1
Cuban Embargo Affirmative
2
1AC
Observation 1 is Inherency:
The US is maintaining its embargo on Cuba despite a history of failure
Chapman 4-15-13 [Steve, writer for the Chicago Tribune, has been a fellow at the American Academy in
Berlin and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and has served on the Visiting Committee of the
University of Chicago Law School, “It's Time to End the U.S. Embargo of Cuba,”
http://reason.com/archives/2013/04/15/its-time-to-end-the-us-embargo-of-cuba]
The U.S. embargo of Cuba has been in effect since 1962, with no end in sight. Fidel Castro's government
has somehow managed to outlast the Soviet Union, Montgomery Ward, rotary-dial telephones and 10 American
presidents.¶ Creative CommonsThe boycott adheres to the stubborn logic of governmental action. It was created to solve a
problem: the existence of a communist government 90 miles off our shores. It failed to solve that problem. But its failure is taken
as proof of its everlasting necessity.¶ If there is any lesson to be drawn from this dismal experience, though, it's that the economic
quarantine has been either 1) grossly ineffectual or 2) positively helpful to the regime.¶ The first would not be
surprising, if only because economic sanctions almost never work. Iraq under Saddam Hussein? Nope. Iran? Still waiting. North Korea? Don't
make me laugh.¶ What makes this embargo even less promising is that we
have so little help in trying to apply the squeeze.
Nearly 200 countries allow trade with Cuba. Tourists from Canada and Europe flock there in search of beaches, nightlife and
Havana cigars, bringing hard currency with them. So even if starving the country into submission could work, Cuba hasn't starved and won't
anytime soon.¶ Nor is it implausible to suspect that the boycott has been the best thing that ever happened to the Castro brothers, providing
them a scapegoat for the nation's many economic ills. The implacable hostility of the Yankee imperialists also serves to align Cuban nationalism
with Cuban communism. Even Cubans who don't like Castro may not relish being told what to do by the superpower next door.¶ Normally it is
no business of the federal government where private citizens want to spend their vacation time. But among those who claim to speak for the
Cuban exile community, it is anathema for anyone to visit the island as long as the communists hold power. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., was
among those lambasting the couple for daring to venture where he doesn't want them to go.¶ Rubio claimed that people who make visits to
Cuba "either don't realize or don't care that they're essentially funding the regime's systematic trampling of people's human rights." Such
activity, he said, "provides money to a cruel, repressive and murderous regime."¶ That may be true. But U.S. law allows Americans to visit the
island according to certain rules enforced by the Treasury Department, and some 500,000 people from the U.S. go each year. The
rules for
cultural trips were tightened last year after Rubio griped that they were too lax.¶ "The trip was handled according to a standard
licensing procedure for federally approved 'people to people' cultural tours to the island," reported Reuters, "and the power couple received no
special treatment, said Academic Arrangements Abroad, the New York-based group that organized the trip."¶ When it comes to sending money
to a "cruel, repressive, murderous regime," Rubio's outrage is strangely selective. The same accusation could be laid against anyone who travels
to China, Vietnam or Burma -- all of which are open to American visitors, as far as Washington is concerned.¶ Our willingness to trade with
them stems from the belief that economic improvement and contact with outsiders will foster liberalization rather than retard it. But the
opposite approach is supposed to produce this kind of progress in Cuba.
Advantage 1 is the Economy:
The US economy is in trouble- we’re on the verge of a double dip
Reddy 4-21-13 [Sudeep, The Wall Street Journal, “Economic Woes Abroad Bode Ill for the U.S.,”
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323551004578436863860612032.html]
Troubles overseas are threatening the U.S. recovery for the fourth year in a row. This time it's weakening economies abroad,
rather than tumbling financial markets, signaling turbulence ahead.¶ U.S. exports of goods to the European Union are declining outright.
Growth in overall U.S. exports has been sputtering for months, after a three-year postrecession surge. And major U.S. companies are reporting
increasingly dour overseas outlooks tied to the recession-plagued euro zone and slowing growth in other leading economies such as China.¶
The renewed
fears of a global slowdown come after months of hope that a stronger recovery was finally
taking shape.¶ Enlarge Image¶ "Every now and then you see a glimmer, things seem to improve, and then a little bit of bad news comes,"
World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu said as the world's finance ministers and central bankers gathered in Washington in recent days to
3
discuss how to revive growth.¶ The emerging troubles today are different from the scares of the past three years.¶ In 2010, 2011 and 2012,
existential fears of a euro-zone collapse spooked investors around the world. While U.S.
