The true practical advantage of lifting the embargo would be to eliminate one of the regime's favorite excuses for the failures of its own policies. Ending the embargo would also restore the rights of Americans to trade with and travel to a country that does not pose a security threat to the United States.

Short of a full suspension of economic sanctions against Cuba, the most effective U.S. measure to promote positive change on the island is an end to the travel embargo. An increase in hundreds of thousands of U.S. visitors to Cuba would inevitably establish new relations, independent of the Cuban state, between American and Cuban citizens. That would also include the spread of informal economic activity that would further make ordinary Cubans less dependent on the state.

On balance, an end to the travel embargo would favor the spread of liberty in Cuba, though significant change won't come unless and until the Cuban regime itself changes policies.

The G-20 is made up of a group of rich countries who disagree on leading issues, and a diverse group of developing countries with disparate interests. The agenda is so broad—countries will deal with a set of complex issues including global warming, international financial regulation, trade, aid to poor nations, and reform of the International Monetary Fund—as to make it of little practical use.

Reality also undermines the idea that the G-20 was needed to coordinate macroeconomic responses to the global financial crisis. By the time the G-20 last met in April in response to the crisis, countries had already responded to the crisis on their own and global markets had already hit bottom and had begun recovering. A coordinated exit now also makes little sense since economic conditions vary widely within the G-20. Some countries have high unemployment, some do not; some have low or negative growth, some have maintained high growth; some countries are still seeing deflation, some have worrisome inflation.

The G-20 is a political forum in which we should not invest too many expectations. Were G-20 members to declare their commitment to free trade, we should be pleased with the result.

The new media law now under consideration in the Chavez-controlled parliament amounts to nothing less than a censorship law. It criminalizes the reporting of any news considered to be false, to endanger mental health, or to produce instability. All those who defend democracy and the rule of law, including the hemisphere's democratic governments and the Organization of American States, should emphatically denounce the violation of press and other freedoms in Venezuela. Chavez's attack of the press should remove any doubt that his government has ceased to be democratic.

As a result, the Cato forum will now feature the vice-president of Globovision TV, Carlos Alberto Zuloaga, and Rafael Alfonzo, president of CEDICE, Venezuela's leading market-liberal think tank, with comment by Robert Rivard, of the Inter American Press Association. Mr. Alfonzo will discuss how CEDICE and other members of civil society are coming under increasingly serious government harassment for expressing views critical of the government.

The idea that the United States can or should promote democracy by relying on such multilateral political institutions or engaging in more aggressive approaches is dubious. The OAS has long been ineffective at defending basic freedoms in Latin America, having remained silent about serious violations of the rule of law, freedom of expression, and democracy in such countries as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador in recent years. Nor is it the proper role of the United States to take on democracy building missions, something in which it has a poor record. But it is proper for the United States to condemn human rights violations when they occur, and membership in the OAS is explicitly based on the defense of such rights, the rule of law and representative democracy. That’s why the OAS’s decision on Cuba is a disappointing sign of the Obama administration’s policy toward Latin America and of the OAS’s continuing loss of credibility.

In its attempt to be well liked in the region, the Obama administration is trying to have it both ways: opening the door to an authoritarian regime for membership in a club of democratic countries, while claiming that the move will somehow pressure Cuba to democratize. As for Latin American governments, the move reflects the rise of populist politics in the region and the preference to criticize the United States rather than defend the liberties of Latin Americans. For those of us who regularly criticize Washington’s heavy-handed policies in the region—including the Cuban embargo—we can only hope that the U.S. administration’s new approach will indeed bring about positive change in hemispheric relations as it claims. One sign of such success would be the emergence of a vigorous campaign by all democratic governments of the hemisphere to condemn abuses of power and human rights violations wherever they occur in the region. Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe that is about to happen, especially now that Cuba has been welcomed back to the OAS.