[Marxism] Margot Pepper: Blockade Costs US Economy More Than Cuba's

[Walter Lippmann <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Margot PepperÂs memoir of her year working in Cuba at
at the bottom of the Special Period is both enlightening
and highly informative. Here she helps explain in ways
ordinary people can understand how WashingtonÂs blockade
of Cuba harms the basic interests of the people of the
United States. ItÂs this kind of educational materials
which need to be widely circulated among the very ill-
informed people of the United States of America.)
======================================================

From: Pepper <mpepper@xxxxxxx>
Sent: Jan 10, 2009 6:45 PM
To: Freedom Voices <wall@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Blockade Costs US Economy More Than Cuba's

Hi venerated colleagues and loved ones,
50 years after the Cuban Revolution's founding, thought you'd be  
interested in how it affects us.
Best wishes to you for the new year.  May it be fulfilling and alegre.
-Margot



Â2009 Margot   
Pepper 
                                                                                
                                                760 words
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BLOCKADE COSTS U.S. ECONOMY MORE THAN CUBAâS


By Margot Pepper

The U.S. blockade is causing more economic damage to the United States  
than it is to Cuba.  A December letter signed by a dozen leading U.S.  
business organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, urged  
President-elect Barack Obama to initiate the process of scrapping the  
47-year old embargo.  The letter pegs the cost to the US economy at  
$1.2 billion per year, an estimate made by the International Trade  
Commission in 2001.  More recent sources put the projected 2009 loss  
at $3.6 billion annually in lost sales.

Running an blockade is an expensive proposition. Beside the  
astronomical cost of lost trade opportunities, there are increased  
distribution costs involved in trading with countries farther than  
Cubaâs 90 miles proximity, in addition to the millions spent by the  
Treasury Department to enforce its rules.  Furthermore, the United  
States spends $27 million each year to broadcast Radio and TV Martà to  
what critics have termed a black hole, since the television signals  
are effectively blocked by the Cuban government.  According to the  
Council on Hemispheric Affairs, this figure has reached half a billion  
dollars in the last twenty years.

According to the non-profit Cuba Policy Foundation (CPF), run by a  
former U.S. ambassador, the blockade is causing the U.S. economy to  
lose up to $1.24 billion a year in agricultural exports alone, and up  
to $3.6 billion more a year in associated economic output. The CPF  
states that Arkansas alone is suffering half a billion dollars in lost  
business annually. According to the American Society of Travel Agents,  
if the U.S. were to lift its travel restrictions to Cuba, nearly 1.8  
million Americans would visit the country by 2010. This could add to  
U.S. gross domestic product by as much as $1.6 billion, the society  
says.

According to Johns Hopkins University, U.S. businesses have been  
missing out on up to $2 billion in annual trade with Cuba, a figure  
which translates to $1 billion more in lost trade for the United  
States than for Cuba each year.  In 2002 the Cuban government  
estimated the loss to the Cubans at about $685 million annually. A  
December 2008 report by the BBC stated that, to date, the blockade has  
cost Cuba $93 billion in lost revenue since its introduction in 1962.

In 1992, according to Johns Hopkins University, U.S. businesses had  
lost well over $30 billion in trade, contrasting with the $28.6  
billion lost by Cubans, according to a 1992 study published by the  
Cuban Central Planning Board's Institute of Economic Research.

No matter whose figures are used, the cost to both countries has more  
than tripled in less than twenty years--something which neither  
citizenry can afford.  Even so, Cuba has managed to provide its  
inhabitants with what the most affluent country in the world has been  
unable to achieve thus far:  free top-notch health care, free  
university and graduate school education and subsidized food,  
utilities, and housing which has virtually eliminated homelessness.    
The fact that a poor, colonized country can meet the basic needs of  
all its citizens, underscores how inexpensive such an undertaking  
really is and could prove instructive as well to the president-elect.

In addition to dealing the United States an economic blow, the  
blockade has deprived U.S. citizens of Cuba's medical breakthroughs  
such as vaccines for meningitis B,  cures for retinitis pigmentosa; a  
preservative for un-refrigerated milk and PPG, a cholesterol-reducing  
drug gobbled up by foreigners for its side effect:  increased sexual  
potency.

The CPF found that 52 percent of Americans nationwide say the blockade  
should be scrapped, and that 67 per cent of Americans want to lift the  
U.S. ban on travel to Cuba immediately.   Recent polls have also shown  
a shifting in support of a majority of Miami Cubans toward lifting the  
blockade.

The origins of the blockade date back to Cuba's expropriation of US  
companies.  According the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission,  
Cuba "nationalized some $1.8 billion worth of U.S. owned property."   
At five percent interest over the last 50 years,  some argue that the  
United States has more than $4.5 billion pending in 5,911 separate  
claims against the government of Cuba.

Cubans argue that early in the century, the United States had  
appropriated 70 percent of Cuban land, three quarters of Cuba's  
primary industry.  They say the ensuing life-threatening colonial  
conditions left them no recourse but to expel the "Yankis,â just as  
the "Yankees" here had once expelled the British.  If we are to hold  
Cubans accountable for $4.5 billion, one can only gasp at what we owe  
the British after 233 years including  accrued interest.

###


Margot Pepper is a Mexican-born journalist whose memoir about her year  
working in Cuba, Through the Wall:  A Year in Havana,  was nominated  
for the 2006 American Book Award. http://www.margotpepper.com/  and 
http://freedomvoices.org/new/node/93 
   Her work has been published internationally by the Utne Reader,  
Monthly Review, Z-net, Counterpunch, the San Francisco Bay Guardian,  
City Lights, Hampton Brown, Rethinking Schools and others.
  

=========================================
     WALTER LIPPMANN
     Havana, Cuba
     Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
     http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
     "Cuba - Un ParaÃso bajo el bloqueo"
=========================================

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