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Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

Can we end the stupid sanctions now? The USSR is gone and we trade massively with China for F's sake. Cuba doesn't have the best human rights record on Earth, but neither does China or Saudi Arabia to give two other examples with which we trade extensively. All this does is harm the Cuban people and paradoxically actually strengthens the existing regime there.

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Cuba is a brutal communist slave state. But so is China. I think the shameful thing is not that we have sanctions against Cuba, but that we do not have sanctions against China and some of the other barbarian regimes out there (e.g. Vietnam, Saudi Arabia).

> Cuba is a brutal communist slave state

America is a country full of murderous racists who hate gay people, all of whom support their government's meddling in other countries' affairs, and other such ridiculous statements.

If Cuba is a brutal communist slave state, so is China. Do you own any Apple products or anything else manufactured by Foxconn?

What are you going for, here? The old, "if you benefit from something, you're not allowed to criticize it" angle?

Do sanctions actually help reduce the problems caused by these countries, or is this just some sort of principled stand? The fact that Cuba is still ruled by the same oppressive government today as it was when the sanctions were imposed over 50 years ago would seem to indicate that it's not actually a useful thing to do.

America needs China and the Saudis (for investment/loans/manufacturing and oil respectively). It does need Cuba so can happily pretend to be principled by bullying them.

I thought that was the point of seemingly endless bombing campaigns.

You'd be surprised, probably negatively, by how few people actually know we still have an active embargo on them.

China can be considered capitalist, they trade actively with us, and honestly we don't have the ability go to against them. Saudi Arabia, needs to be on our side, to provide the natural resources we consume.

Cuba..that would be just us trading with a Communist country. It would mean allowing Americans to consider a communist country, instead of writing that idea off as crazy. Neither political party in the US wants that. Neither party in the US believes a friendly more transparent relationship with Cuba will strengthen American belief in capitalist democracy across all of society.

Cuba already has small private business. It will swiftly transform to China-like capitalism if you let them do so.

"China can be considered capitalist, they trade actively with us [...] Cuba..that would be just us trading with a Communist country." - this is just pure hypocrisy.

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