SAMPLE EDITORIALS ON U.S.-CUBA POLICY 2001-2003

January 2003

California:

August 26, 2002 – Bakersfield Californian

Open doors to Cuba: “The president should sign the legislation, paving the way for opening up trade, which will help both the United States and Cuba. The no-trade policy unfairly keeps San Joaquin Valley growers, farmers and businesses from a legitimate chance to market more of their products.”

May 14, 2002 - San Francisco Chronicle
Carter in Cuba: “If nothing else, the Carter trip draws attention to the futility of a four-decade trade embargo that may make for good politics in Miami and Havana, but has left the Cuban people mired in a miserable economy.”

Colorado:

July 26, 2002 - Rocky Mountain News (Denver)
Step Toward Sanity on Cuba Policy: “Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., had it exactly right: ‘This is all about freedom. Our government shouldn't tell us where to travel and where not to travel.’”

Florida:

January 8, 2003 – Brandenton Herald
Cuba opening: Port Manatee makes symbolic breakthrough: “Trade with Cuba! That's something Florida business interests have long awaited, since the U.S. government imposed a trade embargo on the island nation 90 miles from Florida's shores when Fidel Castro turned his revolution communist . . . Gov. Jeb Bush, scrambling for new revenue in tough economic times and seeking to diversify Florida's tourism-dependent economy, should take note of the economic potential here. Perhaps he could lobby his brother, the president, to get the embargo repealed altogether.”

January 2, 2003 – Florida Today

‘Cuba Plan' reflects need to end embargo: “The long-running foolishness of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba has become even more clear with this revelation: The state of Florida is panting to do businesses with the island and, under the direction of a governor who publicly backs the failed policy in the strongest possible terms, is quietly laying plans for significant commerce. This comes in a document called the ‘Cuba Plan’ written by Enterprise Florida, the state's privatized economic development agency, which says Florida is ‘positioned better than any other U.S. state’ to help modernize Cuba's destitute economy . . . The surest way to sweep Castro aside is to pull down the barriers and allow Cubans to breathe the fresh air of a free market and the ideas of democracy that would come with it. To do anything less only perpetuates a tragic sham that harms Cubans and Americans.”

September 22, 2002 - Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)
Florida Opening Doors to Cuba: “You don't have to be ‘soft on Castro’ to recognize that Florida -- especially South Florida -- has the potential to gain the most from any easing of economic sanctions and increasing of trade with Cuba. The benefits might not be immediate since Cuba's economy is in dire straits, but the long-run potential is obvious . . . President Bush, however, remains committed to vetoing any effort to dismantle the embargo. That's shortsighted.”

Georgia:

May 14, 2002 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bowing to exiles ignores hope for reform in Cuba: “For 40 years, Republicans and Democrats alike have allowed 800,000 Cuban exiles in Florida to dictate U.S. foreign policy, and it's time for that to end . . . If the Bush administration is genuinely interested in encouraging democracy in Cuba, not just pandering to Miami's Castro-haters, it too could play an important role.”

Illinois:

September 11, 2002 - Chicago Tribune
Foil Castro's Cuba with free trade: “America can help Cuba toward a better future, not as foes but as producers and consumers. First we need to tear down the sugar-cane curtain that still stands between us. “

Iowa:

October 3, 2002 - Des Moines Register
Open trade with Cuba: Iowa's economy would gain, and it's the right thing to do: “Iowans in Congress should be working for normal relations with Cuba, not just because it's potentially good for Iowa business but because it's the right thing to do.”

Kentucky:

October 2, 2002 - Kentucky New Era (Hopkinsville)
Cuba Connection: Can Christian County bank on the fledgling Cuban trade potential? “Ten or 20 years ago, trade advocates would have been crucified for urging or facilitating transactions with the Cuban people. But with the burgeoning global economy, fresh technology and the faltering of Communism, overlooking a new trade partner ill serves all of us. That was then, this is now.”

