Castro's Government & U.S. Policy

Fidel Castro's government did not collapse following the U.S.S.R.'s 1990 withdrawal of $6 billion in annual subsidies from Cuba. With the subsequent end of the Soviet Union itself there seemed to be no hope for Castro's revolutionary state. Yet, after almost ten years, the end is still not in sight and Cuba is making a gradual transition into the world economy via internal liberalization and the rapid growth of foreign investment from nearly every industrialized nation--except the U. S. American policy toward Cuba, rather than relaxing, has remained strongly weighted toward isolation and economic sanctions, and has even gone so far as to insist that U. S. allies and trading partners adopt the same stance. The passage of the Helms-Burton, or Libertad, Act of 1996 strengthened American opposition to normalization of relations with Cuba and laid down strict conditions for the resumption of relations. Although President Clinton signed the bill, his administration has often taken a softer line toward Cuba and has made overtures with offers of extensive aid for a transition government that would ensure democratic government, human rights, and the return of American property seized in the revolution. Yet Castro has vacillated between a willingness to engage in talks and attempts to increase Cuban hostility toward the United States. Thus active government policy toward Cuba has not relaxed significantly, despite a growing chorus of criticism from American business interests,

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d on almost every front. But the attempts by the United States to dethrone Castro "have actually propped up his regime" and in this fact lies the key to the problematic U.S. policy toward Cuba. The American response to Cuba since 1990 has been characterized as being "in a Cold War time warp", for, despite the fact that Cuba has withdrawn from Africa, ceased the promotion of revolution in Latin America, lost any military ties with the Soviet Union, and begun a very gradual liberalization of its economy, the United States "persists in tightening the screws." The two principal actions taken since 1990 have been the Cuban Democracy Act (1992), also called the Torricelli Bill, after its principal sponsor U.S. Representative Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act (1995), known as the Helms-Burton law, after its sponsors Senator Jesse Helms (R-SC) and Representative Dan Burton (R-IN). Both laws were based on the assumption that Castro's fall was imminent and that the U.S. embargo against Cuba would have the eventual effect of bringing about his downfall. The Torricelli Bill assumed that Castro's regime had been exposed as "a failed model of government and development" and that the

Category: Government - C