Chris Dodd announces plan to end Cuban embargo
On the eve of a presidential forum targeting Hispanic voters, Democratic candidate Chris Dodd seeks to one-up his more popular rivals by coming to Miami today to demand an end to the trade embargo with Cuba.[..]
In a statement given Friday to The Miami Herald, Dodd favors opening a U.S. embassy in Havana, allowing Americans to do business there, and nixing TV Martí, the U.S.-funded broadcast routinely blocked by Cuba.
''I believe the time has come to say publicly what many Americans believe -- our Cuba policy has neither served America's interests nor brought democracy to Cuba,'' reads the speech Dodd plans to give in Miami today. ``It has only served to strengthen the current regime. It has been an abject failure.''
While this stance is clearly not going to popular with some of the hardliners of the Miami Cuban community, Steve Clemons of the Washington Note praised it as "adult foreign policy":
Dodd set the gold standard in my view in articulating a policy that wasn't all warm and fuzzy about Castro but that spoke to America's 21st century economic and national security interests with Cuba in contrast to those who want to keep US-Cuba relations cocooned in an anachronistic Cold War era framework that has little relevancy today.
Dodd wants to end the many decades old embargo. He wants to remove all travel restrictions -- and he wants to see commerce and trade begin to flow. He wants American people to meet Cubans and wants to trigger an arbitrage between the norms of our society and theirs. That is the American way. That's what we did with China.
Tobacco lobbyists strike again!
Gee, its about time.
Now if only America can admit its involvement with terrorism of that country.
Orlando Bosch and Luis Posado Carriles come to mind....
About time. The failed U.S. policy on Cuba only succeeded in making the U.S. gov't look like jackasses as Castro outsmarted and politically outmaneuvered them at every turn.
No way should this be allowed to happen with the current corrupt administration.
Dodd is the only Democratic candidate displaying any sort of leadership as this marathon of sound bites and pandering reaches the one-mile post. He's considered "second-tier" to the very serious people in the Clinton, Edwards and Obama campaigns.
I think this is a good idea. There's no point in maintaining a punishment for something that's pretty much meaningless and only exists for the remaining baby-boomers that still hate "commies" without reason or merit.
I would love to visit Cuba. But by the time we have the freedom to visit I'm afraid it will look like Disneyworld.
God save Cuba, from US.
BennyP @ 8:
Amen
Well, that just makes sense. Therefore, it will never happen. I've lost all faith in my government, and most of humanity along with it.
Well, I'm sure Cubans wouldn't mind being able to buy a new American car instead of trying to keep their 1959 Buick model in running order.
people who think the embargo should continue are cruel. this is long overdue for the people of cuba. they live in poverty, abject poverty. if you're of the mind that we should have no trade with cuba, then you should be of the mind that we have no trade with china. or russia. or the countries of eastern europe. or vietnam. oh, you're not? well then, you're a hypocrite. and probaly overweight, too.
Bravo Sen Dodd! It's about time we stop being held hostage by a bunch of right wing Cubans in South Florida. We trade with Vietnam, China, as well as all of our former "enemies". Cultural exchanges (Paul Simon/ S. Africa) and free trade will go a long way to opening the door.
Dmark15
It's too bad Chris Dodd doesn't seem to have the Charisma to stand out and make himself better known in a primaries, I really like where he stands on alot of issues including this one. I'd certainly pick Chris Dodd for president over Hillary Clinton any day of the week.
Simon White-Thatch Potentloins @ 11:
AMERICAN CAR HE HE!
The influential Right Wing Cubans in Florida are mostly old-money Batista cronies and their families, who were deeply involved in the corruption and Mafia-run cartels and sugar-plantation owners that were running Cuba before Castro threw them out. They should have NO say in this! Certainly not to the extent that they can influence the entire Foreign Policy of the United States vis-a-vis Cuba. If we had "normalized" relations with Cuba decades ago, they would now be staunch allies and good neighbors, and we would ALL benefit.
tyree @ 15:
WHY ON EARTH WOULD ANYBODY IN THEIR RIGHT MIND want a US Built piece of junk? What a WASTE!
capnmike @ 17:
Maybe some people who like to see Americans with a good paying job. I have a Chevy HHR and it is not a piece of junk. Lets support union jobs that pay a decent wage.
I certainly don't like Castro's government, but the embargo is stupid. We trade with China, Saudi Arabia and a slew of governments that I don't like,
When you're polling in single digits, you can afford to be honest. All the same, good for Dodd.
I hope Dodd's security people are up to the challenge. Those right-wing Cuban terroristas (and their repig enablers) don't exactly play softball.
Thank fucking god. I hope it's true. I NEVER understood this-even as a kid in the 60s. Loads of bullshit coming to an end? I hope so in my lifetime and even Castro's.
Jo @ 18:
The problem is not with union jobs but with the myopic and greedy management of the Big Three. Remember that they recently opposed raising the CAFE limits as an undue "expense" on their business, which is a load of bull. They know how to develop innnovative products the public wants but still adhere to the 1960's slogan by Lee Iacocca that "small cars equal small profits." They blame their workers legacy costs as their major problem, in reality they traded wage concessions for increased benefits for years, essentially forestalling their day of reckoning. The real problem is their addiction to the crack of EPS and short term return, it worked great when their high margin gas hogs were popular, but no more.