Louisiana:

December 4, 2002 – Daily Advertiser (Lafayette)

Farmers in desperate financial straits: “We Suggest: Trade with Cuba would help save the industry. Louisiana's rice farmers, like others in the state's agriculture industry, are faced with a worsening crisis . . . The American Farm Bureau estimates that Cuba could ‘eventually become a $1billion agricultural-export market for products of U.S. farmers and ranchers.’ The embargo stifles another $250 million in potential annual exports of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and tractors. According to a study last year by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the embargo costs American firms between $684 million and $1.2 billion per year. We join with Louisiana's farmers in urging the president to lift the embargo. For many of them, it is a matter of economic survival.”

Maine:

November 21, 2002 – Bangor Daily

Old World Orders: “Clearly, compared with demands on other Communist nations - China, for instance - the U.S. policy toward Cuba is anomalous, and the annual nonbinding vote by the United Nations calling on the United States to drop the trade embargo is always lopsidedly pro-Cuba . . . [T]he United States is ignoring an opportunity by refusing to look at the progress that Cuba has made and focusing on its glaring shortcomings. The result is seen not only in the United Nations, but in the regular illegal, circuitous travel by Americans to Cuba and the many U.S. organizations that ship aid there - essentially announcing a grass-roots rejection of a major U.S. policy.”

Maryland:

May 10, 2002 –Baltimore Sun

Playing the terror card: “It certainly fits the Bush stance on Cuba and Fidel Castro: demonize and isolate. It's a tired, old political line that more Americans are rejecting. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba without its longtime financial and political patron; it's time that the United States fill that vacuum.”

Massachusetts:

August 7, 2002 - Boston Globe
Bush’s Cuban Conflict: “President Bush has signaled his intention to veto legislation passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives last month that would ease restrictions on trade with and travel to Cuba . . . He ought to follow the lead of Congress and relinquish his grasp on a 40-year-old policy that is little more than symbolic.”

Minnesota:

September 10, 2002 - Minneapolis Star/Tribune
The Cuba trip / Jesse should ignore Bush bullying: “The embargo has failed. Rather than giving the Cuban people a reason to depose Castro, it has helped him retain power by allowing him to make a scapegoat of Uncle Sam. Further, the embargo has withheld from the Cuban people the many benefits -- economic and otherwise -- of U.S. trade, while denying Americans free travel and access to a nearby market.”

August 8, 2002 – Pioneer Press (St. Paul)

Ventura’s Cuba Trip: “Part of Ventura's purpose is a desire to persuade Washington policymakers to abandon the embargo. We share the governor's faith in free trade, and his belief that the embargo on Cuba is a failed and cruel policy.”

New Hampshire:

September 24, 2002 - Concord Monitor
Cuba libre: “Freer trade will mean faster freedom for Cuban people. For some, particularly in the conservative Cuban-American community in south Florida, Fidel Castro remains the devil. For much of the rest of America, the 76-year-old dictator has long since ceased to be a serious threat to America's national security despite recent attempts to paint him as a patron of terrorists.”

New York:

May 16, 2002 – New York Times

Journey to Havana: “The heartening news is that even plenty of Republicans are tired of having American foreign policy hijacked by anti-Castro activists in a key electoral state . . . The House voted by a wide margin last year to lift the ban. The measure has broad support in the Senate, too. One of these days, the Bush brothers will recognize that the isolation of Cuba serves neither American nor Cuban interests.”

May 9, 2002 – Wall Street Journal

Bush’s Cuba Pickle: “And lifting the embargo would, as we wrote in these columns back in 1994, ‘help precisely those forces that are most likely to liberate Cuba's economic and political power structure.’"

Oklahoma:

August 5, 2002 – Daily Oklahoman

Let Freedom Ring; Cuban Embargo Needs to End: “The embargo made sense 40 years ago, when Cuba was a staging area for the Soviet Union's nightmarish mischief. But the Soviet threat is long gone . . . Freedom, particularly in a wired world, is intoxicating and contagious. It happened in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s. It is happening in China now. And it would happen in Cuba.”

