Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
INDEX
1AC
2-13
2AC Extensions
Inherency Extensions
14
Human Rights Extensions
17
Economy Extensions
21
General
21
Agriculture
22
Tourism
Cuba Economy
2AC Add-On Advantage: Soft Power
1
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (1/12)
Contention 1 is Inherency
A. The United States’ embargo on Cuba is a failed policy that exacerbates human
rights abuses on the island while simultaneously hurting the United States’
reputation abroad.
Sweig, February 28, 2012 [Julia E., Nelson and David Rockefeller Senior Fellow for Latin America Studies
and Director for Latin America Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, “The Frozen U.S.-Cuba
Relationship”, http://www.cfr.org/cuba/frozen-us-cuba-relationship/p27510] BA
Let me start by talking about three geographical points on the map that are relevant to the answer. In
Washington, the Obama administration, consistent with the approach of the Bush administration, has
made a political decision to subordinate foreign policy and national interest-based decisions to domestic
politics with respect to its Cuba policy. There is a bipartisan group of members of Congress--Democrats
and Republicans, House and Senate--who represent Florida, a state where there are many swing votes
that deliver the electoral votes for any president. Those individuals not only deliver votes, but they
deliver campaign finance, and generally make a lot of noise, and that combination has persuaded the
White House that reelection is more of a priority than taking on the heavy lifting to set the United States
on the path of normalization with Cuba for now.
B. Additionally, there’s little to no chance of the embargo being lifted any time
soon – Cuba isn’t interested in making political reforms necessary.
Hanson and Lee, April 16, 2013 [Brianna and Stephanie, “U.S.-Cuba Relations”,
http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113
Raúl Castro has signaled he is willing to engage in dialogue with Washington. At the same time,
says CFR's Sweig, seeking normalized bilateral relations is clearly not a priority for the Cuban
government, which has moved to diversify its relationships in the region. "Cuba no longer
seems to need to see the relationship with the United States improve as rapidly as it might well
have, for example, when the Soviet Bloc collapsed and it lost its Soviet subsidy overnight," Sweig
told CFR.org in a March 2009 interview. A 2009 Human Rights Watch report found that Cuba's
judicial system remained oppressive, saying, "Raúl Castro's government uses draconian laws and
sham trials to incarcerate scores more [political prisoners] who have dared to exercise their
fundamental freedoms."
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (2/12)
Contention 2 is Human Rights
A) Since the embargo has been in place, it has worsened conditions for the Cuban
people.
American Association for World Health Report Summary of Findings, March 1997. ("Denial of Food and
Medicine: The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba,"
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html) KW
After a year-long investigation, the American Association for World Health has determined that the U.S.
embargo of Cuba has dramatically harmed the health and nutrition of large numbers of ordinary Cuban
citizens. As documented by the attached report, it is our expert medical opinion that the U.S. embargo
has caused a significant rise in suffering-and even deaths-in Cuba. For several decades the U.S. embargo
has imposed significant financial burdens on the Cuban health care system. But since 1992 the number
of unmet medical needs patients going without essential drugs or doctors performing medical
procedures without adequate equipment-has sharply accelerated. This trend is directly linked to the fact
that in 1992 the U.S. trade embargo-one of the most stringent embargoes of its kind, prohibiting the sale
of food and sharply restricting the sale of medicines and medical equipment-was further tightened by
the 1992 Cuban Democracy Act.
A humanitarian catastrophe has been averted only because the Cuban government has maintained a
high level of budgetary support for a health care system designed to deliver primary and preventive
health care to all of its citizens. Cuba still has an infant mortality rate half that of the city of Washington,
D.C.. Even so, the U.S. embargo of food and the de facto embargo on medical supplies has wreaked
havoc with the island's model primary health care system. The crisis has been compounded by the
country's generally weak economic resources and by the loss of trade with the Soviet bloc.
B. This constitutes a fundamental violation of international law and human rights conventions.
American Association for World Health Report Summary of Findings, March 1997. ("Denial of Food and
Medicine: The Impact Of The U.S. Embargo On The Health And Nutrition In Cuba,"
http://www.cubasolidarity.net/aawh.html) KW
Finally, the AAWH wishes to emphasize the stringent nature of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba. Few
other embargoes in recent history - including those targeting Iran, Libya, South Africa, Southern
Rhodesia, Chile or Iraq - have included an outright ban on the sale of food. Few other embargoes have so
restricted medical commerce as to deny the availability of life-saving medicines to ordinary citizens. Such
an embargo appears to violate the most basic international charters and conventions governing human
rights, including the United Nations charter, the charter of the Organization of American States, and the
articles of the Geneva Convention governing the treatment of civilians during wartime.
1AC – Cuba Embargo (3/12)
C. Additionally, failure to lift the embargto guarentees these rights violations will continue.
Lifting the embargo offers the only path towards improving human rights in Cuba and real
political and economic reform.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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Bandow, December 11, 2012 [ Senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special
assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan, “Time to End the Cuban Embargo”,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo]
The policy in Cuba obviously has failed. The regime remains in power. Indeed, it has
consistently used the embargo to justify its own mismanagement, blaming poverty on
America. Observed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It is my personal belief that the
Castros do not want to see an end to the embargo and do not want to see normalization with
the United States, because they would lose all of their excuses for what hasn’t happened in
Cuba in the last 50 years.” Similarly, Cuban exile Carlos Saladrigas of the Cuba Study Group
argued that keeping the “embargo, maintaining this hostility, all it does is strengthen and
embolden the hardliners.”
