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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Cuba Embargoed: U.S. Trade
Sanctions Turn Sixty</h1>
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<p><strong>Washington D.C., February 2, 2022 –</strong>
On the eve of the 60<sup>th</sup> anniversary of
President John F. Kennedy’s executive order imposing
“an embargo on all trade with Cuba,” the National
Security Archive today posts a collection of
previously declassified documents that record the
origins, rationale, and early evolution of punitive
economic sanctions against Cuba in the aftermath of
the Castro-led revolution. The documents show that the
initial concept of U.S. economic pressure was to
create “hardship” and “disenchantment” among the Cuban
populace and to deny “money and supplies to Cuba, to
decrease monetary and real wages, [and] to bring about
hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of [the]
government.” However, a CIA case study of the embargo,
written twenty years after its imposition, concluded
that the sanctions “have not met any of their
objectives.”</p>
<p>The selected declassified records chart the secret
deliberations of both President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
who cut sugar imports from Cuba and restricted U.S.
exports, and President Kennedy, who imposed a full
trade embargo against the island nation on February 3,
1962. They also examine the “lard” scandal that led
the Lyndon B. Johnson administration to add food and
medicine to the embargo, Henry Kissinger’s
considerations of using the embargo as a bargaining
chip to potentially normalize relations, and the Jimmy
Carter administration’s resistance to congressional
efforts to lift restrictions on the trade of food and
medicine to maintain leverage in negotiations with the
Castro government on engagement. A secret 1982 CIA
case study, “US/OAS Sanctions Against Cuba
(1962-Present),” concluded that early on the trade
sanctions were “significantly damaging to Cuba’s
growth and general development,” but that the embargo
had failed to meet its objectives and the political
costs outweighed its benefits.</p>
<p>In his comprehensive chronology of the 60-year
evolution of the embargo, American University
Professor William M. LeoGrande describes it as “a
complex patchwork of laws, presidential proclamations,
and regulations that Fidel Castro once called ‘a
tangled ball of yarn.’” According to Peter Kornbluh,
who directs the Archive’s Cuba Documentation Project,
“the endless embargo has become an enduring symbol of
perpetual hostility in the U.S. posture toward Cuba.”</p>
<p><a
href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-02/Embargoimage2_0.jpg"
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src="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/styles/wide/public/2022-02/Embargoimage2_0.jpg?itok=3OXPiRUb"
alt="proclamation" style="margin-right: 0px;"
moz-do-not-send="true" width="392" height="98"></a>
</p>
<h3>A Brief Chronological History of the U.S. Embargo
Against Cuba</h3>
<p><strong>William M. LeoGrande</strong></p>
<p>The U.S economic embargo against Cuba—or “el bloqueo”
(the blockade), as Cubans refer to it-- is not a
single law, but a complex patchwork of laws,
presidential proclamations, and regulations that Fidel
Castro once called “a tangled ball of yarn.” It has
evolved over the sixty years since President John F.
Kennedy put it in place, loosening and tightening from
one administration to the next, depending on the
president’s preference for using hard power or soft
power in dealing with Cuba.</p>
<h3>1960</h3>
<p>President Dwight D. Eisenhower imposed the first
economic sanctions against Cuba’s revolutionary
government, though they fell short of a full embargo.
When Fidel Castro nationalized U.S. and British oil
companies for refusing to refine Soviet oil,
Eisenhower retaliated by cutting off Cuban sugar sales
to the United States, sales that comprised some 80
percent of Cuban sugar exports. Castro then
nationalized most U.S. businesses on the island, and
Eisenhower banned all U.S. exports to Cuba except food
and medicine. These sanctions were part of a U.S.
broader strategy to overthrow Castro, including
support for his internal opponents and preparations
for an exile invasion.</p>
<h3>1962-1963</h3>
<p>After the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion,
President John F. Kennedy used the authority of the
Foreign Assistance Act to impose a complete embargo on
all trade with Cuba. The following year, under the
authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, he
extended the embargo to cover all financial
transactions unless licensed by the Secretary of the
Treasury. The Treasury Department developed the Cuban
Assets Control Regulations (<a
href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-V/part-515?toc=1"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">CACR</a>) to catalogue what
transactions were allowed. Kennedy’s sanctions, like
Eisenhower’s, were part of a broader program aimed at
regime change that included sabotage and paramilitary
attacks launched from the United States.</p>
<h3>1964</h3>
<p>President Lyndon Johnson’s policy of “economic
denial” focused on making the embargo multilateral.