On the embargo---we should have let American capitalism bury Castro years ago. Instead, our self centered myopia and egos have deprived American business of billions of dollars that others were only too glad to have at our expense. And I wouldn't mind having a legal box of Monte 2's right now.
Finally someone on the inside is proposing what will be the single most effective technique to end the Castro regime or make it irrelevant. The open question is still how long before such a common-sense policy actually gets implemented? The body politic rushes in where sensible men fear to tred, but has to be led dragging and screaming to a reasonable conclusion.
capnmike @ 16:
In other words, loyal republicans.
Won't happen before Castro is dead.
About time. America needs to act in her own best interests and not straddle the country with foreign policies that benefit a select few.
The biggest act of terrorism in the western hemisphere prior to 911.
Cubana Flight 455 in 1976.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubana_Flight_455
Worth a read. Who harbors terrorists? We do.
Time for the exiles to activate Alpha 66. I hope Dodd has good security.
What if Cuba doesn't want American tourists coming into their country? What if their border guys treat Americans the way American border guys treat foreigners? What if Cuban border guys treat Americans like American border guys treat Americans? What then?
I would like to see Cuba treated at least as good as China, but I would like to see the Government of Cuba treated with the same respect (fear) as the American Government treats China.
I'm actually beginning to like Dodd.
China is deck of cards economically. Yes they have economic growth and increased living standards, but how have they done so? By destroying their environment. They have an environmental disaster around the corner (soil erosion, over-population, desertification, deforestation, air and water pollution, seven of the ten world's most polluted cities, etc). The environment feeds the economic system, so big problem. They’ve been able to keep it going, in part, by consuming resources elsewhere, but that could be and is subject to change as the countries in which the resources emerge demand more benefit from their sale or increased consumption of the resources domestically. The also have a ceiling as far as living standards (as do we all). They have four times the amount of people as we do. We consume a quarter of the world's recourses, imagine if China consumed at the per capita amount that we do. They’d consume every resource on Earth themselves.
Opening trade and ending the isolation of Cuba is long overdue. Pushing them to adopt right wing economic policy, which will start the second trade opens up, will mean their healthcare, biotech and educational systems could all eventually be controlled by a small investor elite, which is happening in every country that adopts right wing economic policy (like our own). Some might argue that that is a good thing, some would say the Cuban people would be worse off overall, with a small percentage doing better than before. Opening trade with Cuba is, generally, a good thing but under certain conditions it could make Cuba worse off in the long run. I don’t trust any of these corporate owned politicians.
Joementum @ 20:
I have to agree. If his polling numbers had put him in the top 3, he most likely wouldn't have proposed this so openly. Either way, I am glad he has.
Dodd's proposal is way ahead of Obama's pandering to the Miami community.
Jo @ 18:
What about the cars by Toyota and Honda made right here in America, by Americans and then marketed to Americans?
Simon White-Thatch Potentloins @ 11:
Except that they no longer drive American cars from the 50's down there... they've long since died. You know what they do drive down there? Brand spanking new Peugeots and Fiats. That's right... while we're still pulling our dicks over the Cuban trade embargo, they're opening their trade wide open with Mexico, Spain... and *gasp* France! I agree with Dodd... we need to drop this embargo now, if there's any hope that we want trade relations with Cuba once the Castros die out.
kudos to Dodd. Having the Cuba embargo while giving China most favored nation trade status is insane
I have never understood your embargo of Cuba for all these years. It seems like some petulant child's grudge. Grow up. It's not so bad. Lots of my friends go there on vacation and LOVE IT. (Non-American, of course.)
Jo @ 18:
I never have and never will buy an American car. Japanese and German beat American hands down. The "big 3" piss me off with their arrogance, while providing crappy cars. (Plus, I've never owned a car yet, and I'm 47.)
Koodos to Sen. Dodd. It's the most fresh and new idea so far this campaign season. I would like to see the senator take it a bit further by calling on the UN to revisit sanctions that are being placed on other countries in a effort to have them removed as well. Sanctions can be useful tools but they must be targeted, limited and designed to achieve a specific outcome. Broad based sanctions seems to create luxurious life styles for the regime in question. It also inivites hardship on the poor and helpless by leaving them open to hunger, disease and repression. Given the fact that we are now in a globlized world and some people are being forced to migrate from one place to another to inorder to make a living, we should be more concern about any disease that they may bring with them in process.
It's about time. The conservative war on little countries needs to end. Along with their war on everything else.
Edwin @ 38:
People throughout to world can visit Cuba, but not the people living in the Land of the Free.
jeebus it's about freaking time! How long does the US have to be taking orders from a bunch of insane Repubs and Cuban robber barons in Florida anyway?
Long overdue.
To people who don't want to end the embargo on Cuba, you are still free to boycott Cuban made products and to refrain from visiting there.
