After More Than Half a Century, Cuban Embargo Persists

Cuban Ambassador Lianys Torres Rivera on U.S. relations, the future of the embargo, and Cuban society.

by Sharon Maeda and Agueda Pacheco Flores

What do China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam have in common? They are all identified by the U.S. Department of State as communist countries. Yet, they all have working — and, in some cases, robust — trade relations with the U.S.

In 2022, the U.S. sold more than $195.5 billion worth of American goods to China, $40 million to Laos, $13.8 billion to Vietnam, and a little over $4 million to North Korea.

Then there's Cuba.

Just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, Cuba and its people have lived with the longest-lasting economic sanctions in geopolitical history (62 years, to be exact). Known as the embargo, this enduring relic of the Cold War has broad impacts, not just on Cuba but also on the rest of the world.

"We were born under the blockade, our children were born under the blockade, and it's a policy that we don't want to continue," said Lianys Torres Rivera.

Rivera is the Cuban ambassador to the United States and the first woman to lead the delegation here in the U.S. Today, it's her job to rally support for and work toward ending the embargo against Cuba. The ambassador has been in the Cuban diplomatic corps since 1994 and was ambassador to Vietnam before coming to the U.S. To discuss the embargo, the Emerald recently sat down with Rivera, who has been traveling around the U.S. meeting with communities and politicians alike in an effort to work through the doings of history.

The embargo goes all the way back to 1958. At the time, the U.S. was experiencing its "Red Scare" era, a fear of communism that gripped the country, and Cuba became a casualty of the fearmongering. In Cuba, a liberal revolution had led to, among many things, the nationalizing of the country's oil refineries and agricultural lands, some of which were U.S. owned. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then passed partial trade sanctions against Cuba.

What started with Eisenhower only escalated with President John F. Kennedy. JFK doubled down and failed an Eisenhower plan to overthrow Fidel Castro's government, and he then signed an act to prohibit aid to Cuba, signed executive actions widening the scope of sanctions, and, finally, following the Cuban Missile Crisis, prohibited travel to the island and froze all Cuban assets in the U.S.

More than half a century on, Rivera says the sanctions continue to affect Cuba's ability to work regularly with the rest of the world. "There are no banks that want to work with us," Rivera explained. "For example, when we need to do an operation with a company in France, it's a headache to try to find the way to do the transaction."

As a result of the lengthy and far-reaching sanctions, which can be found on the U.S. Department of the Treasury website, Cuba cannot buy anything whose components are more than 10% from the U.S. This is why in Cuba, the sanctions are known as the "blockade" as opposed to the "embargo." Rivera says Cuba, like most countries, also has to manage a changing climate, housing crisis, and drug crisis, all while under a blockade.

"We call it a blockade because it has such a broad reach; it doesn't just impact Cuba, it impacts third countries, and it doesn't just impact our economic relations," Rivera said. "When it impacts our economy, finances, and commerce, it impacts public health, it impacts education, it impacts the daily life of every Cuban."

While doing international business may be stymied for Cuba because of the sanctions, its participation on the world stage isn't. For example, Rivera says Cuba has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, supporting a sovereign state for Palestine while also condemning the illegal Israeli settlements. "This doesn't mean we are against Israeli people or Jewish people," Rivera added.

Regarding the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rivera says Cuba condemns armed invasions of any country, citing Cuba's own history with colonial occupation.

Despite voicing its views on current events as a member of the United Nations, Cuba is still bogged down by the sanctions of the past, which didn't end with Kennedy. In 1996, the Helms-Burton Act furthered sanctions against Cuba by extending the embargo to foreign companies attempting to do business with the island, essentially penalizing any that do so with enormous fines (think millions and billions).

"Even when countries and companies want to have relations with us, they feel pressured by the sanctions," Rivera said. "So when there's a company willing to obviate the sanctions, the price Cuba has to pay for something they want to buy can be two or three times the amount any other country has to pay for the same product, because the company runs a risk and needs to protect themselves from that risk by elevating [the price]."

Cuba has found workarounds to the embargo. In some cases, non-governmental organizations will sponsor restorations, or private, self-employed people will order their own products straight from producers. And despite the sanctions, at the end of the day, some companies just take the risk to work with Cuba.

In the years since the Helms-Burton Act, things have changed. No longer the land of the Red Scare, the U.S. has grown increasingly friendly toward what may have come across as communist in a bygone era. In 2010, the Affordable Care Act changed the lives of millions of Americans, and during the 2016 presidential elections, a democratic socialist ran a fairly competitive nominee campaign. According to an Axios poll, positive feelings toward capitalism are falling while positive feelings toward socialism rise.

There is no better example of the shift than the growing support for the end of the embargo among Americans. From Midwestern farmers who want to sell their grain, to younger Cuban Americans who want to freely visit and learn about their country and ancestors, to religious organizations with humanitarian missions, to activists who advocate for lifting the embargo, like the Seattle/Cuba Friendship Committee, which has rallied and stood on street corners with banners since the '60s.

"In Congress, we have more than 100 members who have sent letters two or three times asking President Biden to take Cuba off the State-Sponsored Terrorist list and better relations with Cuba," Rivera said. "There's more than 100 resolutions that have been approved over the years across the country in city councils, legislatures, and unions asking the government to have better relations with Cuba, take us off the terrorist organizations list, and cooperate with us on biotechnology and public health and other sectors."

Rivera estimates that combined, those resolutions amount to support from 50 million American citizens.

It's not just millions of Americans who want to see the end of the embargo. Every year since 1992, the United Nations General Assembly has passed a resolution demanding the U.S. end the embargo against Cuba. The U.S. and Israel are the only two countries to consistently vote against the resolution.

Still, even at the presidential level, some strides have been made.

In 2008, President Barack Obama began talks with Ral Castro, loosening travel restrictions, authorizing remittances that could be sent to family members in Cuba, and reestablishing Cuba's presence in the U.S. as an embassy with recognized ambassadors to the U.S. Previously, the U.S. had referred to the relationship with a less-than-diplomatic status, calling Cuba's facilities an "interest section" as opposed to an "embassy." When President Donald Trump took over in 2016, he reverted to many of the original prohibitions. President Joe Biden has moved to return to the diplomatic and economic relationships of the Obama administration, but there is still a long way to go.

While Biden reinstated remittances and travel to Cuba and recently opened some banking for Cubans, as well as removed Cuba from the list of countries deemed uncooperative on counterterrorism, he did not remove Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism list.

Rivera says Biden could do more to return to where relations left off with Obama, work that Trump reversed. "Biden, with one signature, could erase all that and return to where we were in January 2017," she said.

With elections around the corner and Trump once again a serious contender at the polls, Rivera says Cubans "have come to the conclusion that we have to advance regardless of who is in the White House."

📸 Featured Image: Lianys Torres Rivera (center, front row holding the banner) is the Cuban ambassador to the United States and the first woman to lead the delegation here in the U.S. (Photo: Sharon Maeda)