Rare News Desk
You don’t have to completely agree with Barack Obama’s recent détente with Cuba to find some of the conservative reaction wanting.
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It would be better to separate the issues of trade with Cuba and how the governments of free societies interact with the Castro dictatorship. Obama, without much indication of Cuban reform, has married them unnecessarily.
Even trade with Cuba is no panacea, as the coexistence of Communist Party misrule and modified markets has (for now) shown in China. Given the Castros’ ability to keep market gains from the Cuban people, it may not even constitute real free trade with Cuba.
No U.S. taxpayer dollars should go to the government of Cuba, which would like to turn the rest of the island into a prison like Guantanamo Bay. We should not be naïve about what foreign aid can do in a country that is, like North Korea, a Stalinist museum.
A similar debate took place more than twenty years ago regarding the U.S. embargo on Vietnam. Lifting the embargo did not lead to the fall of the Vietnamese Communist Party, against whom Americans once waged war. But neither did it seem to much improve the regime’s position at the expense of the people.
But sanctions and trade embargoes affect real people. We should not adopt such policies lightly as a gesture of distaste for loathsome foreign regimes. They constitute an expensive middle finger.
Costing ordinary people money so elites can feel good about themselves is what liberals do, not conservatives.
Unfortunately, when it comes to foreign affairs some conservatives seem to forget that. Consider this tweet from the conservative writer Ben Shapiro.
“Free trade with tyrannies does not mean freedom for citizens of those tyrannies,” he wrote. “It just means better living standards under tyranny.”
As it happens, to the extent that voluntary exchanges are permitted between Cuban and American citizens, Cubans can enjoy more freedom. And with trade restrictions eased—most of the embargo will still be in effect because Congress must act to repeal it (though with Obama, one never knows)—it will now be the Communists preventing such exchanges, not us.
But why do we want to be responsible for lower “living standards under tyranny?” The Communists are the main source of the Cuba’s poverty, but they have for decades used the U.S. embargo as a scapegoat. Without it, they would no longer be able to deflect the blame.
What does it benefit America to contribute, even marginally, to the Cuban people’s misery? Rather than encouraging them to shake off the Castro brothers’ shackles, it makes them less capable of doing so.
Insofar as rank-and-file Cubans know the U.S. plays even a small role in their suffering, it could even rally them behind the anti-American government in Havana instead of seeking greater freedom.
This lack of empathy distorts a lot of conservative foreign-policy thinking. The people and even the worst governments do not live in hermetically sealed containers. The sanctions we impose, the bombs we drop, are often felt more by citizens than dictators.
Conservatives would not react to injuries imposed by foreigners by punishing their own government, even if it was run by Barack Obama. I lived in Boston during the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Days later, I remember watching crowds of liberals huddled around barroom televisions watching George W. Bush in rapt silence, then bursting into applause when he finished speaking.
Obviously Obama and Bush, however much they left to be desired, are not Raul Castro or the ayatollahs. But the rallying around effect is similar. People forget politics and ideology, remembering their deeper allegiances to country, home, family, and friends.
Maybe the embargo was necessary during the Cold War, when Fidel Castro was a significant source of funding to anti-American activities. But that threat has since waned substantially. The Soviet Union has been dead for nearly a quarter-century and Vladimir Putin’s Russia is poorer, weaker, and animated by nationalism rather than Marxist-Leninism.
As William F. Buckley Jr. wrote when he called for lifting the Cuban embargo twenty years ago, rescinding it now is not the same as condemning it retroactively.
While some fear letting more money get into the Castros’ hands, the outward evidence suggests the embargo isn’t hurting the government as much as the people. The regime has neither fallen and the influence on its behavior has been limited at best.
Conservatives believe the burden of proof should be on those who would restrict trade and peaceful voluntary exchanges, not the other way around. In this case, that burden should fall on those still defending the embargo.
And conservatives should apply this logic to foreign policy more broadly, applying the same scrutiny to sanctions and foreign wars we would to the war on poverty. With welfare, we ask if the people who we are supposed to be helping are really being hurt.
It’s time to ask the same questions about foreign policy.
