Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) “pledged Wednesday to block a House bill that would repeal the American travel ban to Cuba as well as boost U.S. farm exports to the island nation,” The Hill reports.
Here’s his full press release statement:
U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) released the following statement today on the House Agriculture Committee’s markup of legislation to lift the Cuba travel ban (H.R. 4645):
“The legislation being considered today in the House Agriculture Committee would enrich a regime that denies its own people basic human rights.
Maybe I'm off base here, but I would say a government prohibition on travel to a nearby country constitutes a "denial of basic human rights."
It's true the embargo hasn't yielded much in the way of results, but I'm sure that's only because the we were just getting started during the first fifty years. It's the sixth decade when results really start to show!
3 comments:
Boost farm exports? The ban exists to kill Cuban agricultural competition for US farmers.
That and to nurture democracy by denying anti-communists the opportunity to buy capitalist goods.
Funny thing about capitalism and freedom, they tend to beget more of themselves. Menendez is most likely posturing for his pets in agri-business like a good little democrat.
Actually, Menendez reflects the will and opinion of the Cuban refugees who are now US citizens.
Castro stole everything they owned, killed and/or tortured 1000's of their neighbors, relatives, and friends, and reduced Cuba to a subsistence economy.
Despite the fact that he and Obama are soul-mates, I think the embargo should continue.
The embargo doesn't do one bit of harm to Castro and his lavish lifestyle. Embargoes never harm those in power. They never have. Saddam still had his palaces, while an estimated 1 million Iraqi's died.
The people harmed are the average Cubans, who no longer have the option of buying American goods. (Wait, which nation is the decentralized, free and capitalist one, and which is the centralized, protectionist, coerced one?)
The other, Forgotten Man is the American consumer who is forced to buy substandard and artificially expensive agriproducts due to protectionism.
Castro, a product of popular hatred against the ancien puppet regime, did certainly do horrendous things for decades.
Punishing the average Cuban further is a ludicrous proposal.
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