equity markets rose substantially over that
period, they periodically took sharp slides that frightened businesses and weighed down confidence. Despite the
financial tremors, underlying economic growth remained moderate in the U.S., and most major euro-zone economies muddled through the
early years of their crisis. U.S. exports to Europe expanded despite the clouds over the continent, helping to propel the U.S. recovery. Financial
markets have been on a tear since the European Central Bank vowed last summer to protect the euro currency. U.S. stocks, as well, have
jumped 15% since last November, buoyed in part by the Federal Reserve's aggressive bond-buying program.¶ But major economies are
languishing. The euro zone's recession is stretching out longer, China faces new fears of a slowdown and worries have re-emerged about a
"spring swoon" in the U.S.¶ "The pickup in financial markets is clearly not translating into a sustained pickup in growth and jobs," International
Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said last week. The IMF projects the global economy will expand just 3.3% this year, largely
unchanged from 2012. It expanded 5.2% in 2010, the first full year of recovery, and 4% in 2011.¶ Signs of global weakness are showing up
across corporate America.¶ General Electric Co. GE +1.91% on Friday said Europe's troubles weighed down its results during the first quarter,
despite posting higher overall profits. "We planned for Europe to be similar to 2012—down again—but it was even weaker than we had
expected," Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt said. The company's industrial revenue fell 17% in Europe, while other businesses there also
struggled.¶ Falling commodity prices—one result of slowing growth—have put a dent in orders for mining equipment that other manufacturers
are receiving. The equipment giant Caterpillar Inc. CAT +2.18% said Friday that its retail sales of machines fell 11% in the first quarter from the
same period a year earlier as demand cooled in major markets. The company's sales in the Asia-Pacific region alone were down 24% during the
quarter.¶ The
U.S. has its own share of homegrown problems adding to the overseas slowdown. An
increase in payroll taxes in January is restraining consumers, hurting retail sales and hammering
confidence. Federal budget cuts that started last month are expected to dent growth in the coming months as
government workers take furloughs and contractors cut jobs.¶ The latest hits to U.S. consumers and businesses make overseas customers more
important for U.S. companies. But economic trouble in the euro zone is ricocheting around the world and hurting other areas, such as China,
which is also seeing exports to Europe struggle. That is contributing to China's weakness and limiting how much Chinese consumers and
businesses might buy from American companies.¶ For McDonald's Corp., MCD +0.42% the world's top-selling restaurant chain, sales have
slipped at stores in China, Europe and the U.S. as trouble has spread around the globe. Sales at U.S. and European locations open at least 13
months fell more than 1% in the first quarter, while they dropped 4.6% in China.¶ McDonald's CEO Don Thompson on Friday blamed the
company's troubles in part on Europe's "persistently high unemployment rates and ongoing austerity measures" along with "soft" economic
conditions in Asia.¶ He said U.S. sales faced "significant headwinds," including wavering consumer confidence.¶ Until recently, many U.S.
investors and companies had looked past those risks to the U.S. economy by focusing on stronger growth abroad. That sentiment could
be challenged soon. While stock markets and economies frequently diverge, they can't move in opposite directions forever.
Lifting trade restrictions is the best way to save the US economy
Messamore ’12 [W.E., contributor to Independent Voter Network, a news service providing political
analysis and democracy-based news, “Proposal: Revitalize US Economy by Easing Foreign Sanctions,” 724-12, http://ivn.us/2012/07/24/proposal-revitalize-us-economy-by-easing-foreign-sanctions/]
Easing economic sanctions on foreign countries like Cuba and North Korea could be a potential solution to
the struggling US economy while fostering international cooperation and good will abroad.¶ Economic
sanctions, or embargoes, are a step below war with another country and a step above normal, collaborative diplomacy. They represent the use
or threat of military or police action to enforce a blockade against a country’s economy or parts of its economy, preventing the free trade of
goods and services between the people and businesses of the target nation and those of the nation or nations enforcing the embargo.¶
Sanctions are used to pressure governments into adopting certain policy reforms desired by the sanctioning country, and currently the
United States has sanctions in place against Iran, North Korea, and its neighbor, Cuba, among others. The problem is that
in unambiguous cost-benefit terms, the results show that sanctions are massive policy failures, ineffective at accomplishing their
objectives, and humanitarian disasters.¶ According to a year 2000 UN-commissioned report for instance:¶ “The theory behind economic
sanctions is that economic pressure on civilians will translate into pressure on the government for change. This theory is bankrupt both legally
and practically.Ӧ The Free Trade Petition to the G20 Conference circulated by the Atlas Economic Research Foundation compellingly sums up
the failure of trade barriers as instruments of foreign policy:¶ “A great deal of rigorous empirical research supports the proposition that trade
