McCain’s primitive policy on Cuba

This week McCain has stated that he would not meet with Cuban leader Raul Castro unless Cuban allow free elections. In my opinion, there are many countries of the world that the US has relations with do not necessarily conduct free elections, and yet the potential benefit of discussions with these (other) countries yield trade arrangements which help a multitude of countries in various factors.

McCain is taking a hard line that has not shown successful outcomes in close to 50 years of sanctions against Cuba. Get over it! The Cuban-American political machine is a strong animal to control, and their talons are deep into the Republican candidates on tying contingent votes to support for punishing the Casto government. The government has not suffered with sanctions; the people have.

The natural course is for Cuba to slowly (as China is doing) emerge into a capital driven society without the help of US politics. Some encouragement in infrastructure from the US may be beneficial. McCain’s old ways of conducting foreign policy are not and would not benefit Cuba nor American citizens.

---

Originally published on truman.net. See the archived copy.