Lift the Embargo Against Cuba and Drill, Drill, Drill
The 47-year-old trade embargo against Cuba has been shaken by the revelation that drilling for oil and natural gas is about to take place less than 50 miles off the U.S. coast — in Cuban waters. The Cuban government is not only sitting on a potential oil bonanza but it has already awarded oil and gas exploration leases to companies from Canada, China, Spain, India, Venezuela and Norway. And Cuba is negotiating with Brazil's Petrobras, a company with years of experience in deepwater drilling.
If U.S. firms are forbidden by their own government to drill for oil and gas in Cuban waters, then the national oil companies of other countries will benefit while our investor-owned companies watch from the sidelines.
Congress should lift the trade embargo against Cuba. It is a failed economic policy that has stood since the Kennedy administration, but it has hurt ordinary Cubans, while failing to bring about the intended changes in human rights. On the other hand, resuming normalized trade relations could contribute to what everybody wants: a more productive, open and cooperative relationship with Cuba.
~It's Time to End the Cuban Trade Embargo
16 Comments:
Just declare that the oilfields fall within U.S. territorial waters and dispatch the Navy to enforce our claim.
If Cuba wants to challenge that declaration, let 'em try.
It is interesting that the same leftists, who scream bloody murder and file lawsuits every time a U.S. company wants a drilling permit, are silent when their socialist hero threatens to despoil the environment.
Let's buy them all a one way ticket to their socialist "paradise".
"Just declare that the oilfields fall within U.S."
Unfortunately, the Democrats would likely stop the drilling.
I think that Anonymous@10:02 and QT are both correct. If anything this whole situation just points out the hypocrisy of the left. While I am willing to listen to arguments for ending the embargo, there are at least some valid reasons for our continuing it (... anyone remember this story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090605/pl_mcclatchy/3246818
)
However, there really isn't any rational reason for us to not drill for oil in the fields directly off of our shores.
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Robert is right. We need to get really, really tough with Cuba. They are little squirts.
This is a smart move by Cuba. They need more revenue and oil is the perfect way to get it. Just look at all the marvelous things Chavez is able to do as a result of oil money. It's not sustainable of course, but it's not nearly as dumb as what we're trying to do in this country which is kill off our major sources of energy with policy decisions before the market renders them uneconomic. It's like the Lakers benching their starters in the first game of the playoffs in favor of pulling a few guys out of the stands in the hopes that with enough coaching and support they might be able to win the game.
We need to make the stomachs of Cubans ache in hunger for freedom and democracy, giving them hope that with the death of that SOB in power, reform MUST come.
This is repulsive. We don't have to destroy the village to save it.
If you want to promote freedom and democracy, lift the embargo. Capitalism in this instance is like a virtuous parasite that would destroy the communist host. Ending the embargo would be the equivalent of sending Lenin in a sealed train to Russia.
Except instead of Lenin we'd be sending Mickey Mouse, Abercrombie & Fitch and Paris Hilton. The commies would never have a chance.
BTW, same for North Korea. We're the ones with the better ideas and philosophy. We should be trying to promote and inject them into these countries, not isolate them.
Seems like a non-sequitur to me! Instead of proposing to enrich the Communist Dictatorship, how about we repeal the idiotic and self-destructive embargo on drilling in OUR OWN waters, which in this case, adjoin those of Cuba?
The embargo on Cuba isn't total. Cuba buys most of its food from...the United States. It's ridiculous to demonize a mortal enemy (albeit a toothless one) while simultaneously bolstering its power over its people.
skh.pcola
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We trade with Chavez so why not with Fidel? We trade with China and Russia so why not Cub? The US Cuba policy is crazy like much of what our country does.
Cuba may have a lot of oil, and they can grow palm trees, the oil yields of which have been rising. It is too bad they are run by a shoddy dictatorship. They should have a high standard of living.
Still, it may be their culture. Far East Asian countries show dramatic gains in living standards, and I suspect in 20 years will have higher living standards than we do. Culture, and native brains may trump having the right economic system.
I prefer free markets, but can anyone really say the Japanese have not done extremely well with their mixed system? That by limiting in-migration, they have kept crime and social problems down?
Who knows? Maybe in a a wide-open free market, Cuba would just be full of drug dealers and hookers and baseball players and casinos, and movie stars and hotels and coke heads and mansions surrounded by walls and body guards, and barrios stinking to high heaven. You know, like Los Angeles. Or Miami.
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You all must have missed what i stated above: Cuba gets most of it's food from the United States. Google (or Bing) "us cuba food." This isn't conjecture, it is a fact.
I want to go on vacation to Cuba too.
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