The United States Embargo on Cuba Research Paper

The United States Embargo on Cuba - Research Paper Example It was the year 1492, when Christopher Columbus had sailed out to the ocean blue. He came across an island which was enriched with beauty so fascinating that he had never seen it before. As years went by, the Island of Cuba gradually developed into one of the most booming and substantial Latin American nation with specialties like lush plantations, coffee and its all time favorite tobacco. However, on the other hand, for almost a period of 50 years, the Caribbean nation has continuously been engaged in this courageous battle that involves its super power neighbor, the United States of America.1 In an ongoing effort towards the so called nationalization of private property in Cuba, America has performed one of the longest travel and as well as economic blockades against any specific nation. Finally after passing away of a 50 year’s milestone, global community seems to be almost united with a belief that these sanctions against Cuba have actually failed drastically. A step furth er, the world is now wondering as to why these American policies continue to this day. To gain a full understanding to the conflict between the United States and Cuba, we must talk about the situation that prevailed well beyond this recent 50-year deadlock and analyze aspects that emerged after the Spanish-American War. In 1898, Cuba emerged as a territory of the US, along with Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico. Not much time had passed that in the year 1902, Theodore Roosevelt who was then the US President permitted Cuba to declare its independence as a free state. However certain terms and conditions were applied. He made an agreement with the new formed government, securing two of the major advantages. One, America holds the right to oversee Cuba’s financial and international affairs. Two, he also asked for leasing of a naval base located at Guantanamo Bay.2 As we further look into the provisions and focus on the enlarged scope of the embargo, it is noticed that the United States had placed its initial sanction and restriction on the country, Cuba in the year 1960. This was done via restrictions placed on the importations of sugar cane from Cuba. This first sanction was imposed as an answer to the step taken by the Cuban government of nationalization of foreign assets as well as other organizations. This angered the United States as most of these businesses belonged to the citizens of the United States. Since then, the US government authorities have extended such sanctions against Cuba. As a result, today it can be observed that the trade embargo has eventually broadened into an entire comprehensive set of financial, economical and commercial sanctions which are documented within regulations such as Act of 1917: Trading with the Enemy, Act of 1961: Foreign Assistance, Assets Control Regulations of Cuba (1963), Cuban Democracy Act (Torricelli Act 1992), The Trade Sanctions Reform (2000), and the 2000 Act of Export Enhancement.34 Several other sanction s and restrictions were further imposed due to which this Cuban embargo is known as a â€Å"comprehensive set of US sanctions† imposed on a nation. The restrictions that were imposed in the embargo had major impacts on the social and basic rights of people. This set of so called laws helped towards deprivation of Cuba from availing technological developments, medicines, substances for purifying water, food as well as electrical power. Not only this, economic rights were also neglected and added to the negative impact of the embargo. It extensively affected the environmental and socioeconomic aspects of