promotes peace. Perhaps the most tragic example of what happens when that insight is ignored is World War II.¶ International trade
collapsed by 70 percent between 1929 and 1932, in no small part because of America’s 1930 Smoot-Hawley tariff and the retaliatory tariffs of
other nations. Economist Martin Wolf notes that ‘this collapse in trade was a huge spur to the search for autarky and Lebensraum, most of all
for Germany and Japan.’¶ The most ghastly and deadly wars in human history soon followed.¶ By reducing war, trade saves lives.”¶ Barriers to
international trade fail to produce desired policy outcomes, tend to rally a country’s people around their repressive governments against what
they perceive as US hostility, lead to poverty and starvation among the poorest classes of targeted nations, foster ill-will against the United
States, are historically precursors to more open military hostility, and are even bad for the economy of the sanctioning country…¶ According to
data from the White House’s export council in 2000:¶ “…the United States has imposed more than 40 trade sanctions against about threedozen countries since 1993…¶ …those sanctions have cost American exporters $15 billion to $19 billion in lost annual sales overseas and caused
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long-term damage to U.S. companiesРlost market share and reputations abroad as unreliable suppliers.Ӧ Moving
to ease sanctions
on foreign countries and establish permanent normal trade relations with countries currently under economic blockade could go a long way
toward fostering international good will while opening up valuable markets and economic opportunities for trade, stimulating growth
and job creation in the US. It would be like a multi-billion dollar economic stimulus package that
taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for and the US government wouldn’t have to borrow money to finance,
and its effects wouldn’t be temporary, they would be permanent, systemic, and structural.¶ That
stimulus of potentially tens of billions of dollars would come in year after year by way of free and
undirected economic trade between the people of the United States and those of nations currently under an embargo. The structural
and systemic nature of the policy reform, rather than a temporary shot in the arm like a giant borrow-and-spend appropriation from
Congress (e.g. 2009′s $800 billion “Stimulus Package”), would permanently shift economic behavior, inject some
confidence in jittery markets, allow capital to flow to investments that will be the most productive, and
create jobs that are more sustainable over the long term.
Econ decline causes wars- studies prove
Royal ‘10 (Director of CTR Jedediah, Director of Cooperative Threat Reduction – U.S. Department of Defense, “Economic Integration,
Economic Signaling and the Problem of Economic Crises”, Economics of War and Peace: Economic, Legal and Political Perspectives, Ed.
Goldsmith and Brauer, p. 213-215)
Less intuitive is how periods of economic decline may increase the likelihood of external conflict. Political science literature has contributed a
moderate degree of attention to the impact of economic decline and the security and defence behaviour of interdependent states. Research in
this vein has been considered at systemic, dyadic and national levels. Several notable contributions follow. First, on the systemic level, Pollins
(2008) advances Modelski and Thompson's (1996) work on leadership cycle theory, finding that rhythms
associated with the rise and fall of a pre-eminent power and the often
to the next. As such, exogenous shocks such as economic crises
in the global economy are
bloody transition from one pre-eminent leader
could usher in a redistribution of relative power (see also
Gilpin. 1981) that leads to uncertainty about power balances, increasing the risk
of miscalculation (Feaver, 1995). Alternatively,
even a relatively certain redistribution of power could lead to a permissive environment for conflict as a rising power may seek to
challenge a declining power (Werner. 1999). Separately, Pollins (1996) also shows that global economic cycles combined with
parallel leadership cycles impact the likelihood of conflict among major, medium and small powers, although he suggests that the causes and
connections between global economic conditions and security conditions remain unknown. Second, on a dyadic level, Copeland's (1996, 2000)
theory of trade expectations suggests that 'future expectation of trade' is a significant variable in understanding economic conditions and
security behaviour of states. He argues that interdependent states are likely to gain pacific benefits from trade so long as they have an
optimistic view of future trade relations. However, if the expectations of future trade decline, particularly for difficult to replace items such as
energy resources, the likelihood for conflict increases, as states will be inclined to use force to gain access to those resources. Crises could
potentially be the trigger for decreased trade expectations either on its own or because it triggers protectionist moves by interdependent
states.4 Third, others have considered the link between economic decline and external armed conflict at a national level. Blomberg and Hess
(2002) find
a strong correlation between internal conflict and external conflict, particularly during periods of
economic downturn. They write: The linkages between internal and external conflict and prosperity are strong and mutually reinforcing.
