The Importance Of The Cuban Embargo

The Cuban embargo has been in place for 52 years now, and American citizens are starting to question the goal and importance of such an embargo. Over the past few decades some major generational changes have changed the feelings towards Cuba and the embargo. Ultimately, the majority of the world wants the sanction to end. The United Nations has criticized the U.S. embargo against Cuba for the past 22 years. In 2013, a U.N. vote against the embargo was 188 to 2, with only Israel and the United States supporting the embargo (procon.org). The distaste for the embargo is also prominent in the United States now the government may want to keep it in place but the general public doesn’t. The embargo is affecting the people of Cuba more than the government

For awhile Cuba was able to turn to the Soviet Union for some financial support, but when the Soviet Union fell in December of 1991, Cuba lost all the support they were getting. The Cuban embargo was intended to harm the government, but instead its citizens are denied access to technology, medicine, affordable food, and other goods that could be available to them if the embargo was lifted (procon.org). Dr. Mercedes Arce Rodríguez in her report, “The Human Cost: Cubans and Cuban Americans talk about their lives and the U.S. embargo”, shares the story of Dolores Vasconcelos and her son Brian. Brian was born with medical problems which Dolores didn 't know the full extent of immediately, She understood that her son needed medicine but, that medicine was created in labs in the United States making it unreliable. Dolores later found out that her son suffered from seizures, and he needed the medicine to prevent them from occurring. Since the medicine was created in the United States, it made it impossible to have a constant supply of the medicine due to the embargo. Brian went months without taking the medicine simply because there was none for him to take until it would arrive late, thanks to the embargo. At one time Brian lost the ability to walk because he went without the medicine for so long and that caused enough permanent damage that he now has to wear braces on his feet and

public no longer feels the need for the embargo against Cuba. The poll, conducted in January 2014, showed that nationwide 56% of Americans support the normalizing of relations with Cuba (Planas, 2014). The number of people who oppose the embargo in the state of Florida, which is more closely affected by the embargo, is at a high of 63%. The lack of support isn 't just found in the American public, but the poll also found that 60% of Democrats and 52% of Republicans favor increased engagement with Cuba (Planas, 2014). Now that the polls show that the majority of Americans are opposed to the embargo, the likelihood of Congress addressing it is much higher. Of course, there are still some people who agree with the embargo due to the fact the the Cuban government hasn’t changed and is still under Castro rule, but those people need to understand that the only way the Cuban government can change is if they have a positive role model. Their last strong connection was with the Soviet Union which was also a communistic state. It is up to the United States to strengthen relations with Cuba and show the Cubans what democracy looks like in hopes that it will force changes in the Cuban