News Release

October 31, 2001

U.S., Cuba both wrong on effects of embargo, study says
Castro policies to blame for poor economy, embargo not successful in dislodging regime

WASHINGTON-Official U.S. and Cuban depictions of the effects of the United States' 39-year-old embargo are misleading, a new Cato Institute study reveals.

"Report from Havana: Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba," is the product of recent visits to Cuba by Jonathan G. Clarke, Cato research fellow, and William Ratliff, senior research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Drawing on their interviews with officials, dissidents, and private citizens in Cuba, Clarke and Ratliff argue that the embargo is not responsible for the country's poor economic conditions-as Havana claims-nor has it been effective at achieving Washington's goal of isolating the Cuban regime.

"The United States and Cuba are essentially co-conspirators in misrepresenting the effects of the embargo as more significant than is in fact the case," the authors say. "The Cuban economy is not flourishing, but it is no longer backsliding."

With the enthusiastic cooperation of many of the United States' closest allies (including Canada, the European Union, and Israel), Cuba has found ways to work around the U.S. embargo and weather the demise of its Soviet sponsor and more recent storms such as increases in world energy prices, the authors say.

Beyond foreign investors, Cuban Americans-who support the embargo more widely than any other group-also violate it most frequently and significantly. "By sending remittances to the island they always violate the embargo's spirit and sometimes its legal restrictions as well."

The authors also explain that while the Bush administration supports a Senate bill to provide $100 million to Cuban political and human rights activists, dissidents oppose such a measure because it would compromise their independence and legitimacy.

To improve Cuba's poor human rights record and reveal the Castro regime as the main source of Cuba's economic troubles, Clarke and Ratliff recommend "lifting the trade and investment embargo, restoring the right of Americans to travel to Cuba, and rejecting any current or proposed official aid to groups inside Cuba."

"Report from Havana Time for a Reality Check on U.S. Policy toward Cuba"