Economic conflict tends to spawn internal conflict, which in turn returns the favour. Moreover, the presence of a recession tends to amplify the
extent to which international and external conflicts self-reinforce each other. (Blomberg & Hess, 2002. p. 89) Economic decline has also been
linked with an increase in the likelihood of terrorism (Blomberg, Hess, & Weerapana, 2004), which has the capacity to spill across borders and
lead to external tensions. Furthermore, crises generally reduce the popularity of a sitting government. "Diversionary theory" suggests that,
when facing unpopularity arising from economic decline, sitting governments have
increased incentives to fabricate external
military conflicts
to create a 'rally around the flag' effect. Wang (1996), DeRouen (1995). and Blomberg, Hess, and Thacker
(2006) find supporting evidence showing that economic decline and use of force are at least indirectly correlated . Gelpi
(1997), Miller (1999), and Kisangani and Pickering (2009) suggest that the tendency towards diversionary tactics are greater for democratic
states than autocratic states, due to the fact that democratic leaders are generally more susceptible to being removed from office due to lack of
domestic support. DeRouen (2000) has provided evidence showing that periods of weak economic performance in the United States, and thus
weak Presidential popularity, are statistically linked to an increase in the use of force. In summary, recent economic scholarship positively
correlates economic integration with an increase in the frequency of economic crises, whereas political science scholarship links economic
decline with external conflict at systemic, dyadic and national levels.5 This implied connection between integration, crises and armed conflict
has not featured prominently in the economic-security debate and deserves more attention.
5
Lifting the embargo prevents Cuban economic collapse- solves instability and terrorist
attacks
Ashby 3-29-13 [Dr. Timothy Ashby, holds a PhD, JD and MBA, Senior Research Fellow at the Council on
Hemispheric Affairs, served in the U.S. Commerce Department’s International Trade Administration as
Director of the Office of Mexico and the Caribbean and as acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Commerce for the Western Hemisphere, “Preserving Stability in Cuba After Normalizing Relations with
the United States – The Importance of Trading with State-Owned Enterprises,”
http://www.coha.org/preserving-stability-in-cuba-timothy-ashby/]
The twilight of the Castro era presents challenges and opportunities for U.S. policy makers. Normalization of
relations is inevitable, regardless of timing, yet external and internal factors may accelerate or retard the process. The death of Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez is likely to undermine the already dysfunctional Cuban economy, if it leads to
reductions in oil imports and other forms of aid. This could bring social chaos, especially among the island’s
disaffected youth. Such an outcome would generate adverse consequences for U.S. national and regional security. To maintain Cuba’s social
and economic stability while reforms are maturing, the United States must throw itself open to unrestricted bilateral trade with all Cuban
enterprises, both private and state-owned.¶ The
collapse of Cuba’s tottering economy could seismically impact the
United States and neighboring countries. It certainly did during the Mariel Boatlift of 1980, precipitated by a downturn in the
Cuban economy which led to tensions on the island. Over 125,000 Cuban refugees landed in the Miami area, including 31,000 criminals and
mental patients. Today, the United States defines its national security interests regarding Cuba as follows:¶ •
Avoid one or more mass migrations;¶ • Prevent Cuba from becoming another porous border that allows continuous large-scale migration to the
hemisphere;¶ • Prevent Cuba from becoming a major source or transshipment point for the illegal drug trade;¶ • Avoid
Cuba becoming
platform for terrorists and others wishing to harm the United States.
[2]¶ All of these national security threats are directly related to economic and social conditions within Cuba.¶
U.S. policy specifically supports “a market-oriented economic system” [3] toward Cuba, yet regulations prohibit the importation of any
a state with ungoverned spaces that could provide a
goods of Cuban origin, whether from the island’s potentially booming private sector–including 300,000 agricultural producers–or State-Owned
Enterprises (“SOEs”). [4] Such a policy is counterproductive to U.S. interests. Regardless of over 400,000 entrepreneurs, including
agricultural cultivators, it could be many years, if ever, when Cuba’s private sector would be ready to serve as the engine of economic growth.
SOEs employ 72 percent of Cuban workers. [5] A rational commercial rapprochement towards Cuba would therefore require
a
change in current laws and in the system of regulations prohibiting the importation of Cuban goods and products.