The United States bribed and strong-armed members of
the Organization of American States to <a
href="https://www.oas.org/consejo/MEETINGS%20OF%20CONSULTATION/Actas/Acta%209.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">join the embargo</a> cutting
off diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba. Only
Mexico refused. Europeans did not openly join the
embargo, but quietly cooperated by cutting back trade
with Cuba. Johnson also prohibited food sales to Cuba,
which Kennedy exempted from the embargo, and rejected
Attorney General <a
href="https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB158/index.htm"
moz-do-not-send="true">Robert F. Kennedy’s argument</a>
that travel should be exempted because prohibiting it
was un-American.</p>
<h3>1975</h3>
<p>Faced with growing resistance in the OAS, the United
States joined a majority of members voting to <a
href="http://www.oas.org/CONSEJO/MEETINGS%20OF%20CONSULTATION/Actas/Acta%2016.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">end the mandatory sanctions</a>
against Cuba, which led a number of states to restore
normal relations. The U.S. vote was part of Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger’s abortive effort to
normalize U.S.-Cuban relations. The United States also
lifted the embargo on trade between Cuba and the
subsidiaries of U.S. companies operating in third
countries, and lifted the prohibition on ships trading
with Cuba docking in the United States.</p>
<h3>1977</h3>
<p>President Jimmy Carter also hoped to normalize
relations with Cuba, and as a first step he lifted the
ban on travel completely and authorized Cuban
Americans to send remittances to family on the island.
He also considered lifting the embargo on food and
medicine, but decided against it because it would
allow Cuba to resume sugar sales, giving a major boost
to its economy. Later in the year, when Cuba asked to
buy several dozen medicines available only from U.S.
suppliers, National Security Adviser Zbigniew
Brzezinski convinced Carter to refuse because of
Cuba’s military support for Angola and Ethiopia.</p>
<h3>1982</h3>
<p>President Ronald Reagan imposed new sanctions to
punish Cuba for its support of revolutionary movements
in Central America. He reimposed the ban on travel for
most U.S. residents, banned most Cubans from traveling
to the United States, prohibited the import from third
countries of any product containing Cuban nickel, and
named Cuba to the State Department’s list of <a
href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/RL32251.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">State Sponsors of
International Terrorism</a>, where it remained until
2015. Most of the sanctions resulting from inclusion
on the terrorism list were already part of the Cuba
embargo, being listed made international financial
institutions more reluctant to do business with Cuba.</p>
<h3>1988</h3>
<p><a
href="https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/may-2004/sleeping-with-the-enemy-ofac-rules-and-first-amendment-freedoms"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">An amendment</a> by
Representative Howard Berman (D-CA) to the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)
and the Trading with the Enemy Act exempted from U.S.
