Sanctions Regime: The Aid Paradox
The headline tells you one story. The data tells another: FIRST INSTANCE: Economic Warfare as Geopolitical Leverage (1960) The earliest documented instance of the United States employing comprehensive economic sanctions against Cuba dates to October 1960. A declassified State Department memo from Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lester D. Mallory explicitly recommended: "[T]he only foreseeable
means of alienating internal support is through disaffection and hardship based on economic dissatisfaction... every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba... a line of action which, while as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger,
desperation and overthrow of government." (U.S. Department of State, 1960) This policy, codified in the Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) of 1963, blocked virtually all financial and commercial transactions with Cuba. REPETITIONS: Codification and Expansion of the Embargo (1992, 1996) The rationale for the embargo consistently shifted, but the policy endured. Post-Cold War, as the Soviet
Union dissolved, the theoretical geopolitical threat Cuba posed diminished. Yet, rather than easing, sanctions were tightened. The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 (Torricelli Act) aimed to prevent foreign subsidiaries of U.S. companies from trading with Cuba. The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996 (Helms-Burton Act) further extraterritorialized the embargo, penalizing