Normalized bilateral trade will benefit the Cuban people by helping to provide economic stability and
fostering the growth of a middle class–both of which are essential for the foundation of democratic
institutions. Two-way trade must include both Cuba’s private sector as well as SOEs.¶ Cuban SOEs are in a state of gradual transition like
other parts of the economy. In December 2012, the Cuban government authorized a wide range of co-ops that will allow workers to collectively
open new businesses or take over existing SOEs in construction, transportation, and other industries. Considered a pilot program that is a prime
candidate for an expansion, the co-ops “will not be administratively subordinated to any state entity.” [6] Many Cuban officials, well aware of
the limits to small-scale entrepreneurism, appear to harbor hope that co-ops could shift a large portion of the island’s economy to free-market
competition from government-managed socialism. In other transitional states, particularly in post-socialist economies, co-ops have served as
commercial bridges between state-owned and privatized business. Of the 300 largest co-ops in the world, more than half are in United States,
Italy, or France. [7]¶ Ironically, the outputs of such co-ops, including agricultural products which could find strong demand in the American
market, are barred by short-sighted federal regulations, thus hampering, if not defeating, what could be a major U.S. policy goal.¶ The United
States has been actively trading with foreign SOEs for years. China, a one party, communist state, is the United States’s second largest trading
partner, and Chinese SOE’s account for a large percentage of the nearly $400 billion USD in goods exported to America each year. Venezuela is
in the top fifteen of U.S. trading partners, and the bulk of that country’s exports are petroleum products deriving from the state-owned PDVSA
(which in turn owns Houston-based CITCO oil company). Another communist country, Vietnam–which initially was the subject of a U.S.
economic embargo similar to that imposed on Cuba–is the second largest source of U.S. clothing imports and a major manufacturing source for
footwear, furniture, and electrical machinery. [8] On these matters, the Cuban government has said that it wants to “replicate the paths of
Vietnam and China.” [9]¶ Of relevance to Cuban trade relations, Vietnam has formally requested to be added to the U.S. Generalized System of
Preferences (GSP) program as a “beneficiary developing country,” which authorizes the U.S. president to grant duty-free treatment for eligible
products. The statute also provides the President with specific political and economic criteria to use, when designating eligible countries and
products. “Communist” countries are not eligible for GSP membership unless the president determines that certain conditions have been met,
including whether the applicant is “dominated or controlled by international communism.” Furthermore, countries that fail to recognize
“internationally accepted workers’ rights” are excluded. [10]¶ U.S. statutes do not provide a general definition of a “communist” country, and
the Obama administration is expected to declare that Vietnam is no longer “communist” in terms of its economic system. The argument will be
that even if Vietnam is a “communist” country (hard to deny, considering it has one party government that is officially titled the Communist
Party of Vietnam), it is “not dominated or controlled by international communism” because no such entity exists following the collapse of the
Soviet Union. Similar arguments may be applied to Cuba in considering normalized relations with the United States.¶ At the request of the U.S.
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Congress, the General Accounting Office (GAO) conducted detailed reviews of the frameworks for seven key statutes that govern Cuban
sanctions. [11] The resulting reports concluded that (i) the president still maintains “broad discretion” to make additional modifications to
Cuban sanctions; and (ii) prior measures, implemented by the executive branch have had the effect of easing specific restrictions of the Cuba
sanctions and have been consistent with statutory mandates as well as within the discretionary authority of the president. [12] Some legal
scholars assert that absence of such explicit statutory provisions in other areas suggests that Congress did not intend to prohibit the executive
branch from issuing general or specific licenses to authorize certain transactions with Cuba when “such licenses are deemed to be appropriate
and consistent with U.S. policies.” [13] Although a complex variety of federal statutes have re-stated the regulatory prohibition on importation
of Cuban goods under 31 C.F.R. § 515.204, enabling legislation to codify the restriction, has not been passed. For example, 22 U.S.C. § 6040(a)
“notes” that 31 C.F.R. § 515.204 prohibits the importation of goods from Cuba, but does not codify or expressly prohibit such activity, and 22
U.S.C. § 7028 acknowledges that Congress did not attempt to alter any prohibitions on the importation of goods from Cuba under 31 C.F.R. §
515.204. [14]¶ The complete dismantling of the Cuban economic embargo will undoubtedly require congressional legislation; however, the
president has broad powers to modify policy towards Cuba, particularly in an emergency situation that could affect U.S. national security. [15]
For example, imports of Cuban origin goods are prohibited under the Cuban Asset Control Regulations (“CACRS”) except as “specifically
authorized by the Secretary of the Treasury by means of regulations, rulings, instructions, licenses or otherwise.” [16]¶ Such authority could
allow the president to argue for the modification of 31 C.F.R. § 204’s complete prohibition on the importation of Cuban goods by stating that
Cuban exports to the United States help the Cuban people by creating employment and thereby maintaining the island’s social stability.