sanctions against any country the import or export of
“publications, films, posters, phonograph records,
photographs, microfilms, microfiche, tapes, or other
informational materials.” This has enabled Cuban
artists and writers to sell their work freely in the
United States.</p>
<h3>1989-1991</h3>
<p>As President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev negotiated the end of the Cold War,
the United States pressured the Soviet Union to cut
off economic aid to Cuba, worth some $3 billion
annually, as a condition of U.S. aid to the Soviet
Union. Gorbachev refused, but when the Soviet Union
collapsed, the new president of Russa, Boris Yeltsin,
agreed to the U.S. demand, sending Cuba into a
decade-long depression known as the “Special Period.”</p>
<h3>1992</h3>
<p>With the Cuban economy reeling, the U.S. Congress
passed the <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cda.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Cuban Democracy Act (CDA)</a>
to tighten the embargo in hopes of finally bringing
about regime change. Presidential candidate Bill
Clinton endorsed the CDA and President Bush signed it
into law. The CDA reimposed the ban on trade between
Cuba and subsidiaries of U.S. companies in third
countries, cutting off some $700 million in trade,
mostly in food and medicine. It restored the
prohibition on ships trading with Cuba docking in the
United States for 180 days and gave the president the
authority to cut foreign aid to any country aiding
Cuba. The CDA also authorized food donations, the sale
of telecommunications services and equipment, and
medical sales, but with such strict regulatory
requirements that very little trade was realized.
Finally, it specified that the embargo should only be
lifted when Cuba had become a democracy, and
authorized U.S. government support for Cuban
dissidents to bring that about.</p>
<h3>1994</h3>
<p>During the “rafters” migration crisis, President Bill
Clinton cut off family remittances and halted air
travel between the United States and Cuba to punish
Castro for allowing Cubans to leave, and to pacify
Cuban Americans angry over Clinton’s policy of
interning Cuban migrants rescued at sea in Guantánamo
Naval Station rather than admitting them to the United
States.</p>
<h3>1996</h3>
<p>After the Cuban air force shot down two small planes,
killing four Cuban Americans from the Brothers to the
Rescue exile organization, Clinton signed the <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/libertad.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Cuban Liberty and Democratic
Solidarity Act</a>, which wrote the embargo into law
and specified that it could only be lifted once Cuba
became a multi-party, free-market democracy, and
compensated U.S. citizens and Cuban Americans for
property nationalized after the triumph of the
revolution. To discourage foreign investment Cuba,
Title III of the law allowed anyone who lost property
in Cuba to sue in U.S. federal court anyone
“trafficking” (making any beneficial use) of that
property, thereby opening foreign investors in Cuba to
the risk of litigation. The law allowed the president
to waive activation of Title III, so it did not go
into effect until President <a
href="https://www.akingump.com/en/news-insights/trump-administration-authorizes-lawsuits-against-companies-that.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Donald Trump decided</a> not
to renew the waiver in 2019.</p>
<h3>1998-1999</h3>
<p>In response to the 1998 visit to Cuba by Pope John
Paul II, Clinton restored charter air service and
family remittances, and eased travel regulations to
allow U.S. residents—Cuban American Catholics in
particular-- to go to Cuba to see the Pope. A year
later, he authorized expanded air service, and
“donative” remittances, enabling anyone in the United
States to send remittances to Cuba. Most importantly,
he inaugurated <a
href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20011029_RL31139_a2f0b0f96bb1b9440f6bc749a7dd47ac45dc1489.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">“people-to-people”</a>
travel, allowing U.S. residents to visit Cuba for a
wide variety of cultural and educational purposes.
