US President Barack Obama has extended the 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba for another year.
In a statement, Mr Obama said that it was in the US national interest to extend the Trading With The Enemy Act which covers the trade embargo.Cuba has been under a financial, trade and travel ban since 1962 - one of the last surviving remnants of the Cold War.
Critics see it as a missed opportunity to signal a further willingness to ease relations between the two countries.
Mr Obama has lifted some of the restrictions allowing Cuban-Americans to visit relatives whenever they want and send money home. The two sides are once again holding direct talks on immigration and later this week US officials travel to Cuba to discuss resuming direct mail services.The Cuban authorities have described these changes as little more than a cosmetic coat of paint, but the US administration continues to demand that Cuba must first show signs of reform before lifting the embargo.
8 comments:
So much for hope and change! What a damned shame.
Brought to yu by Naomi Klein:"Today's mobs, on the other hand, are reacting to the symbolic victory of an African American winning the presidency. Yet they are rising up at a time when non-elite blacks and Latinos are losing significant ground, with their homes and jobs slipping away from them at a much higher rate than from whites. So far, Obama has been unwilling to adopt policies specifically geared towards closing this ever-widening divide. The result may well leave minorities with the worst of all worlds: the pain of a full-scale racist backlash without the benefits of policies that alleviate daily hardships...."
Sums it all up quite accurately.
The embargo against Cuba has been in existence for generations and it's impossible for policy to change so quickly. For example, the US relations with China were not normalized until seven years after Nixon's historic visit. And even the 1972 visit came on the tail of high level contacts between LBJ and China. So Obama didn't do a power move but that's not how these things are done. They begin with a shift in tone. That's why Israelis are so concerned.
Fuck Naomi Klein. When she becomes a sustained and passionate voice offering unveiled critique of Israeli policy on the same level that Tim Wise inveighs against white racism then she'll get some dap from me for her critique of how black masses see the president.
Actually Submariner it is not that deep.
If Obama was half the President he is supposed to be, he would do the right thing and take a stand to remove the deadly crippling inhumane embargo of that island nation.
Since he's been president he hasn't done a FUCKING THING DIFFERENTLY than George Bush.
As we speak children in Afghanistan and Pakistan are being burned to death with bombs dropped from US drones.
Young Cuban girls are prostituting themselves to Canadian tourists because they are in desperate need of foreign currency to feed their own children.
Then he's got the nerve to allow himself to be taped placating Plantation Crackas by calling Kanye a "jackass".
I'm sorry to say it bra, but God's Son is turning out to be a bitch.
SUB, I TOTALLY AGREE. BUT SHE SPOKE TO MY SENTIMENTS IN THIS INSTANCE.
DV is truth on this one.
the pharaonic rorshachian seems to have resolved into a complete and total punkazzbyotch...,
DV, Cuba has THRIVED despite the U.S. embargo. Highest literacy and lowest HIV infection rates in the western hemisphere. It has a very stable elite governance structure shown during the transition to Raoul Castro. I think it was Craig who posted a story last year about all the massive planning and organization by Cuba (in collaboration with Venezuala) to minimize the effects of the current economic downturn.
So what true need does an American embargo deprive them of? Starbucks, McDonalds, Coca Cola, late model SUVs and luxury cars. The very same things, excepting cars, that you so artfully renounce. In fact, Cuba stands as a striking proof of true revolutionary pragmatism of the sort dreamed by Black Jacobins. The continuance of this embargo merely means that the parties are still in negotiations.
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