Fact check: How does U.S. embargo affect Cuba?
Amid news surrounding protests in Cuba, a widely shared Facebook post asserts U.S. sanctions on Cuba restrict the country from trading with other countries, too. PolitiFact checks that claim.
Posted — UpdatedAmid news surrounding protests in Cuba, a widely shared Facebook post asserts U.S. sanctions on Cuba restrict the country from trading with other countries, too.
"People are either unaware or being purposely obtuse about the U.S. blockade on Cuba," reads the post, a screenshot of a tweet. "Do you realize it doesn’t just mean they can’t trade with the U.S.? Cuba can’t trade with ANY country or ANY company whatsoever, threatening other people who may want to help."
Experts who spoke to PolitiFact said the claim is wrong, misinterpreting some of the nuances of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Cuba does trade with multiple countries, but the embargo can make it difficult for any foreign companies to do business in the country.
"There are many people who consider that the U.S.-Cuba sanctions program violates public international law, so they see it as an illegal program," Gabilondo said, "and they see it as illegal because the Cuba sanctions that are imposed by OFAC apply very broadly, not only to U.S. companies but also to foreign companies that are domiciled in other countries. So many people think that the sanctions amount to an illegal blockade."
The history of the U.S. embargo on Cuba
Cuba is permitted to trade with many other countries
"It’s really to favor U.S. farmers and agricultural interests. (Cuba) was a very important market for U.S. farmers," Gabilondo said. "So even though the sanctions generally prohibit trade, there are some exceptions."
Maxwell said, despite these trade relationships, the U.S. embargo does have an impact on what goods Cuba receives from other countries. For example, if any trading good contains 10% of U.S. created content, it must go through U.S. law in order to be exported into Cuba.
"When you think of complicated things like airplanes or oil drilling platforms or scientific or medical equipment, sometimes those things are caught up in that 10%," Maxwell said. "And so U.S. law does not allow that to be exported to Cuba even though 90% or 89% was produced in France or Canada, or something like that."
"Every president since (1996), Clinton, Bush and Obama, had suspended the rule. President Trump enacted it," Maxwell said. "And so in the last two years there’s been about 35-40 lawsuits filed from different folks for allegedly trafficking in Cuban properties."
Lillian Guerra, professor in Cuban and Caribbean history at the University of Florida, called the claim "patently false." She said that things began to change for Cuba when the Soviet Union collapsed.
"One by one, as Cuba adopted the reforms of 1991 and the Latin American dictatorships and right wing regimes fell, the ‘unilateral’ nature of the U.S. embargo that kept them in line and froze Cuba out of direct trade with its barrio, collapsed," Guerra told PolitiFact.
Guerra further stated that multiple countries have a company in Cuba, including China, Brazil, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Italy and Canada.
PolitiFact ruling
A Facebook claim stated that the U.S. embargo on Cuba blocks the country from trading with any country or company whatsoever.
Embargo is the official term used by the U.S. government to describe the sanctions on Cuba. An expert pointed out that the term blockade is used by someone who believes the sanctions to be illegal due to its broad reach.
Experts and evidence shows that Cuba can and has traded with other countries. While the nuances in the U.S. embargo can make it difficult for foreign companies to trade with the country, there is no evidence that they can’t.
We rate this claim False.
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