The blockade hurts the blockader

By
Manuel Yepe                                                                    Read Spanish Version

An
unusual analysis that reaffirms the absurd nature of the U.S.
blockade against Cuba has been written by U.S.-based, Mexican
educator, writer and journalist Margot Pepper, who contends that
Washington’s blockade against Havana is costing the northern
superpower more than the harm it causes the Caribbean island.

Initially
published in the digital magazine Dollars
& Sense and
reproduced on the Internet by other publications, the article states
that, although the blockade constitutes an enormous economic burden
for the Cuban people, its cost for the American people is greater and
the gap continues to grow. "Given the economic meltdown,"
Pepper writes, "it is only fitting that a growing chorus of
diverse voices is calling for an end to the costly vendetta."

The
author reminds us that the pretext for the blockade, formulated in
1962 by the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, was that it
was a response to Cuba’s expropriation of “some $1.8 billion
worth of U.S.-owned property.”

"Today,
U.S. public opinion is turning against the embargo. A majority — 52
percent — wants the embargo to be lifted," she writes. "Recent
polls have even shown that a majority of Miami Cubans now support
lifting the embargo."

The
percentage "might be even higher if the U.S. public were aware
that the blockade is actually costing them more than the Cubans,
something that is finally beginning to dawn on the U.S. business
community," the writer says.

As
she tells it, "representatives of a dozen leading U.S. business
organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, signed a
letter in December urging Barack Obama to scrap the embargo. The
letter pegs the cost to the U.S. economy at $1.2 billion per year."

The
Washington-based Cuban Policy Foundation (CPF) estimates the annual
loss to the U.S. in sales and exports caused by the "embargo"
to be up to $4.84 billion. That figure far exceeds Cuba’s estimates
of the loss to Cuba: about $685 million annually.

Beyond
the economic costs for those who impose the blockade, it has deprived
U.S. citizens of Cuba’s medical breakthroughs. "Cuba has
developed the first meningitis B vaccine; treatments for the eye
disease retinitis
pigmentosa;
a preservative for unrefrigerated milk; PPG, a cholesterol-reducing
drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effects […and] CimaVax
EGF, the first therapeutic vaccine for lung cancer," the article
tells U.S. readers.

Citing
research data from the Johns Hopkins Institute and Cuba’s Institute
of Economic Research, Pepper maintains that although the blockade has
always cost the United States more, the gap has widened considerably,
and that Cuba’s diversification and increased trade with other
countries has widened the gap between the costs to the blockaded
nation and the costs to the blockader.

Pepper
points out that Cuba has suffered a greater economic hit relative to
its size and resources. And she predicts that, although lifting the
blockade will inevitably boost Cubans’ living standard, the
nation’s economy will still be saddled with its colonial legacy as a
monocrop producer. Unequal trade terms enforced by treaties and
organizations such as the World Trade Organization, the World Bank,
and the International Monetary Fund weigh on the semicolonial status
of poor countries. "It is useful to remember this uneven playing
field whenever making U.S.-Cuba comparisons," the article says.

The
author also points out that "regardless of all these obstacles,
the socialist island has managed to provide its inhabitants with what
the United States, one of the most affluent countries in the world,
so far has not: free top-notch health care, free university and
graduate school education, and subsidized food and utilities."

The
article also provides data about several aspects where Cuba compares
favorable with the United States, despite the effects of the
blockade:

• Housing:
  In Cuba, 85 percent of Cubans own their own homes; mortgage payments
  can’t exceed 10 percent of the combined household income.

• Joblessness:
  Cuba’s unemployment rate is only 1.8 percent, according to CIA
  data, compared with 7.6 percent (and rising) in the United States.

• Literacy:
  The adult literacy rate in Cuba (99.8 percent) is higher than the
  United States’ rate (97 percent).

• Infant
  mortality: Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate (4.7 per 1,000
  live births) than the United States’ (6.0).

• Prisons:
  Cuba’s rate of incarceration — about 487 per 100,000, according to
  the United Nation’s Development Program — is considerably lower
  than the U.S. rate of 738 per 100,000.

The
author ends her article with a question: "If the only concrete
threat the Cuban Revolution poses to the United States these days is
the threat of a good example, isn’t it high time we bury the
blockade?"

Manuel
E. Yepe Menéndez is a lawyer, economist and journalist. He works as
a professor at the Higher Institute for International Relations in
Havana.