Cuban human rights activists also generally oppose sanctions. A decade ago I (legally)
visited Havana, where I met Elizardo Sanchez Santa Cruz, who suffered in communist
prisons for eight years. He told me that the “sanctions policy gives the government a good
alibi to justify the failure of the totalitarian model in Cuba.”
Indeed, it is only by posing as an opponent of Yanqui Imperialism that Fidel Castro has
achieved an international reputation. If he had been ignored by Washington, he never would
have been anything other than an obscure authoritarian windbag.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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1AC – Cuba Embargo (4/12)
D. Finally, the United States has an imperative to uphold human rights around the world.
Protecting and championing human rights is key to survival.
Copelon 99, (Rhonda, Professor, Law, CUNY, “The Indivisible Framework of International Human
Rights,” NEW YORK CITY LAW REVIEW, 1998/1999, p. 71-72.)
The indivisible human rights framework survived the Cold War despite U.S. machinations to
truncate it in the international arena. The framework is there to shatter the myth of the
superiority [*72] of the U.S. version of rights, to rebuild popular expectations, and to help
develop a culture and jurisprudence of indivisible human rights. Indeed, in the face of systemic
inequality and crushing poverty, violence by official and private actors, globalization of the
market economy, and military and environmental depredation, the human rights framework is
gaining new force and new dimensions. It is being broadened today by the movements of
people in different parts of the world, particularly in the Southern Hemisphere and significantly
of women, who understand the protection of human rights as a matter of individual and
collective human survival and betterment. Also emerging is a notion of third-generation rights,
encompassing collective rights that cannot be solved on a state-by-state basis and that call for
new mechanisms of accountability, particularly affecting Northern countries. The emerging
rights include human-centered sustainable development, environmental protection, peace, and
security. 38 Given the poverty and inequality in the United States as well as our role in the
world, it is imperative that we bring the human rights framework to bear on both domestic
and foreign policy.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (5/12)
Contention 3 is Economy
A) Lifting the embargo would increase both the United States’ and Cuba’s economy. It also
may pressure Cuba to further economic reform.
Bandow, December 11, 2012 [ Senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special
assistant to former US president Ronald Reagan, “Time to End the Cuban Embargo”,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo]
There is essentially no international support for continuing the embargo. For instance, the
European Union plans to explore improving relations with Havana. Spain’s Deputy Foreign
Minister Gonzalo de Benito explained that the EU saw a positive evolution in Cuba. The
hope, then, is to move forward in the relationship between the European Union and Cuba.
The administration should move now, before congressmen are focused on the next election.
President Obama should propose legislation to drop (or at least significantly loosen) the
embargo. He also could use his authority to relax sanctions by, for instance, granting more
licenses to visit the island.
Ending the embargo would have obvious economic benefits for both Cubans and Americans.
The U.S. International Trade Commission estimates American losses alone from the embargo
as much as $1.2 billion annually.
Expanding economic opportunities also might increase pressure within Cuba for further
economic reform. So far the regime has taken small steps, but rejected significant change.
Moreover, thrusting more Americans into Cuban society could help undermine the ruling
system. Despite Fidel Castro’s decline, Cuban politics remains largely static. A few human
rights activists have been released, while Raul Castro has used party purges to entrench
loyal elites.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (6/12)
B) Lifting the embargo would increase the economies of both Cuba and the United States
due to the increase of jobs and agricultural exports.
Cuba Policy Foundation, 2003. [http://www.cubafoundation.org/why-2.html]KW
Under the most conservative estimate to date, presented in a 2000 report of the International
Trade Commission, the embargo is depriving the American economy of up to $1 billion a year. A
study done at Florida International University states the embargo is taking up to $1 billion
annually from the Florida economy alone.
The American travel sector would gain immediately from an end to the travel ban, with over
$500 million dollars in the first year, and nearly $1.7billion and the creation of over 10,000 jobs
for working Americans in the fifth year after ending the ban -- the majority of these gains would
be to beleaguered U.S. air carriers -- according to a June 2002 study commissioned by CPF from
the University of Colorado. Click here for summary, or here for full-text of report.
America’s economy is losing up to $1.24 billion a year in agricultural exports because of the
embargo, and up to $3.6 billion more a year in associated economic output, according to an
independent report done for the Cuba Policy Foundation by agriculture economics professors C.
Parr Rosson and Flynn Adcock of Texas A&M University. Click here to see the press release on
their new agriculture-sector impact report.
And according to an independent report for the Cuba Policy Foundation by Rice University energy expert
Amy Myers Jaffe with Rice economics professor Ron Soligo, the embargo is costing America’s energy
sector $2 billion to $3 billion annually.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (7/12)
C. The U.S. energy sector is key to economic recovery and growth – multiple reasons.
World Economic Forum, 2012 [“Energy for Economic Growth”, http://reports.weforum.org/energy-foreconomic-growth-energy-vision-update-2012/]
In times of economic turbulence, the focus quite rightly falls on jobs. The energy industry is
known for being highly capital intensive, but its impact on employment is often forgotten. In the
United States, for example, the American Petroleum Institute estimates that the industry
supports more than nine million jobs directly and indirectly, which is over 5% of the country’s
total employment. In 2009 the energy industry supported a total value added to the national
economy of more than US$ 1 trillion, representing 7.7% of US GDP.
