Obama Extends Cuban Trade Embargo

President Barack Obama extended the 47-year-old U.S. trade embargo of Cuba for another year, noting in a statement that it was in the U.S. national interest to extend the Trading with the Enemy Act, which covers the trade embargo.

Obama's move was widely viewed as largely symbolic. Although the Trading with the Enemy Act was used by the Kennedy administration as the legal basis for imposing the embargo on Cuba in 1962, the Helms-Burton law of 1996 would have kept those sanctions in place even if Obama had not signed the extension. The ultimate decision to eliminate the embargo rests with the U.S. Congress. In addition, Helms-Burton says that the embargo can only be lifted when Cuba is deemed to have begun a democratic transition.
Although Obama has removed some regulatory barriers to doing business with Cuba, some critics saw Obama's official extension of the embargo as a missed opportunity to show further willingness to ease relations between the two countries. Amnesty International, the human rights organization, had called on Obama not to sign the extension, arguing that the trade embargo interferes with Cubans' human right to health care as enshrined in United Nations covenants.

The U.S. administration continues to demand that Cuba must first show signs of reform before lifting the embargo. U.S. presidents have signed one-year extensions of the law since the 1970s. President George W. Bush signed the last extension on September 12, 2008.

Next week the United Nations General Assembly is expected to condemn the embargo at its annual meeting, as that body has routinely condemned it in the past.

Contact Alan M. Field at afield@joc.com.