Considering the domestic political constituency and the political obduracy of U.S. Congress, a more realistic presidential rationale for allowing
Cuban imports from all types of enterprises could be the protection of U.S. borders during an era of grave concerns about homeland security.¶
Some policy analysts suggest that bilateral trade with Cuba should be restricted to businesses and individuals engaged in certifiably
independent (i.e. non-state) economic activity. [17] While well-intentioned, such a policy would likely have a negligible impact on Cuba’s
economic development and fails to recognize that commercial enterprises that the U.S. government would classify as SOEs are actually co-ops
or other types of quasi-independent entities that are in the early stages of privatization. Restrictions such as this also fail
to address
larger national and regional security concerns which are the primary responsibility of the president.¶ Although ultimately the Cuban
people must freely choose their own political and economic systems, President Obama should be seen as having legal authority to support the
transition taking place on the island by opening U.S. markets to Cuban imports. Normalized
bilateral trade will benefit the Cuban
economic and social stability that is in turn vital to U.S. national and regional
security.¶ Such trade must include both the island’s small, yet growing, private sector and State-Owned
Enterprises. In this regard, it would be both unfair and strategically unwise to treat Cuba differently from its stated models, China and
people and help to provide
Vietnam.
Terrorism causes nuclear war
Ayson ‘10 [Robert, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New
Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic
Effects,” July, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 33, Issue 7, InformaWorld]
But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily separable.
It is just possible that some
sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a
chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states
that possess them. In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to
new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising
the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the
superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about
nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation
where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on
the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they
seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be
involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do
suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of
nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct
attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al.
that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it
detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the
materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear material came from.”41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear
terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at
all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably
Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program
continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at
of nuclear Cluedo? In particular,
what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game
if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in
7
with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers,
would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst ? Of course, the chances of this
Washington’s relations
occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China,
or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The
reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited
conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a
possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack? Washington’s
early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might
the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the
noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to
place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment,
when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it is just possible that Moscow and/or China might
mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation,
the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet
also raise
with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to
order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to
support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as
being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One farfetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the
terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … longstanding interest in all things nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that
might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide. There is also the
question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on another member of that special club. It could
reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, bothRussia and China would extend immediate sympathy
and support to Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a slim one,
where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For example, what would happen if the United States
wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia
and China deeply underwhelming, (neither “for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots with the group,
increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange. If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and
China, or existed in areas of the world over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a
curiously modest level of pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability
Advantage 2 is Relations:
US-Latin American relations are in decline- new US policies are key
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Impressive economic, political, and social progress at home has, in turn, ¶ given Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, and many other countries
¶ greater access to worldwide opportunities . Indeed, the region’s most salient ¶ transformation may be its increasingly global connections and
widening ¶ international relationships .¶ Brazil’s dramatic rise on the world stage most visibly exemplifies the shift .¶ But other countries, too,
are participating actively in global affairs and ¶ developing extensive networks of commercial and political ties . China is an ¶ increasingly
prominent economic actor, but India and other Asian countries ¶ are intensifying their ties to the region as well .¶ The United States has also
changed markedly, in ways that many find worrisome . The 2008 financial crisis revealed serious misalignments in and poor ¶ management of
the US economy—which, four years later, is still struggling ¶ to recover . Inequality has significantly widened in the United States, while ¶ muchneeded improvements in education and infrastructure are ignored .¶ The most ominous change in the United States has taken place in the ¶
political realm . Politics
have become less collaborative . It is increasingly ¶ difficult to find common ground on which to build
become an
ebbing art, replaced by gridlock and inaction ¶ on challenges that would advance US national interests and well-being .¶ In part as a
result of these shifts, US-Latin American relations have grown ¶ more distant . The quality and intensity of ties
have diminished . Most countries of the region view the United States as less and less relevant to their ¶ needs—and with declining
solutions to the critical ¶ problems on the policy agenda . Compromise, the hallmark of democratic ¶ governance, has
capacity to propose and carry out strategies to ¶ deal with the issues that most concern them .¶ In the main, hemispheric relations are amicable
. Open conflict is rare and, ¶ happily, the sharp antagonisms that marred relations in the past have subsided . But the
US-Latin America
relationship would profit from more vitality ¶ and direction . Shared interests are not pursued as vigorously as they should
8
and opportunities for more
disappointing trends are scarce.