Beyond its direct contributions to the economy, energy is also deeply linked to other sectors in
ways that are not immediately obvious. For example, each calorie of food we consume requires
an average input of five calories of fossil fuel, and for high-end products like beef this rises to an
average of 80 calories. The energy sector is also the biggest industrial user of fresh water,
accounting for 40% of all freshwater withdrawals in the United States. The energy industry
significantly influences the vibrancy and sustainability of the entire economy – from job creation
to resource efficiency and the environment.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (8/12)
D. U.S economic growth is the key to global economic recovery
Caploe, 2009 [David, Ph.D., International Political Economy, Princeton University, “Focus still on
America to lead global recovery”, 7 April 2009, accessed online at
http://thisblogmyblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/focus-still-on-america-to-lead-global.html
IN THE aftermath of the G-20 summit, most observers seem to
have missed perhaps the most crucial statement of the entire
event, made by United States President Barack Obama at his preconference meeting with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown:
'The world has become accustomed to the US being a voracious
consumer market, the engine that drives a lot of economic
growth worldwide,' he said. 'If there is going to be renewed
growth, it just can't be the US as the engine.' While superficially
sensible, this view is deeply problematic. To begin with, it ignores
the fact that the global economy has in fact been 'Americacentred' for more than 60 years. Countries - China, Japan,
Canada, Brazil, Korea, Mexico and so on - either sell to the US or
they sell to countries that sell to the US. To put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't
seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world economy - and hasn't been for the last six
decades. If the US does not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen. Thus, US
policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just domestically, but also to the entire world.
This
system has generally been advantageous for all concerned.
America gained certain historically unprecedented benefits, but
the system also enabled participating countries - first in Western
Europe and Japan, and later, many in the Third World - to achieve
undreamt-of prosperity.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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At the same time, this deep inter-connection between the US
and the rest of the world also explains how the collapse of a
relatively small sector of the US economy - 'sub-prime' housing,
logarithmically exponentialised by Wall Street's ingenious
chicanery - has cascaded into the worst global economic crisis
since the Great Depression. To put it simply, Mr Obama doesn't
seem to understand that there is no other engine for the world
economy - and hasn't been for the last six decades. If the US does
not drive global economic growth, growth is not going to happen.
Thus, US policies to deal with the current crisis are critical not just
domestically, but also to the entire world.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (9/12)
E. Global economic collapse results in nuclear war – causes North Korean aggression,
Afghanistan collapse, Russian adventurism, and American isolationism
Friedberg and Schenfeld, 8 (Aaron Friedberg-professor of politics and international relations at
the Woodrow Wilson School, and Gabriel Schoenfeld-visiting scholar at the Witherspoon
Institute, 10/21/2008, The Dangers of a Diminished America, The Wall Street Journal, p.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html?mod=googlenews_wsj" http://onli
ne.wsj.com/article/SB122455074012352571.html?mod=googlenews_wsj)
Then there are the dolorous consequences of a potential collapse of the world's financial
architecture. For decades now, Americans have enjoyed the advantages of being at the center of
that system. The worldwide use of the dollar, and the stability of our economy, among other
things, made it easier for us to run huge budget deficits, as we counted on foreigners to pick up
the tab by buying dollar-denominated assets as a safe haven. Will this be possible in the future?
Meanwhile, traditional foreign-policy challenges are multiplying. The threat from al Qaeda and
Islamic terrorist affiliates has not been extinguished. Iran and North Korea are continuing on
their bellicose paths, while Pakistan and Afghanistan are progressing smartly down the road
to chaos. Russia's new militancy and China's seemingly relentless rise also give cause for
concern.
If America now tries to pull back from the world stage, it will leave a dangerous power vacuum.
The stabilizing effects of our presence in Asia, our continuing commitment to Europe, and our
position as defender of last resort for Middle East energy sources and supply lines could all be
placed at risk.
In such a scenario there are shades of the 1930s, when global trade and finance ground nearly
to a halt, the peaceful democracies failed to cooperate, and aggressive powers led by the
remorseless fanatics who rose up on the crest of economic disaster exploited their divisions.
Today we run the risk that rogue states may choose to become ever more reckless with their
nuclear toys, just at our moment of maximum vulnerability.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (10/12)
The aftershocks of the financial crisis will almost certainly rock our principal strategic
competitors even harder than they will rock us. The dramatic free fall of the Russian stock
market has demonstrated the fragility of a state whose economic performance hinges on high
oil prices, now driven down by the global slowdown. China is perhaps even more fragile, its
economic growth depending heavily on foreign investment and access to foreign markets. Both
will now be constricted, inflicting economic pain and perhaps even sparking unrest in a country
where political legitimacy rests on progress in the long march to prosperity.
None of this is good news if the authoritarian leaders of these countries seek to divert attention
from internal travails with external adventures.
