The Cuban Democracy Act
March 16, 2010
In 1992, the United States hoped to take advantage of the collapse of the Soviet Union that marked the end of Soviet influence in Cuba. The withdrawal of Soviet money and support meant that the Castro regime was weakened. “With increased economic deprivation at home and growing pressure from the Cuban people, Cuban Democracy Act supporters hoped the Castro regime would implode” (163).
Jorge Mas Canosa, the head the Cuban American National Foundation, was chiefly responsible for The Cuban Democracy Act (CDA). The bill was sponsored by New Jersey Congressman Robert Torricelli and signed into law in October 1992 (the bill is also known as the Torricelli Bill). George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton both showed support for this bill. The main goal of the bill was to tighten the U.S. embargo against Cuba in an attempt bring down Castro’s regime, free the Cuban people from tyranny, and transition the Cuban people into democracy.
As Julia Sweig writes in her book Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, “The law had two principal components: sanctions and a series of limited openings” (163). “On the sanctions side, the CDA reimposed the ban on trade with Cuba by subsidiaries of U.S. companies based in third countries, previously lifted in 1975” (163). On the sanctions side, the U.S also didn’t allow ships to dock in U.S. ports within 6 months of docking in Cuban ports. The bill also restricted Cuba’s access to U.S. currency for international transactions. Finally, the bill gave the President executive order on restricting remittances to Cuba.
As well as imposing sanctions aimed at the Castro regime, the bill was meant to show that the U.S. wasn’t an enemy but rather that they supported the Cuban people and wanted them free from oppression. Thus, the bill “allowed for telecommunications companies and the U.S. Postal Service to resume what until then had been nearly nonexistent phone and direct mail service with Cuba” (163). The Cuban Democracy Act also allowed companies to sell medical supplies and medicine to Cuba. However, the companies had to apply to the Treasury Department in order to obtain a license allowing them to sell medicine to the island.
“The CDA thus contained several provisions that, in theory if not always in practice, promoted communication with the Cuban people and created loopholes in the embargo for humanitarian and/or human rights purposes” (164). As a result of the bill’s broad guidelines for helping the Cuban people, there were many loopholes. Also, the bill gave the president “full executive privilege over the embargo…the president could still do away with most sanctions with the stroke of a pen” (165). President Clinton took advantage of these loopholes during his presidency in order to loosen sanctions and somewhat open up relations between the United States and Cuba.
My next post will look into the US-Cuba policies in place during the Clinton administration.
Source: Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know by Julia Sweig
http://www.anb.org/articles/15/15-01319.html
http://www.treas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/legal/statutes/cda.pdf
