanding is that there are outstanding claims for the American held property that was seized during the communist coop in 1965.

There's also the outstanding issue of political prisoners and open, free elections.

I think America would happily release claims on the property is prisoners were released and free elections held.

The motivation for the embargo was the expropriation of US property within Cuba without payment. And payment has not been tendered in the 70 years since, so technically the underlying issue still remains.

In practice, the issue is really "the communist government of Cuba still exists."

In June 1960 a key incident occurred: Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island, leaving Cuba reliant on Soviet crude oil. Cuba and the Soviet Union signed a trade agreement according to which the Soviet Union would provide 900,000 tons of oil to Cuba. The United States viewed the agreement as a provocation, and successfully urged Esso, Texaco, and Shell to refuse to process Soviet crude in their Havana and Santiago de Cuba refineries. On June 29 and July 1, 1960, Cuba confiscated the refineries.

[Edit] Ok, I see the parent comment is an uncited quote of the Wikipedia page "United_States_embargo_against_Cuba." Like I said below, Wikipedia is oddly lacking in a citation for this action by "Eisenhower's government."

> Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island

I did a hunt for a cite to support this claim, but did not find one. I searched national archives for executive orders [0, 1] and didn't find anything. The Wikipedia pages that have statements like "In June 1960 a key incident occurred: Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island" [2] and "This nationalization of property resulted partially from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to cancel all oil exports to Cuba." [3] are curiously lacking in a citation.

I wish I still had my copy of The Prize which I recall had excellent footnotes and references.

0. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/e...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_D...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_Petr%C3%B3leo_Union

> HAVANA, Nov 2 (Reuters) - The U.N. General Assembly called for the 31st time on the United States to end its decades-long trade embargo against Cuba as the communist-run island suffers its worst economic crisis in decades, with shortages of food, fuel and medicine.

So for the 31st time they've asked the US to end the embargo again, that's a little less newsworthy.

The US embargo is not effective or a good idea, but there are a lot of countries perfectly free to trade with Cuba, the UN noise here is really pretty goofy.

With the exception of maybe medicine (not that the US is known for low-price drugs) these are all highly fungible goods and direct trade with the US has no impact on their availability in Cuba.

>direct trade with the US has no impact on their availability in Cuba.

This is factually very wrong.

The US uses a variety of methods to enforce the embargo, including sanctions on multinational corporations that provide goods to Cuba and pressure on other governments that the US provides funds or support to in other contexts (which is a lot of countries).

It's not nearly as simple as "oh, Cuba can just buy the goods from other countries". Better hope that none of those goods are made by a company that has any legal presence in the US. Also there are like 6 decades worth of laws involved here, so before you think about selling goods to Cuba, better hire a dozen very expensive lawyers.

Also, the US is by far the largest producer and buyer of goods in the region, as well as by far the largest source of finance and services. It would be difficult to have a successful economy without trading with the US.

> the largest source of finance

Cuba being communist doesn't allow outside investments and they don't have any problems getting regular loans, so US financing wouldn't help their economy much at all.

What is that based on? Who doesn't have problems getting loans? Everyone in Cuba?

The government of Cuba doesn't have problems getting loans.

For private citizens the biggest obstacle for them getting loans is the Cuban government not liking private enterprises or ownership, not the embargo. Cuba is moving towards a capitalist economy so it isn't that bad today though.

Again, what is that based on? Also, you said the Cuban government doesn't allow outside investments - where did you learn that?

> Again, what is that based on?

They run a trade deficit of billions each year. How can they import goods for billions without being able to take on debt? Their debt is also increasing by billions per year.

They wouldn't be able to do that if they couldn't get loans.

> you said the Cuban government doesn't allow outside investments - where did you learn that?

I based it on this from the wikipedia page:

"In February 2016, the US government allowed two American men from Alabama to build a factory that will assemble as many as 1,000 small tractors a year for sale to private farmers in Cuba. The $5 million to $10 million plant would be the first significant US business investment on Cuban soil since 1959.[55][56] The deal was not authorized by Cuban authorities later that year because one of the owners had recently obtained Cuban citizenship. Factory ownership is still illegal in Cuba.[57]"

I see now that I was mistaken. The problem was that Cuba doesn't allow their citizens to own means of production, foreign investors owning stuff is somehow more okay. Their legal landscape from foreign investors is still in the works though, not many wants to invest there when Cuba can just take whatever they built there at any point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_....

> They run a trade deficit of billions each year. How can they import goods for billions without being able to take on debt? Their debt is also increasing by billions per year.

> They wouldn't be able to do that if they couldn't get loans.

Thanks for explaining what you meant. A couple thoughts: Because they can get some credit doesn't mean they can get enough or whatever they need. Access to US financial markets is highly desireable, especially because the US dollar is the usual currency of international trade; in fact, the US cuts of access to sanction people they don't like (Russia, Iran, etc.). Also, a trade deficit isn't debt, in the sense of a business with more expense than revenue; (inter)national macroeconomics are not the same as a private entity's microeconomics.

Other countries get to vote on an internal policy of US?

From the article: "The blockade (embargo) qualifies as a crime of genocide", said Rodriguez (Cuban Foreign Minister)

As far as I know every other country in the world trades with them. How failures of the state of Cuba are being blamed squarely on the USA?

> "The blockade (embargo) qualifies as a crime of genocide", said Rodriguez (Cuban Foreign Minister)

USA allows selling food to Cuba, so I don't see how this embargo can be seen as genocide.

Can someone smarter than me on such matters explain the difference between an "embargo" in this case and "sanctions" in another?

The Cuban diplomat calling it a "genocide" when the US is one of Cuba's top trading partners for food and supplies seems like a bit of an exaggeration.

Technically it is sanctions today since USA allows some trade. It started out as an embargo blocking all trade, but it has eased up over the years.

How is this voting system is fair if US can just go "naah..we don't like it" after everyone else has voted yes?

Because these countries are voting on an US internal policy - they don't have the power or jurisdiction.

my question in particular is why aren't all votes considered equal in UN on any matter in general? It's so petty of US, the most powerful empire in the history of planet to put embargo on a tiny island like Cuba.

Because they are not equal. The UN is a forum where countries can communicate but it holds no power/money and relies on member states. The US pays a lot more than Equatorial Guinea abd welds more power. They US and other powerful nations sit on the security council and can veto any vote that come up there. The general assembly vote is non-binding so anyone can ignore it.

The UN was setup to prevent world war III not police the injustices

The UN doesn't actually have any power

You're mixing up this vote with the security council. The US has a veto in the security council, not in the general assembly. This measure passed, but just like the measures on Russia's war in Ukraine it has no binding authority to mean anything.

Title makes it seem like the U.N. can dictate this. It's a non-binding resolution.

Anyone who's at all familiar with the UN knows that it can't dictate anything whatsoever.

The security council does have binding resolutions.

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