As for our democratic friends, the present crisis comes when many European nations are
struggling to deal with decades of anemic growth, sclerotic governance and an impending
demographic crisis. Despite its past dynamism, Japan faces similar challenges. India is still in the
early stages of its emergence as a world economic and geopolitical power.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (11/12)
Thus we offer the following plan: The United States federal government should
substantially increase its economic engagement with Cuba by lifting the trade
embargo with Cuba.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
1AC – Cuba Embargo (12/12)
Contention 4 is Solvency:
A) Lifting the embargo in Cuba would foster better human rights, help the U.S. and Cuban
economies, and would better the relationships between the United States and other
countries around the world.
Barshefsky and Hill et al. May 2008 [Charlene, Senior international partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and
Dorr LLP and James T,. Retired Four-star general and President of the JT Hill Group, a strategic consulting firm
located in Miami, Florida] Council on Foreign Relations Special Task Force Report “U.S.-Latin America Relations:
A New Direction for a New Reality”
Cuba is an authoritarian state guilty of serious human rights violations. Human rights
organizations estimate that there are between one hundred and two hundred political prisoners
in Cuba today. In early 2008, Rau´l Castro was elected by the Cuban National Assembly and its
Council of State to become the president of the Council of State and of the republic. Within the
framework of socialism, a number of measures designed to enhance the quality of people’s lives
and personal freedoms have followed. More, in the realm of shrinking the size of the state and
boosting productivity and the creation of wealth, may follow. Fidel Castro’s formal resignation
and the stable succession of his brother as head of state have challenged the effectiveness of a
half century of U.S. economic sanctions, whether designed to destabilize or overthrow the
regime, interrupt its continuity, or bring liberal democracy to the island.
The United States can play a positive role in promoting the values of an open society with
policies that support the greater enjoyment of human rights by Cubans and lay the groundwork
for a pluralistic future on the island. This could be facilitated by increasing contact between U.S.
and Cuban citizens (including Cuban Americans and their families) through reducing current
Department of Treasury travel restrictions.
While increased trade might funnel more resources to the Cuban government and strengthen
its short-term staying power, economic isolation has long provided Cuba’s authorities with a
convenient excuse for many of the island’s core problems. The time is ripe to show the Cuban
people, especially the younger generations, that an alternative exists to permanent hostility
between these two nations and that the United States can play a positive role in Cuba’s future.
Given this, the United States should initiate a series of steps, with the aim of lifting the embargo
against Cuba.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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Inherency Extensions
U.S. won’t lift the embargo – fundamental incompatibility of political views prevent
improving relations between the two countries.
Hanson and Lee, April 16, 2013 [Brianna and Stephanie, “U.S.-Cuba Relations”,
http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113
A fundamental incompatibility of political views stands in the way of improving U.S.-Cuban
relations, experts say. While experts say the United States wants regime change, "the most
important objective of the Cuban government is to remain in power at all costs," says Felix
Martin, an assistant professor at Florida International University's Cuban Research Institute.
Fidel Castro has been an inspiration for Latin American leftists such as Venezuelan President
Hugo Chávez and Bolivian President Evo Morales, who have challenged U.S. policy in the region.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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Inherency Extensions
U.S. won’t lift embargo in the near to medium term.
Hanson and Lee, April 16, 2013 [Brianna and Stephanie, “U.S.-Cuba Relations”,
http://www.cfr.org/cuba/us-cuba-relations/p11113
Cuba has been at odds with the United States since Fidel Castro assumed power in 1959.
Successive U.S. administrations have employed tough measures against the country, including
prolonged economic sanctions and designation of Cuba as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, but
none have substantially weakened Castro's rule. In February 2008, longtime president Fidel
Castro formally resigned from office, sixteen months after transferring many powers to his
brother Raúl due to illness. Despite stirrings of U.S. economic interest in Cuba and some policy
softening under President Barack Obama, experts say that normalization of bilateral relations is
unlikely in the near to medium term. Tensions between the two countries peaked with the 2009
arrest of U.S. citizen Alan Gross, who was tried and convicted of attempting to destabilize the
Cuban regime through a U.S.-sponsored program. Recently, Raúl Castro has implemented major
reforms, including the lifting of fifty-year-old travel restrictions for Cuban citizens, which,
analysts say, are helping the country strengthen ties with its Latin American neighbors.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Inherency Extensions
The U.S. currently has no plans to lift the trade embargo with Cuba.
Bloomberg News, March 28, 2009 [“U.S. Doesn’t Plan to Lift Cuba Embargo, Biden Says”,
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a_KlWGQsl.CQ
The U.S. has no plans to lift its trade embargo on Cuba,
Vice PresidentJoe Biden told reporters today after a
heads-of-government meeting in Chile.
“We think the Cuban people should determine their own
fate and that they should be able to live in freedom and
with some prospect of economic prosperity,” Biden said.
“But Cuba is not the biggest challenge facing the
hemisphere, the biggest challenge facing the hemisphere
is the economy.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
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Human Rights Extensions
Removing the trade embargo would allow for food exports that could substantially reduce hunger,
increase political freedoms and advance civil liberties.
Zimmerman, 2008 [Chelsea, Assistant Professor at Benard College, “Rethinking the Cuban Trade
Embargo: An Opportune Time to Mend a Broken Policy”
http://www.thepresidency.org/storage/documents/Fellows2010/Zimmerman.pdf]
Cubans suffer from natural disasters and food shortages because of the trade embargo
Trade levels between Cuba and the U.S. could reach $5 billion annually by
removing the trade embargo, resulting in a boost to American agribusinesses while
also helping to alleviate hunger among Cubans. A policy environment open to
international trade and investment is a necessary ingredient to sustain higher rates
of economic growth and to promote political freedom through exposure to new
technology, communications, and democratic ideas (Griswold, 1; Sachs and
Warner). Allowing Cuba to more freely import U.S. food is a means of lowering
domestic prices and increasing incomes of the poor, food availability and domestic
production. U.S. companies will introduce new technologies and production
methods, while raising wages and labor standards as a result of trading with Cuba.
