Cuba Scholar Lou Perez Says End the Embargo

Renowned scholar of Cuba Louis A. Perez Jr. makes the case at CNN.com for an end to the failed U.S. policy of embargo against Cuba. He begins:

In April 2009, the White House released a presidential memorandum declaring that democracy and human rights in Cuba were “national interests of the United States.”

Assistant Secretary of State Arturo Valenzuela repeated the message in May of this year to the Cuban-American National Foundation in Miami.

The Obama administration, he said, wanted “to promote respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms … in ways that will empower the Cuban people and advance our national interests.”

Fine words. But if the administration really wanted to do something in the national interest, it would end the 50-year-old policy of political and economic isolation of Cuba.

The Cuban embargo can no longer even pretend to be plausible.

Read the full article, “Want change in Cuba? End U.S. embargo.”

Perez is author of numerous books on Cuba, including Cuba in the American Imagination: Metaphor and the Imperial Ethos. To learn more about the other award-winning books Perez has published with UNC Press, visit his author page.