Maximum Pressure Sanctions on Cuba are Un-American

On June 30th, the U.S. State Department announced a new “Maximum Pressure”  policy that focuses on cutting off tourism to Cuba and targeting both direct and indirect foreign transactions with the Caribbean’s largest island nation. Also known as secondary sanctions, these actions punish third countries engaging with the island to starve its people into submission. 

While the Cuban government shows its usual astuteness in its response to efforts to tighten the embargo, this one comes at a time when the island nation is particularly struggling economically. Tourism receipts have crashed from nearly 5 million visitors since the Obama policy of normalization a decade ago to closer to one million today. The current policy aims to push this as close to zero as possible. An estimated 1.4 million Cubans have left the island since 2021 which leaves the country with the same population it had in 1986. This mass exodus is not inspiring political or economic reform. It is only motivating more people to leave, and we already know where many will choose to go.

The embargo against Cuba is buttressed by Cuban American brethren who are also suffering. I know about this suffering firsthand. My parents left Cuba as orphaned teenagers in 1960 as part of a program aptly named Peter Pan.  At the same time, my great uncle began serving a 17-year sentence in the notoriously harsh Presidio prison for transporting a piece of equipment to counter revolutionaries in the Escambray mountains. He was tortured there and was never the same again. 

I know both sides of the Cuban story.  have traveled and worked in Cuba as a marine biologist my entire adult life. Geographically, Cuba encompasses more than 50 percent of the land area we know as “the Caribbean.” It holds the most significant biological and cultural diversity in the region. Its people are hardworking, passionate and resilient. These features are immediately evident to anyone who has visited. What I experience with every visit is a populace committed to sustaining their rich natural and cultural heritage. But the intensified embargo puts all this at risk. Its relentless vice-like pressures cause every Cuban to suffer daily. Walk the streets of Havana and you will see children, parents, and grandparents doing their best to get through each day. 

After sixty-five years, the embargo doesn’t seem to be accomplishing its objectives. It neither gives Cuban Americans the free homeland they long for nor does it free Cubans from dependence on rations. 

My work there will continue since Cuba’s coral reefs remain one of the few remaining spots of hope for the wider Caribbean coral ecosytems I study and protect. My home state of Florida, whose coral ecosystems are flatlining, is a major beneficiary of marine biodiversity from Cuba and other Caribbean islands. Fish and sea turtles migrate back and forth between the island and the U.S. mainland and ecosystem recovery in the U.S. may be largely dependent on our ability to protect what remains in Cuba. 

What can we do? Calling our US representatives is a great way to build momentum for a legislative change but it is unlikely to gain much momentum under the present administration. Former US Senator Jeff Flake (R-AZ) has perhaps given us the most promising opportunity to inspire sustainable reforms in Cuba when he said that the most striking thing about US embargo against Cuba was its infringement against our constitutional right to travel anywhere we please. Further restricting travel doesn’t sound very American. Perhaps we should follow his lead - go see the place for yourself and ask a Cuban cousin, priest, marine scientist, entrepreneur, or artist how the US embargo impacts their daily life. There are 12 different travel categories under which travel remains legal. Just make sure you stay at a private residence and not a hotel run by the Cuban military. 

The embargo only serves to disinform and disengage further, especially in South Florida. It is at its core un-American.