¶ be,
fruitful engagement are being missed . Well-developed ideas for reversing these
The plan restores cooperation between the US and Latin America
White 3-7-13 [Robert E. White, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, was the United
States ambassador to Paraguay from 1977 to 1979 and to El Salvador from 1980 to 1981, “After Chávez,
a Chance to Rethink Relations With Cuba,” http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/08/opinion/after-chavezhope-for-good-neighbors-in-latin-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0]
An end to the Cuba embargo would send a powerful signal to all of Latin America that the United States
wants a new, warmer relationship with democratic forces seeking social change throughout the
Americas.¶ I joined the State Department as a Foreign Service officer in the 1950s and chose to serve in Latin America in the 1960s. I was
inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s creative response to the revolutionary fervor then sweeping Latin America. The 1959 Cuban revolution,
led by the charismatic Fidel Castro, had inspired revolts against the cruel dictatorships and corrupt pseudodemocracies that had dominated the
region since the end of Spanish and Portuguese rule in the 19th century.¶ Kennedy had a charisma of his own, and it captured the imaginations
of leaders who wanted democratic change, not violent revolution. Kennedy reacted to the threat of continental insurrection by creating the
Alliance for Progress, a kind of Marshall Plan for the hemisphere that was calculated to achieve the same kind of results that saved Western
Europe from Communism. He pledged billions of dollars to this effort. In hindsight, it may have been overly ambitious, even naïve, but
Kennedy’s focus on Latin America rekindled the promise of the Good Neighbor Policy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and transformed the whole
concept of inter-American relations.¶ Tragically, after Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, the ideal of the Alliance for Progress crumbled and “la
noche mas larga” — “the longest night” — began for the proponents of Latin American democracy. Military regimes flourished, democratic
governments withered, moderate political and civil leaders were labeled Communists, rights of free speech and assembly were curtailed and
human dignity crushed, largely because the United States abandoned all standards save that of anti-Communism.¶ During my Foreign Service
career, I did what I could to oppose policies that supported dictators and closed off democratic alternatives. In 1981, as the ambassador to El
Salvador, I refused a demand by the secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig Jr., that I use official channels to cover up the Salvadoran military’s
responsibility for the murders of four American churchwomen. I was fired and forced out of the Foreign Service.¶ The Reagan administration,
under the illusion that Cuba was the power driving the Salvadoran revolution, turned its policy over to the Pentagon and C.I.A., with predictable
results. During the 1980s the United States helped expand the Salvadoran military, which was dominated by uniformed assassins. We armed
them, trained them and covered up their crimes.¶ After our counterrevolutionary efforts failed to end the Salvadoran conflict, the Defense
Department asked its research institute, the RAND Corporation, what had gone wrong. RAND analysts found that United States policy makers
had refused to accept the obvious truth that the insurgents were rebelling against social injustice and state terror. As a result, “we pursued a
policy unsettling to ourselves, for ends humiliating to the Salvadorans and at a cost disproportionate to any conventional conception of the
national interest.Ӧ Over the subsequent quarter-century, a series of profound political, social and economic changes have undermined the
traditional power bases in Latin America and, with them, longstanding regional institutions like the Organization of American States. The
organization, which is headquartered in Washington and which excluded Cuba in 1962, was seen as irrelevant by Mr. Chávez. He promoted the
creation of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States — which excludes the United States and Canada — as an alternative.¶ At a
regional meeting that included Cuba and excluded the United States, Mr. Chávez said that “the most positive thing for the independence of our
continent is that we meet alone without the hegemony of empire.”¶ Mr. Chávez was masterful at manipulating America’s antagonism toward
Fidel Castro as a rhetorical stick with which to attack the United States as an imperialist aggressor, an enemy of progressive change, interested
mainly in treating Latin America as a vassal continent, a source of cheap commodities and labor.¶ Like its predecessors, the Obama
administration has given few signs that it has grasped the magnitude of these changes or cares about their consequences. After President
Obama took office in 2009, Latin America’s leading statesman at the time, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, then the president of Brazil, urged Mr.
Obama to normalize relations with Cuba.¶ Lula, as he is universally known, correctly identified our Cuba policy as the chief stumbling block to
renewed ties with Latin America, as it had been since the very early years of the Castro regime.¶ After the failure of the 1961 Bay of Pigs
invasion, Washington set out to accomplish by stealth and economic strangulation what it had failed to do by frontal attack. But the clumsy mix
of covert action and porous boycott succeeded primarily in bringing shame on the United States and turning Mr. Castro into a folk hero.¶ And
even now, despite the relaxing of travel restrictions and Raúl Castro’s announcement that he will retire in 2018, the implacable hatred of many
within the Cuban exile community continues. The fact that two of the three Cuban-American members of the Senate — Marco Rubio of Florida
and Ted Cruz of Texas — are rising stars in the Republican Party complicates further the potential for a recalibration of Cuban-American
relations. (The third member, Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, is the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, but his power has been weakened by a continuing ethics controversy.) ¶ Are there any other examples in the history of diplomacy
where the leaders of a small, weak nation can prevent a great power from acting in its own best interest merely by staying alive?¶ The reelection of President Obama, and the death of Mr. Chávez, give America a chance to reassess the irrational hold on our imaginations that Fidel
Castro has exerted for five decades. The
president and his new secretary of state, John Kerry, should quietly reach out to Latin
American leaders like President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia and José Miguel Insulza, secretary general of the Organization of
American States. The message should be simple: The president is prepared to show some flexibility on Cuba
and asks your help.¶ Such a simple request could transform the Cuban issue from a bilateral problem
into a multilateral challenge. It would then be up to Latin Americans to devise a policy that would help Cuba achieve a sufficient
measure of democratic change to justify its reintegration into a hemisphere composed entirely of elected governments.¶ If, however, our
9
present policy paralysis continues, we will soon see the emergence of two rival camps, the United States
versus Latin America. While Washington would continue to enjoy friendly relations with individual countries like Brazil, Mexico and
Colombia, the vision of Roosevelt and Kennedy of a hemisphere of partners cooperating in matters of common concern would
be reduced to a historical footnote.