Pennsylvania:

July 29, 2002 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
America Libre; U.S. Citizens See Cuba for Themselves: “The Berlin Wall has come down, Russia is an ally and the Cold War is over. But there's still that cigar-chomping dictator in Cuba. Forty years after the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. government continues, as part of an economic embargo, to restrict travel to the island. If you want to go to Havana for a holiday, the government says ‘no.’ But soon that might -- and should -- change.”

South Carolina:

January 8, 2003 – Post and Courier (Charleston)
End farcical Cuban embargo: “Should a list of U.S. foreign policy failures ever be compiled, there's little doubt it would be topped by the economic embargo imposed on Cuba . . . This farce could be ended by allowing ordinary Americans to visit Cuba and by lifting all restrictions on investment, financing and trade. Castro would try to prevent economic freedom flowing into Cuba; but now that the Cuban people have got a taste for American food, he might not be able to stop it, even though he must know that once Cuba's isolation is ended, his power will be on the wane.”

Texas:

September 2, 2002 - San Antonio Express-News
Senate should OK bill to ease Cuba embargo: “The House voted to ease the economic sanctions. The Senate should approve a similar bill next month . . . House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Flower Mound, went even further, saying that the economic embargo has failed and should be lifted.   The Senate should approve a similar bill when Congress resumes its session this week. Although President Bush has promised a veto, the bill should at least reach his desk.”

September 2, 2002 – Dallas Morning News

Cuba Ban: Restrictions on travel ought to go: “It's time for a different approach. It's time to apply to Cuba the very same unassailable logic that Mr. Bush applies to Communist China - using trade and travel as levers to open the Asian giant to moderating influences.”

Utah:

March 18, 2001 - Salt Lake City Tribune
Staff Opinion—More Exposure, Not Embargoes, Would Help The Cuban People's Transition to Capitalism: “If, as our official policy claims, we really want to encourage open economies and a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government, the most direct route isn't through embargoes or other punitive actions, but through increasing Cubans' exposure to Americans and Western values. Castro would hate it.”

Washington:

January 2, 2002 – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ties with Cuba hold promise: “Seattle has a sister relationship with Havana's Department of Urban Agriculture. Tacoma is sister city of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The United States has opened the door to Russia, China, Vietnam and even North Korea. King County pairing up with the people in Cuba's Granma province would hardly be, well, radical. This is an effort to cultivate a long-term human relationship that could well lead to a productive economic relationship later. It's an excellent opportunity to display the benefits of our culture and governance to people who've had ample opportunity to experience the failings of their own. That's something everyone should be able to salute.”

Wisconsin:

August 21, 2002 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Take brats and beer to Cuba: “After 40 years, the U.S. economic embargo of Fidel Castro's Cuba has become one of the most dismal failures in the history of U.S. diplomacy. It has endured in no small measure because its most ardent supporters - mostly Cuban expatriates - became a highly organized and well-financed lobby that won friends and influenced politicians in the halls of Congress.”

International:

January 2, 2003 – The Economist (England)
Cuba and the United States: The Americans have come: “Embargo or not, the United States is now Fidel Castro's economic partner . . . In 2002, they shipped food worth around $165m, helping to turn the United States into Cuba's tenth-biggest trading partner, according to unofficial estimates. Ordinary Cubans rave about the long-forbidden fruit arriving on their tables. Juicy and crisp American apples are hawked on street corners. Meaty American chickens are rationed at neighbourhood stores. American rice is said to be fluffier than the Vietnamese or Chinese varieties Cubans have grown used to. Even such icons of imperialism as chewing gum and peanut butter are now on sale . . . Despite all the insults still hurled across the Florida straits, ‘the embargo is becoming a sieve’, says a European diplomat. All the more reason to scrap it.”

April 5, 2002 – Toronto Star (Ontario, Canada)
Not our embargo: “A Canadian businessman who sold water purification equipment in Cuba faces the prospect of years in prison after being convicted in a Philadelphia court of breaking the U.S. trade embargo with the Communist-ruled island. Forget for the moment that the 40-year-old U.S. embargo is an antiquated holdover from the Cold War . . . Odd. American farmers with powerful lobby groups get to trade with Cuba but water purification salesmen face jail.”