The additional creation of wealth will help to advance social, political, and
economic conditions independent of the governing authorities in Cuba. The most
economically open countries today are more than three times as likely to enjoy full
political and civil freedoms as those that are relatively closed (Griswold, 1).
Lifting certain trade restrictions would assist Cuba in its efforts to recover
from the damage caused by its recent hurricanes. If the U.S. exempted construction
equipment and agricultural machinery from the Cuban trade ban through regulatory
action, the Cuban people could benefit from the loosening of restrictions without
overhauling the entire embargo
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Human Rights Extensions
Lifting trade embargo would result in wages increases and would help solve hunger in Cuba.
Zimmerman, 2008 [Chelsea, Assistant Professor at Benard College, “Rethinking the Cuban Trade
Embargo: An Opportune Time to Mend a Broken Policy”
http://www.thepresidency.org/storage/documents/Fellows2010/Zimmerman.pdf]
Cuba is recovering from a series of hurricanes and tropical storms that hit
Cuba in the fall of 2008 that by some estimates have caused over $9 billion worth
of damage to Cuban farms and industry. Because food shortages are a serious
problem in Cuba, the trade embargo with Cuba has resulted in increased suffering
of the Cuban people. According to Peter Schwab, “the most explosive impact of
the U.S. embargo, even worse than that on public health, is the effect on food and
hunger” (Schwab, 79). Food rationing began in Cuba in 1962, with the distribution
of one rationing booklet for each Cuban household. Initially most food items were
included in the rationing, but items such as fruits, vegetables, and eggs have been
added and deleted based on their scarcity at the time (Alvarez, 1).
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Human Rights Extensions
Trade embargo is counter-productive.
Griswold, 2005 [Daniel, Director of the CATO Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, “Four
Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo Against Cuba”.
http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba
If the goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba is to help its people achieve freedom and a better life, the
economic embargo has completely failed. Its economic effect is to make the people of Cuba
worse off by depriving them of lower-cost food and other goods that could be bought from the
United States. It means less independence for Cuban workers and entrepreneurs, who could be
earning dollars from American tourists and fueling private-sector growth. Meanwhile, Castro
and his ruling elite enjoy a comfortable, insulated lifestyle by extracting any meager surplus
produced by their captive subjects.
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Human Rights Extensions
Status quo is inhumane.
Lloyd, 2011 [Delia, freelance writer and political science professor at the University of Chicago,
“Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo”, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/tenreasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo/]
It's inhumane. If strategic arguments don't persuade you that it's time to end the embargo, then
perhaps humanitarian arguments will. For as anyone who's traveled to the island knows, there's
a decidedly enclave-like feel to those areas of the economy where capitalism has been allowed
to flourish in a limited sense (e.g. tourism) and the rest of the island, which feels very much like
the remnant of an exhausted socialist economic model. When I went there in the 1990s with my
sister, I remember the throngs of men who would cluster outside the tourist haunts. They'd
hope to persuade visitors like me to pretend to be their escort so they could sneak into the
fancier hotels and nightclubs, which they could not enter otherwise. Horse -- yes, horse-- was a
common offering on menus back then. That situation has apparently eased in recent years as
the government has opened up more sectors of the economy to ordinary Cubans. But
the selective nature of that deregulation has only exacerbated economic inequalities. Again,
one can argue that the problem here is one of poor domestic policy choices, rather than the
embargo. But it's not clear that ordinary Cubans perceive that distinction. Moreover, when you
stand in the airport and watch tourists disembark with bucket-loads of basic medical supplies,
which they promptly hand over to their (native) friends and family, it's hard not to feel that U.S.
policy is perpetuating an injustice.
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Economy Extensions – General
Status quo spends too much money on enforcement of embargo. Lifting the embargo would
save money.
Hanson, Batten and Ealey, January 16, 2013 [Daniel, Dayne and Harrison, Danieal is an
aconomics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, Dayne is affiliated with the UNC
Department of Public Policy, Ealy is a financial analyst, “It’s Time for the U.S. to End its Senseless
Embargo of Cuba” http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-toend-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/
Despite this progress, the U.S. spends massive
amounts of money trying to keep illicit Cuban
goods out of the United States. At least 10
different agencies are responsible for enforcing
different provisions of the embargo, and
according to the Government Accountability
Office, the U.S. government devotes hundreds
of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of
man hours to administering the embargo each
year.
At the Miami International Airport, visitors
arriving from a Cuban airport are seven times
more likely to be stopped and subjected to
further customs inspections than are visitors
from other countries. More than 70 percent of
the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control
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Veritas High School
inspections each year are centered on rooting
out smuggled Cuban goods even though the
agency administers more than 20 other trade
bans. Government resources could be better
spent on the enforcement of other sanctions,
such as illicit drug trade from Columbia, rather
than the search for contraband cigars and rum.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – General
Lifting trade embargo would help sluggish U.S. economy.