People-to-people quickly became the main avenue for
non-Cuban American travel. By the end of the Clinton
administration, Cuban Americans were sending some $800
million dollars in remittances to Cuba annually, and
some 250,000 U.S. residents were visiting the island.</p>
<h3>2000</h3>
<p>Lobbying by Americans for Humanitarian Trade with
Cuba, an alliance of some 600 business organizations
and 140 religious and human rights groups organized by
the Chamber of Commerce, succeeded in eliminating the
embargo on agricultural sales to Cuba in the <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/tsra.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Trade Sanctions Reform and
Export Enhancement Act</a>. To mollify Cuban
American opponents, Congressional leaders agreed to
prohibit any U.S. government or private sector
financing of such purchases. They also agreed to ban
“tourism,” defined as any travel to Cuba not included
in the 12 previously authorized categories of legal
travel. Despite the credit restrictions, Cuba began
buying food from U.S. producers in 2002, averaging
about <a
href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R46791"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">$300 million in trade
annually</a> since.</p>
<h3>2003-2004</h3>
<p>Cuban Americans played a key role in President George
W. Bush’s 2000 election victory in Florida and he was
especially responsive to their demands to tighten the
embargo. He appointed a <a
href="https://2001-2009.state.gov/p/wha/rt/cuba/commission/2004/c12237.htm"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Commission for Assistance to
a Free Cuba</a> to map out how to “bring about an
expeditious end of the Castro dictatorship.” Following
its recommendations, Bush abolished people-to-people
travel and stepped up enforcement targeting people who
violated travel regulations, even inadvertently. He
restricted academic exchanges so severely that only a
handful of study abroad programs between U.S. and
Cuban universities survived and Cuban travel to the
United States virtually ceased. Cuban American travel
to the island was limited to one trip every three
years, and the limits on family remittances were
reduced significantly. These <a
href="https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20050510_RL31139_943aaaaf60791474ad176dc52f9110f3e90845d4.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">regulations</a> cut travel to
Cuba by half, reduced humanitarian assistance from
some $10 million annually to $4 million, and shrank
remittances from $1.25 billion annually to about $1
billion.</p>
<h3>2009-2011</h3>
<p>President Barack Obama ran in 2008 on a platform that
declared U.S. hostility toward Cuba a failed policy
and promised something different. Just months after
inauguration, <a
href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2009/04/13/reaching-out-cuban-people"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">he lifted all limits</a> on
Cuban American travel and remittances. When a
Congressional attempt to legalize all travel to Cuba
failed in 2010, Obama <a
href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/14/reaching-out-cuban-people"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">restored people-to-people
travel</a> and reversed Bush’s limits on academic
exchanges the following January.</p>
<h3>2015-2016</h3>
<p>On December 17, 2014, <a
href="https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/12/17/statement-president-cuba-policy-changes"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">President Obama</a> and Cuban
President Raúl Castro announced their intention to
restore diplomatic ties and move toward normal
relations. Over the next two years, Obama approved
five major packages of reforms to the Cuban Assets
Control Regulations, each one loosening the embargo
further (<a
href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl9740.aspx"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 2015</a>, <a
href="https://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/jl0169.aspx"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">September 2015</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/fact_sheet_01262016.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">January 2016</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_03152016.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">March 2016</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_10142016.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">October 2016</a>):</p>
<ul>
<li>The regulatory changes expedited travel by
eliminating the need to get a prior “specific”
travel license from the Treasury Department, and
allowing individual travelers to design their own
educational “people-to-people” trips.</li>
<li>Obama restored normal mail service and commercial
air links with destinations across the island. They
facilitated commerce by allowing business contracts
with the Cuban government for telecommunications
services, cruise line visits, hotel management, and
other transactions that “meet the needs of the Cuban
people.”</li>
<li>He allowed two-way trade with Cuban private
businesses and U.S. investments in the
telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries.</li>
<li>He authorized the U.S. export of goods to protect
the environment, support scientific and cultural
cooperation, help private farmers and businesses,
and promote civil aviation safety.</li>
<li>Of particular importance, Obama lifted the
prohibition on so-called “u-turn” international
financial transactions-- a key element of the
embargo’s extraterritorial reach. All international
transaction involving U.S. dollars must be cleared
through a U.S. financial institution, even if
neither party in the transaction is a U.S. person or
company. The embargo prohibited U.S. banks from
processing such transactions. Banks violating this
restriction were subject to millions of dollars in
fines by the Treasury Department, making it nearly
impossible for Cuba to engage in international
transactions involving U.S. dollars. </li>
</ul>
<h3>2017</h3>
<p>Donald Trump appealed to Cuban American voters in
2016 by promising to reverse Obama’s opening to Cuba
and he kept that promise. In June 2017, he returned to
a policy of hostility and regime change. In a new <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_11082017.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">set of regulatory changes</a>
he tightened the embargo and ordered stepped-up
enforcement. He abolished individual people-to-people
travel, limiting it to tours conducted by licensed
U.S. tour providers. He also banned most transactions
by U.S. residents and companies with Cuban companies
managed by the armed forces, including a large number
of hotels, tourist services, and retail stores
(designated by the State Department on a <a
href="https://www.state.gov/cuba-sanctions/cuba-restricted-list/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Restricted Entities list</a>).