It won't happen, because Castro won't turn his people into sweatshop workers like the Chinese government.
This is a great idea and one that I've waited a long time to hear a senior politician speak about. While in the Navy, I spent nearly 2 years in Gitmo in '77 and '78 (before it became an illegal prison and torture chamber). Can't really say that I've been to Cuba on that note because I was on the U.S. side of the fence. But I did enjoy the time I spent there about as much as can be expected. Also read a lot on the history of Cuba as a result and have longed for the day when I could go to the other side of the fence.
Hearing Dodd speak on this issue brings some life to the hope that there will be a free Cuba during my lifetime. He is refreshing to listen to and to watch because he speaks intelligently but doesn't give the impression of being the polished politician that all of the others are.
I know that there are the Cubans in Miami that hate the idea of dealing with Castro but not dealing with him is obviously not going to make him or his style of government go away. We have several decades of proof and don't need anymore.
We must normalize relations with Cuba since the Cuba embargo has been a clear failure and an insane policy over the past 50 years. We normalized relations with Communist China and communism is almost dead in that country. If we had normalized relations with Cuba 50 years ago, Castro would have been long gone.
To clarify my earlier comment about junky American cars, the WORKERS do not design the cars, or specify the crappy materials used in their manufacture,,,or engineer them in the cheapest cruddiest possible way. The workers are paid to take "X part" out of the bin and install it just so, using "Y Fastener"...and this they do. The cars are shit because they are SPEC'd that way. The American-made Toyotas and Hondas are built to specifications from Toyota and Honda, and are better quality.
Ford, as I recall, made some vehicles in Japan, and they were Spec'd to FORD specifications, and they were REAL JUNKERS.
So, I am not blaming the workers, although I think that they are grossly overpaid considering all the benefits they get...hell, I work just as hard and I live well below the "poverty line".
This whole issue of embargoes i find just puzzling: embargoes are typically enacted against oppressive governments, or ones that do not toe our glorious leader's line. But - why should we expect despots to be concerned about the embargo's effect on their general population? They get their own luxuries anyway. So I would not expect embargoes to have any but humanitarian effects, and those would not influence the affected country's 'Deciders'. So why bother?
I saw a show on TV once about the economic side of a possible opening of the Cuban market and just why, in that case, Castro's hard line is actually 'helping' the Cubans.
If Cuba would open it's market to the world, they would lose everything they have. The megacorps would buy up every Cuban rum and cigar company there is and close the factories as they are really only after the brands. Those factories that remain will be run with slave labour.
As others have also mentioned, those that are against Castro are the mobsters. If the market opens they would, thanks to the guaranteed pressure from the US-controlled 'world bank', be able to totally dominate the economy and turn Cuba into another typical US-friendly 3rd world country.
Cuba might not be well off, but they sure as heck are better off then if the US had free reign with them.
HumboldtBlue @ 5:
I gotta say I agree with you. I think the embargo is the US equivalent of the Berlin Wall, and if the so-called conservatives really believe their rhetoric about the superiority of the American economic system, they would end it.
Jo @ 18:
Jo @ 18:
GM's maquilladoras are among the most notorious south of the border...
my husband once worked for GM, and we only drive GM vehicles, but it's not something that aids my sleep at night.
We trade with China which is communist so why not Cuba?
The only reason is to secure the Cuban votes in Florida for Bush Co.
texas lady @ 53:
because "communist" really has nothing to do with it. "communist" has never been anything more than a boogy-man, just like turrist. i rly doubt it has anything to do with securing cuban-american votes either- what with diebold batshit krazy katherine harris and and all...
Chris Dodd, the only one who is talking sense re embargo. I have lived and worked in Cuba and can tell the embargo does nothing but hurt the Cuban people and justify the continued extreme measures of the govt. It is an act of genocide, and those gusanos who support it are the worst types of hypocrites. Whenever i hear them say the embargo is helping the Cuban people i want to scream.
With things changing in Cuba, now is the time to end the embargo and travel restrictions. Let both sides normalize relations and end the dictatorship of the Miami right wingers
Dodd lives in a dream world.
The US is only interested in it's own goals.
If a free and democratic Cuba is possible, great, if not, lets just replace the current dictator with a new one.
The US has no problems supporting oppressive regimes.
Maybe the US should stop thinking it is some kind of beacon of light, which it not is.
This empire policy is not something that came up in the last few years. The US' policy has been empirical for over a hundred years.
Hawaii is such an example.
Concoct some BS reason why some people somewhere need liberation and then replace the current government with your own or a new one.
Or just support some existing Dictator.
If that does not work out, rinse, repeat.
Worked with Noriega in Panama and Saddam in Iraq, to name just a few.
Problem with Castro is that he does not want to do what the US wants him to do.
The Cuban resistance itself says that the US should keep their noses out of Cuban issues.
They probably fear the US will screw over Cuba just like it did with other countries before.
Guatamalan death-squads and other south american, african and asian examples show why.
The 'help' the US offers might be just what they fear.
Comments are closed on this entry