Pros, cons must be weighed on lifting embargo on Cuba

Many Americans likely will best remember President Barack Obama’s historic visit to Cuba this week by the awkward and limp handshake shared between the American chief executive and Raul Castro, president of the island Communist nation 90 miles from the U.S. mainland.

That droopy and half-hearted arm-raising of a handshake made at a joint press conference in Havana on Tuesday also serves as an apt metaphor for the current status of U.S.-Cuban relations.

To be sure, the first visit by an American president in nearly 90 years to Cuba is indeed historic and promising. It presented the strongest evidence yet of Obama’s steady path throughout his presidency of rapprochement and warming of relations with Cuba.

Beginning in his first year in office, Obama reversed some of the restrictions on travel to Cuba set by his predecessor, George W. Bush. By 2014, the president announced that the two nations would restore full diplomatic ties, a first since the tense era of the Cuban missile crisis five decades earlier. That came on the heels of a prisoner swap mediated in part by Pope Francis.

But much like the contorted Castro-Obama handshake, the future of Cuban-American ties and their expansion lack any guarantee of firmness.

After all, no true and full normalization of relations can take place without lifting the comprehensive trade embargo placed on Cuba in the early years of President John F. Kennedy’s administration, shortly after Fidel Castro’s Communist overthrow.

From Obama’s perspective, the time today is ripe for lifting the taut trade sanctions. “It makes sense for us to be able to sell into Cuba, to do business with Cubans, to show our business practices and how we treat workers,” he said.

REASONS FOR RESERVATIONS

Many Americans and many lawmakers on Capitol Hill, however, do not share that optimistic view of the president – with legitimate reasons for reservations. That’s why it is up to Congress to investigate the myriad costs and benefits associated with ending the embargo. Representatives and senators should put election-year politicking and gamesmanship aside to conduct hearings promptly. A consensus then could be reached on the wisdom of the move after many gnawing questions about it are answered.

Would such a move include pledges by Cuba to lessen its record of human-rights abuses of its citizens and of foreigners? Those signs are not all that promising, as the Cuban government detained more than 8,600 political activists in 2015 and made about 9,000 such arrests in 2014, according to the U.S. Commerce Department. And just this week at the joint press conference, Castro incredulously denied the nation even holds any political dissidents.

Would lifting the embargo benefit the people of Cuba or the dictatorial regime? Too often in the past, government corruption even amid economic expansion has enriched the regime at the expense of its workers and citizenry.

These and other questions surrounding Cuba’s likelihood to engage in free trade and to honor all terms of trade agreements will loom large over the debate on carrying normalized U.S.-Cuba relations to the next step. Such debate is worth commencing, but it’s also one for which all parties involved should not rush to judgment.