Cuban Trade Embargo Essay
There is a relic in politics today; a relic of Cold War era thinking and faulty logic. That relic is the Cuban Trade Embargo, enacted on February 3rd 1962 by President John F. Kennedy imposed restrictions on exports to the island nation (besides food and medicine). This relic has no reason to exist, for three main reasons; it harms the US economy, most of the world is against it, and the policy also harms the Cuban people.
By the time you are done reading this, you should see just how damaging this policy is to the United States, our relations with the world, and the common folk of Cuba. The first (and arguably most important) reason why the embargo should be abolished is that it hurts the US economy. The US Chamber of Commerce estimates that we lose around 1.2 billion dollars each year from this embargo (at the rate of 1.2 billion per year from 1962 to the present we've lost 72 billion dollars). As well as cold, hard cash we lose good
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The embargo keeps the Cuban people from life saving medicines, adequate and affordable food and many other goods that they could enjoy. A study done in 1997 by the American Association for World Health reported that Cuban doctors only have about half as many medicines available to their patients as other doctors around the globe. In a similar study done in 2011 by Amnesty International showed that the medicines required to treat cancer and HIV/AIDS in younger Cubans were not readily available because the medicines were patented in the United States. The embargo has been keeping life saving cancer drugs from children in Cuba, children who can't even get affordable food because of this embargo. This embargo is literally killing Cuba, by starving its economy, its people and not allowing their doctors to have the tools to treat their patients. The killing of the Cuban people may be part of my next big reason why the embargo should be