Resolved: The United States Should Normalize Relations With Cuba

We negate. Resolved: That the United States should normalize relations with Cuba. Contention 1: Normalizing relations with Cuba means that U.S. companies will begin developing currently untapped oil fields in the region Currently, the embargo prohibits U.S. companies from drilling, which stops any development from occurring at all because as stated by The International Herald Tribune only the United States has the needed deep-water drilling technology and close-by crude oil refining capacity. Because U.S. companies are interested in developing the oil, lifting the embargo would mean drilling in Cuba. According to Dr. Jonathan Alvarado, Professor of Political Science at the University of Nebraska, "[In the 2006 U.S.-Cuban Energy Summit in Mexico City] American oil interests [demonstrated] significant interest the development of Cuba's oil." This drilling would be drastically harmful to both the environment and the economy of the United States. According to the U.S. Department of the Interior, taking into account the human error, barge collisions, explosions, pipeline corrosion, hurricanes, equipment blowouts, mechanical failure, and several other factors, the onset of more offshore drilling in Cuba would inevitably result in 22 to 46 major oil spills. These spills would cost the U.S. economy billions of dollars. The ThinkQuest Library Researcher analyzes previous major oil spills and finds that the average spill was around 8 million tons, and while this not only destroys the biodiversity of the region affected off the shores of Cuba, as stated by the Environmental Defense Fund, it also destroys the U.S. economy. The New York Times explains that because of Cuba's intricate and delicate network of reefs and biodiversity, it is uniquely harder to clean up oil spills in its waters. Because of the hiring of contractors to clean up the mess, the losses from a decrease in tourism revenue, the fees and fines imposed by state agencies, the cost of litigation, and environmental damages, data from the Environmental Protection Agency indicates that the cost to the U.S. economy to clean just one of these spills would be approximately 596 billion dollars. Multiply that number by the inevitable 22-46 major spills and you have a figure in the trillions and a U.S. economy pushed further into debt and economic crisis that is a policy imperative to avoid. Contention 2: Normalizing relations would reinforce the class divide created by the dual economy system in Cuba Eduardo Castillo of the Associated Press explains the structure of Cuba's economy: "Cuba has two primary currencies, [the dollar and peso]. Tourist businesses [use] U.S. dollars and charge U.S. prices, while the [Cuban] peso [is] maintained for [internal] everyday transactions." In this dual-economy system, the dollar is king – it has a much stronger purchasing power than the Cuban peso, which is not valuable enough to be used outside of the centralized Cuban economy. The Cuban government has begun to introduce modest reforms to try and revalue the peso, which would eliminate the dual economy. However, this cannot be done at the same time the embargo is lifted, because as Castillo explains, such salary reform "has to be done in phases." According to the New York Times, were the U.S. to lift the embargo, the drastic flood of dollars would re-entrench the dual economy and make it impossible to rectify. The problem is that these dual economies create a class divide between Cubans who have access to the dollar, and those that don't. Cubans that are allowed to work in the tourist industry get access to dollars via tips from American tourists, while other professions do not. According to the Atlantic Magazine, a waiter makes more money in tips in one night than a doctor does in one month, because of the dollar's purchasing power. This dual economy is bad because it creates two classes; the poor lower class that can only access the Cuban Peso, and the rich upper class which has access to the U.S. dollar. The issue is that the Communist government only allows the rich and those with political connections to work in tourism and thus get dollars, while paying all others in pesos, according to The Journal of Latin American Politics. This means that the poor are systematically excluded from participating in the dollar economy, and forced into a lower class from which they cannot escape. Jaime Suchlicki, Director of the Institute of Cuban-American Studies, explains that "As class and social distinctions bred by the dual economy intensify, crime, corruption, and narcotics trafficking within and via Cuba have proliferated. The law no longer has much value because if you live by the law you cannot feed your family." Foreign Policy Research Institute scholar Rensselaer Lee explains, "Cuba occupies a favored strategic position from a drug trafficking perspective. Traffickers' use of Cuba to smuggle drug cargoes to Florida is well documented." It is because lifting the embargo would create massive oil spills, and re-entrench the dual economy that is not only systematically excluding the poor lower class in Cuba causing them to turn to illicit activities that we urge a negative vote.