Q&A on the US Embargo against Cuba

Spartan Housing Cooperative Pine Press, 27 August 2021 - Music ~ love live music & exploring genres. My favs are reggae, experimental bass, and psych rock.

- Dabble in writing, painting, dancing. Love to move and keep my mind and body busy.

- Cooperative living, duh! The SHC has opened my eyes to the joys (and stresses) of co-operative living, and now I can't imagine housing any other way.

Brandon Chew of Toad Lane, with Jorge Martín

The following is a shortened version of my conversation with Jorge Martín, an editor at In Defense of Marxism, the website of the International Marxist Tendency. Martín’s stories focus on Latin-American politics. The full interview can be read at https://medium.com/@brandonmichaelchew/q-a-on-the-us-trade-embargo-again st-cuba-8bddcdad754a

This interview was conducted on August 2, 2021 and has been edited for clarity and brevity.

Brandon Chew When would you say the US embargo against Cuba began? How was it implemented? And could you explain some of the motivations that the United States had for the embargo?

Jorge Martín The economic measures of the United States against the Cuban revolution started very early on in 1960, less than a year into the revolution. When the agrarian reforms started in Cuba, the countermeasures from the United States began.

Cuba's national liberation movement focussed on agrarian reform which affected the sugarcane plantations and the sugarcane mills, etc., which were previously owned by United States companies.

So what is the U.S. ’ motivation for the trade embargo?

I can read from an official document, [entitled] “Memorandum from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom), ” in 1960.

It says the following: "Salient considerations respecting the present Government of Cuba are:

Spartan Housing Cooperative Pine Press, 27 August 2021 The majority of Cubans support Castro. There is no effective political opposition. Fidel Castro and other members of the Cuban government spouse or condone communist influence. The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through this enchantment and this affection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. "

The document continues: "every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba. If such a policy is adopted, it should be the result of a positive decision which would call forth a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government. " “The principal item in our economic quiver would be flexible authority in the sugar legislation. This needs to be sought urgently. ”

[Link: https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499 ]

So that's the explanation. The reason for the trade embargo and all the economic sanctions on Cuba is to create poverty, desperation, hunger, in the hope that this will then turn the Cuban people against the Cuban government, which, from their own admission, was extremely popular at the time.

This is regime change through the starvation of the population in another country. That's the real strategy behind these measures.

Chew What are some thoughts you have about the future of the embargo?

Martin There should be, in my opinion, a strong movement in the United States against the blockade. And that could have an effect if it was strong enough.

If it was taken up by organized labor, the trade unions, the youth, the Black Lives Matter movement and in solidarity with people around the world who are fighting for a better future.

I think there's a weariness also amongst the American public after these failed military adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. The idea that the U.S. should dictate to other governments what they should or should not do is becoming increasingly unpopular.

The United States is a powerful country with massive economic power, if that power was in the hands of working people just imagine how the conditions could improve.