50 Years of Embargo

The U.S economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba has now been in force for 50 years, decreed in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy in response to the nationalization of American companies by Fidel Castro. Nonetheless, the longest commercial blockade in modern history has not only had effects on the democratization of the Cuban regime but it has also consolidated it.

The pressure of the anti-Castro Cuban lobby in Florida, whose votes are vital in this southern state, has been the element that unchained the controversial embargo that has gone through several circumstances. From the passing of the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 that prohibits all commercial transactions between Cuba and U.S citizens, to the prohibition in 1999 of such transactions on behalf of American affiliates abroad. A criticized blockade, since it does not only affect directly the basic needs of Cubans (food, health products, etc.), but it is also detrimental to the possibilities of the internal political evolution of the regime. Spain knows from experience that dictatorships are strengthened before a foreign enemy. It is time to revise a strategy that, half a century later, is anachronistic and counterproductive.