Reuters, September 20, 2012 [“Cuba says ending U.S.
embargo would help both countries”,
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usaembargo-idUSBRE88J15G20120920
Rodriguez said the elimination of the embargo would provide
a much-needed tonic for the sluggish U.S. economy.
"In a moment of economic crisis, lifting the blockade would
contribute to the United States a totally new market of 11
million people. It would generate employment and end the
situation in which American companies cannot compete in
Cuba," he said.
24
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – Agriculture
Lifting the embargo would help both the U.S. and Cuban economies - one study estimates
that the embargo cost American farmers 1.2 billion dollars per year.
Griswold, 2005 [Daniel, Director of the CATO Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, “Four
Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo Against Cuba”.
http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba
Cuban families are not the only victims of the embargo. Many of the dollars Cubans could earn
from U.S. tourists would come back to the United States to buy American products, especially
farm goods.
In 2000, Congress approved a modest opening of the embargo. The Trade Sanctions Reform and
Export Enhancement Act of 2000 allows cash-only sales to Cuba of U.S. farm products and
medical supplies. The results of this opening have been quite amazing. Since 2000, total sales of
farm products to Cuba have increased from virtually zero to $380 million last year. From dead
last in U.S. farm export markets, Cuba ranked 25th last year out of 228 countries in total
purchases of U.S. farm products. Cuba is now the fifth largest export market in Latin America for
U.S. farm exports. American farmers sold more to Cuba last year than to Brazil. Our leading
exports to Cuba are meat and poultry, rice, wheat, corn, and soybeans.
The American Farm Bureau estimates that Cuba could eventually become a $1 billion
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 by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the embargo costs American
firms a total of $700 million to $1.2 billion per year. Farmers in Texas and neighboring states are
among the biggest potential winners. One study by Texas A&M University estimated that Texas
ranks fifth among states in potential farm exports to Cuba, with rice, poultry, beef and fertilizer
the top exports.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – Tourism
Lifting trade embargo increase tourism and boost U.S. – Cuban economy.
Rooson, February 2003 [Parr, Department of Agricultural Economic at Texas A&M University,
“Estimated Agricultural Economic Impacts of Expanded U.S. Tourism to
Cuba”http://www.cubafoundation.org/CPF%20Travel-Ag%20Study/CubaTourismExports
%20Study-Feb2003.htm
U.S. food and agricultural exports to Cuba have rapidly expanded with the passage of the Trade
Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000. In 2001, U.S. agricultural exports were valued
at $6 million. During the first 10 months of 2002, U.S. agricultural exports reached $110.8 million. The
Cuban market for foods is estimated to exceed $800 million annually.
Part of Cuban food demand growth is being met by U.S. food exports to service a growing foreign tourist
trade. A recent study at the University of Colorado estimates that if the U.S. travel ban on Cuba were
lifted, approximately 1.5 million U.S. tourists would travel to Cuba annually during the first several
years. Building on this work, the purpose of this analysis is to estimate the U.S. economic impacts of
increased tourism using input/output analysis. U.S. agricultural exports to support U.S. tourism are
estimated, followed by the economic impacts of these exports on U.S. business sales, U.S. household
income, U.S. GDP, and U.S. employment.
Three scenarios are analyzed based upon assumptions about the level of U.S. tourist food expenditures
while visiting Cuba. These assumptions are necessary because it is not certain what amount of money
will be spent on U.S. foods. It is estimated that U.S. tourists would spend between $30 and $60 per day
on food, excluding beverages. Average menu prices in Cuba were analyzed to determine the possible
range of meal prices on a daily basis. An intermediate food expenditure of $45 per day was also
analyzed. The average length of stay was assumed to be 7 days. Additional foreign tourists and the
secondary economic impacts of increased U.S. tourism on the Cuban economy are not estimated due to
data limitations. It is also assumed that 40 percent of total food expenditures by U.S. tourists is met by
U.S. agricultural exports.
Exactly when U.S. visits to Cuba for seven-day stays would reach 1.5 million annually is difficult to
precisely estimate. Some forecasts project annual U.S. travel to Cuba would be as high as 4 million in
the first year, but more conservative estimates suggest that 1.5 million on seven day stays would be
reached by year three after lifting the ban.
Food expenditures of $30 per day by U.S. tourists $30 per day would require $126 million in U.S.
agricultural exports to meet the increased food demand in Cuba. These U.S. agricultural exports would
generate an additional $295 million in U.S. business sales, $86 million in U.S. household income, another
$160 million in gross domestic product, and an additional 3,490 jobs throughout the U.S. economy.
Food expenditures of $45 per day by U.S. tourists would require U.S. agricultural exports of $189
million. This level of exports would generate another $443 million in U.S. business sales, an additional
$129 million in U.S. household income, $241 million in gross domestic product, and 5,235 new jobs.
U.S. tourist food expenditures of $60 per day would be met with U.S. agricultural exports of $252
million. These U.S. exports would result in $591 million in added U.S. business sales, $173 million in
U.S. household income, another $321 million in U.S. gross domestic product, and an additional 6,980
jobs.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
27
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – Tourism
Lifting trade embargo would help tourism in Cuba and boost income.