However, most existing commercial contracts were left
undisturbed.</p>
<h3>2019-2020</h3>
<p>As the 2020 presidential campaign began, Trump took a
series of measures to further tighten the embargo (<a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cubafact_sheet_20190604.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">June 2019</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_20190906.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">September 2019</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_20200923.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">September 2020</a>, <a
href="https://home.treasury.gov/system/files/126/cuba_fact_sheet_20201026.pdf"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">October 2020</a>):</p>
<ul>
<li>He imposed new limits on family remittances and
eliminated non-family “donative” remittances
entirely. He prohibited U.S. remittance service
providers from dealing with their Cuban counterpart,
FINCIMEX, because it was managed by the armed
forces. The result was to end all wire transfers of
remittances from the United States.</li>
<li>He abolished the people-to-people travel category
entirely, eliminated the general license for travel
to professional meetings and cultural and artistic
performances in Cuba, thereby eliminating most
cultural and scientific exchange.</li>
<li>New regulations banned U.S.-based cruise ships
from visiting Cuba and prohibited U.S. travelers
from staying in any hotel “controlled by the Cuban
government,” which was almost all of them. Travelers
were thus limited to private B&Bs.</li>
<li>Extending the embargo’s extra-territorial reach,
Trump reimposed the ban on international financial
“u-turn” transactions, and allowed Title III of the
Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act to go
into effect, setting off a wave of litigation
against U.S. and international companies doing
business with Cuba.</li>
<li>In 2019, the State Department returned Cuba to the
list of State Sponsors of International Terrorism.</li>
</ul>
<h3>2021</h3>
<p>During the 2020 campaign, Joe Biden promised to
roll-back the Trump sanctions that hurt Cuban
families, especially the restrictions on remittances
and family travel. Once in office, despite his
repeated pledges to restore remittances services, he
did nothing, leaving all of Trump’s sanctions in
place. In December, the State Department <a
href="https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2020/cuba/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">reaffirmed</a> Cuba’s
inclusion on the list of State Sponsors of
International Terrorism. After July protest
demonstrations in Cuba, the Biden administration
imposed six sets of new individual sanctions targeting
senior officials and units of the Interior Ministry
and armed forces, the national police, and the
military police for violating human rights. Some were
subject to so-called <a
href="https://www.state.gov/sanctioning-cuban-security-forces-in-response-to-violent-repression-of-protests/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Global Magnitsky sanctions</a>,
freezing their assets in the United States and banning
their entry. Other targeted individuals were simply
excluded from receiving <a
href="https://www.state.gov/announcement-of-visa-restrictions-against-cuban-officials/"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">U.S. visas</a>. These
sanctions were largely symbolic since none of the
people targeted have assets in the United States (if
they did, the embargo would freeze them) and none were
likely to be applying for visas.</p>
<p>In June 2021, the United Nations General Assembly,
for the 29<sup>th</sup> time since 1992, <a
href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094612"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">adopted</a> by a vote of 184
to 2, the annual resolution calling on the United
States to lift the embargo. The United States voted
no. In its report to the United Nations, <a
href="http://www.cubaminrex.cu/es/node/4749"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true">Cuba estimated</a> the
cumulative cost of the embargo over six decades at
$148 billion dollars.</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>William M. LeoGrande is Professor of Government at
American University in Washington, DC, and co-author
with Peter Kornbluh of <a
href="http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/13863.html"
target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"
moz-do-not-send="true"><em>Back Channel to Cuba: The
Hidden History of Negotiations between Washington
and Havana</em></a> (University of North Carolina
Press, 2015).</p>
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