The life and times of Cuban-American exile Jorge Mas Canosa . The fight over the Helms-Burton Act and the embargo on Cuba. State Warren Christopher discusses U.S. foreign policy regarding Cuba Browse The NewsHour's Latin America Index. The official Vatican homepage. The official National Republic of Cuba homepage.
Embargos are basically political although they have serious economic and financial consequences.
It makes no sense for the US to maintain an embargo that basically impoverishes the Cuban people. Lifting the embargo to outside goods would place severe and ultimately untenable pressure on the Castro regime to liberalize and open the economy to the world. Also, it is important to keep in mind that Cuba is in the Western Hemisphere, not 10,000 miles away. The entire western hemisphere is democratic except Cuba. We got the international community to impose sanctions and did everything else that was necessary to get rid of the dictatorship.