Bandow, December 11, 2012 [Doug, Senior fellow at the Cato Institue and a former special
assistant to Ronald Reagan, “Time to End the Cuban Embargo”
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo
Lifting the embargo would be no panacea. Other countries invest in and trade with Cuba to no
obvious political impact. And the lack of widespread economic reform makes it easier for the
regime rather than the people to collect the benefits of trade, in contrast to China. Still, more
U.S. contact would have an impact. Argued trade specialist Dan Griswold, “American tourists
would boost the earnings of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate
restaurants in their homes. Those dollars would then find their way to the hundreds of freely
priced farmers markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders, and other
entrepreneurs.”
28
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – Tourism
Lifting the trade embargo would help U.S. economy.
Lloyd, 2011 [Delia, freelance writer and political science professor at the University of Chicago,
“Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo”, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/tenreasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo/]
It's good economics. It's long been recognized that opening up Cuba to American investment
would be a huge boon to the tourism industry in both countries. According to the Cuban
government, 250,000 Cuban-Americans visited from the United States in 2009, up from roughly
170,000 the year before, suggesting a pent-up demand. Lifting the embargo would also be an
enormous boon the U.S. agricultural sector. One 2009 study estimated that doing away with all
financing and travel restrictions on U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba would have boosted 2008
dairy sales to that country from $13 million to between $39 million and $87 million, increasing
U.S. market share from 6 percent to between 18 and 42 percent.
29
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Economy Extensions – Tourism
Lifting trade embargo would help Cuban economy.
Griswold, 2005 [Daniel, Director of the CATO Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, “Four
Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo Against Cuba”.
http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba
Instead of the embargo, Congress and the administration should take concrete steps to expand
America’s economic and political influence in Cuba. First, the travel ban should be lifted.
According to U.S. law, citizens can travel more or less freely to such “axis of evil” countries as
Iran and North Korea. But if Americans want to visit Cuba legally, they need to be a former
president or some other well-connected VIP or a Cuban American.
Yes, more American dollars would end up in the coffers of the Cuban government, but dollars
would also go to private Cuban citizens. Philip Peters, a former State Department official in the
Reagan administration and expert on Cuba, argues that American tourists would boost the
earnings of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate restaurants in their homes.
Those dollars would then find their way to the hundreds of freely priced farmer’s markets, to
carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders, and other entrepreneurs.
30
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
2AC Add-On Advantage: Soft Power (1/3)
Next is a new advantage: Soft Power
A. Status quo policy toward Cuba is hurting the United States’ image around the world,
including with the EU, Canada and South America.
Hanson, Batten and Ealey, January 16, 2013 [Daniel, Dayne and Harrison, Danieal is an
aconomics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute, Dayne is affiliated with the UNC
Department of Public Policy, Ealy is a financial analyst, “It’s Time for the U.S. to End its Senseless
Embargo of Cuba” http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-toend-its-senseless-embargo-of-cuba/
At present, the U.S. is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba. The embargo has long been a
point of friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada.
Every year since 1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for
maintaining counterproductive and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba
despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies nationalized during the Castro takeover
have dropped their claims.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
2AC Add-On Advantage: Soft Power (2/3)
B. Lifting trade embargo would help with relations with Latin America.
Hakim, March 27, 2013 [Peter, “Post Chavez: Can the U.S. rebuild Latin America ties?”
http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/03/27/post-chavez-can-u-s-rebuild-latin-americanties/
Whether Washington can remake its relationship with Latin America is in question. A sensible
and humane reform of U.S. immigration legislation would remove one critical obstacle to more
productive relations with many countries, as would a more flexible approach to drug-control
policy.
Recent developments suggest, however, that for Washington to regain clout in regional affairs, it
must it end its standoff with Cuba. U.S. policy toward Cuba sets Washington against the views of
every Latin American and Caribbean government. Long-standing U.S. efforts to isolate and
sanction Cuba, have, counterproductively, brought every country in Latin America to Cuba’s
defense with a general admiration of Havana’s resistance to U.S. pressures.
Because this U.S. policy is viewed as so extreme, no Latin America country is willing to criticize
Cuba — almost regardless of its words or actions. Chavez, with his close association with Cuba,
possessed some of that immunity — with his neighbors leaving him unaccountable for his
violations of democracy, human rights and decency.
His funeral made it clear that the United States has a lot of work to do to prevent that immunity
from spreading.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
C. Soft Power is key to building the international coalitions necessary to solve global
problems, such as economic competitiveness, terrorism, war, proliferation, disease, human
trafficking, and drugs
Kurlantzick, Scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ‘05 [Joshua,;visiting
scholar in the Carnegie Endowment’s China Program and a fellow at the USC School of Public
Diplomacy and the Pacific Council on International Policy; previously foreign editor at The
New Republic; “The Decline of American Soft Power,” December 2005, Current History, Vol.
104, Issue 686; pg. 419, proquest, accessed 07/10/07]
A broad decline in soft power has many practical implications. These include the drain in foreign
talent coming to the United States, the potential backlash against American companies, the
growing attractiveness of China and Europe, and the possibility that anti-US sentiment will make
it easier for terrorist groups to recruit. In addition, with a decline in soft power, Washington is
simply less able to persuade others. In the run-up to the Iraq War, the Bush administration could
not convince Turkey, a longtime US ally, to play a major staging role, in part because America's
image in Turkey was so poor. During the war itself, the United States has failed to obtain
significant participation from all but a handful of major nations, again in part because of
America's negative image in countries ranging from India to Germany. In attempts to persuade
North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons, Washington has had to allow China to play a
central role, partly because few Asian states view the United States as a neutral, legitimate
broker in the talks. Instead, Washington must increasingly resort to the other option. Nye
discusses-force, or the threat of force. With foreign governments and publics suspicious of
American policy, the White House has been unable to lead a multinational effort to halt Iran's
nuclear program, and instead has had to resort to threatening sanctions at the United Nations
or even the possibility of strikes against Iran. With America's image declining in nations like
Thailand and Pakistan, it is harder for leaders in these countries to openly embrace
counterterrorism cooperation with the United States, so Washington resorts to quiet armtwisting and blandishments to obtain counterterror concessions. Force is not a long-term
solution. Newer, nontraditional security threats such as disease, human trafficking, and drug
trafficking can only be managed through forms of multilateral cooperation that depend on
America's ability to persuade other nations. Terrorism itself cannot be defeated by force alone,
a fact that even the White House recognizes. The 2002 National security Strategy emphasizes
that winning the war on terror requires the United States to lead a battle of ideas against the
ideological roots of terrorism, in addition to rooting out and destroying individual militant cells.
Soft Power Extensions
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Soft power is key to multilateral cooperation -- solves climate, disease, crime, and terrorism
Nye, Professor of International Relations, Harvard, ‘04 [Joseph S., “Soft Power and American
Foreign Policy,” Summer 2004, Political Science Quarterly, Volume 119, Issue 2; page 255,
proquest, download date: 9-21-07]
Power depends on context, and the distribution of power differs greatly in different domains. In
the global information age, power is distributed among countries in a pattern that resembles a
complex three-dimensional chess game. On the top chessboard of political-military issues,
military power is largely unipolar, but on the economic board, the United States is not a
hegemon or an empire, and it must bargain as an equal when Europe acts in a unified way.
And on the bottom chessboard of transnational relations, power is chaotically dispersed, and it
makes no sense to use traditional terms such as unipolarity, hegemony, or American empire.
Those who recommend an imperial American foreign policy based on traditional military
descriptions of American power are relying on woefully inadequate analysis. If you are in a
three-dimensional game, you will lose if you focus only on one board and fail to notice the other
boards and the vertical connections among them-witness the connections in the war on
terrorism between military actions on the top board, where we removed a dangerous tyrant in
Iraq, but simultaneously increased the ability of the al Qaeda network to gain new recruits on
the bottom, transnational board. Because of its leading edge in the information revolution and
its past investment in military power, the United States will likely remain the world's single most
powerful country well into the twenty-first century. French dreams of a multipolar military
world are unlikely to be realized anytime soon, and the German Foreign Minister, Joschka
Fischer, has explicitly eschewed such a goal.But not all the important types of power come out
of the barrel of a gun. Hard power is relevant to getting the outcomes we want on all three
chessboards, but many of the transnational issues, such as climate change, the spread of
infectious diseases, international crime, and terrorism, cannot be resolved by military force
alone. Representing the dark side of globalization, these issues are inherently multilateral and
require cooperation for their solution. Soft power is particularly important in dealing with the
issues that arise from the bottom chessboard of transnational relations. To describe such a
world as an American empire fails to capture the real nature of the foreign policy tasks that we
face.
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Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Soft Power Extensions
Lifting Cuban trade embargo would help relations with Latin American countries like
Venezuela, Brazil and Mexico.
Barshefsky and Hill et al. May 2008 [Charlene, Senior international partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and
Dorr LLP and James T,. Retired Four-star general and President of the JT Hill Group, a strategic consulting firm
located in Miami, Florida] Council on Foreign Relations Special Task Force Report “U.S.-Latin America Relations:
A New Direction for a New Reality”
While the United States maintains productive relationships with the vast majority of Latin
American nations, there are a few with which the United States has strained relations. The Task
Force finds that the United States must officially recognize all countries in the region and should
work to identify areas of common interest and cooperation in order to advance U.S. interests,
regardless of the countries’ political identity; this includes Cuba and Venezuela.
The United States should continue to voice strong support for democracy and to express
concern when it perceives that governments are failing to maintain democratic institutions and
basic human rights practices. But it should not cut diplomatic ties in such cases. By ignoring and
isolating certain nations in our hemisphere, the United States reduces its own influence in these
countries and precludes dialogue through which mutual interests can be addressed; at the same
time, it inadvertently strengthens the regimes in these countries, as the experience with Cuba
amply demonstrates. U.S. relations with Brazil and Mexico should also be strengthened and
expanded.
35
Cuba Embargo Affirmative
Veritas High School
Soft Power Extensions
Lifting the embargo would increase the United States’ soft power.
Reuters, September 20, 2012 [“Cuba says ending U.S. embargo would help both
countries”, http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-cuba-usa-embargoidUSBRE88J15G20120920] BA
He spoke at a press conference that Cuba stages each year ahead of what has become
an annual vote in the United Nations on a resolution condemning the embargo. The vote
is expected to take place next month.
Last year, 186 countries voted for the resolution, while only the United States and Israel
supported the embargo, Rodriguez said.
Lifting the embargo would improve the image of the United States around the world, he
said, adding that it would also end what he called a "massive, flagrant and systematic
violation of human rights."
36