Relations solve proliferation, climate change, and economic growth- engagement is
key
Brookings ‘08 [The Brookings Institution is a private nonprofit organization devoted to independent
research and innovative policy solutions, “Re-Thinking U.S.-Latin American Relations: A Hemispheric
Partnership for a Turbulent World,” November,
http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2008/11/24-latin-america-partnership]
Developments in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) have a very significant impact on the daily lives of those who live in the United States.
Yet because of a lack of trust, an inability to undertake stable commitments by some countries, and different U.S. priorities, the
United
States and Latin America have rarely developed a genuine and sustained partnership to address
regional—let alone global—challenges.¶ If a hemispheric partnership remains elusive, the costs to the United
States and its neighbors will be high, in terms of both growing risks and missed opportunities. Without a partnership, the risk that criminal
networks pose to the region’s people and institutions will continue to grow. Peaceful nuclear technology may be adopted more
widely, but without proper regional safeguards, the risks of nuclear proliferation will increase.
Adaptation to climate change will take place through isolated, improvised measures by individual
countries, rather than through more effective efforts based on mutual learning and coordination. Illegal
immigration to the United States will continue unabated and unregulated, adding to an ever-larger
underclass that lives and works at the margins of the law. Finally, the countries around the hemisphere, including the
United States, will lose valuable opportunities to tap new markets, make new investments, and access
valuable resources.¶ Today, several changes in the region have made a hemispheric partnership both possible and necessary. The key
challenges faced by the United States and the hemisphere’s other countries—such as securing sustainable energy supplies,
combating and adapting to climate change, and combating organized crime and drug trafficking—have
become so complex and deeply transnational that they cannot be managed or overcome by any single
country. At the same time, the LAC countries are diversifying their international economic and political relations, making them less reliant on
the United States. Finally, the LAC countries are better positioned than before to act as reliable partners.¶ This report does not advance a single,
grand scheme for reinventing hemispheric relations. Instead, the report is based on two simple propositions: The countries of the hemisphere
share common interests; and the United States should engage its hemispheric neighbors on issues where shared interests, objectives, and
solutions are easiest to identify and can serve as the basis for an effective partnership. In this spirit, the report offers a series of modest,
pragmatic recommendations that, if implemented, could help the countries of the region manage key transnational challenges and realize the
region’s potential.
Proliferation causes nuclear war
Monroe 9-12-12 [Robert, vice admiral, U.S. Navy (Ret.), “Nonproliferation requires enforcement,”
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/249049-nonproliferation-requires-enforcement]
Proliferation of nuclear weapons among nations is the gravest threat facing the US and the world. For
twenty years two irresponsible and belligerent rogue states have been working intensely to develop nuclear weapons production capabilities.
The world has protested and wrung its hands. North Korea has now tested primitive weapons, and Iran is close to producing them. When North
Korea succeeds in weaponizing its designs, it will sell them to anyone desiring to buy – including terrorists. Neighboring states such as South
Korea and Japan will be forced to go nuclear in self-protection. Iran’s
acquisition of nuclear weapons – and its likely
willingness to give them to proxies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and Al Qaeda for use – will stimulate
another regional surge of proliferation as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and others follow suit. In no time
the cascade will be global, as states like Venezuela, Germany, Brazil, and Argentina, rush to protect themselves.
10
With nuclear weapons widespread, and nuclear material even more readily available, terrorist
acquisition of nuclear weapons will not be difficult. We’re moving toward a world of nuclear horror and
chaos, a return from which appears impossible.
Global warming causes extinction
Deibel ‘07 [Terry L. Deibel, professor of IR at National War College, Foreign Affairs Strategy,
“Conclusion: American Foreign Affairs Strategy Today Anthropogenic – caused by CO2”]
Finally, there
is one major existential threat to American security (as well as prosperity) of a nonviolent nature, which, though far
is the threat of global warming to the stability of the climate upon which
all earthly life depends. Scientists worldwide have been observing the gathering of this threat for three
decades now, and what was once a mere possibility has passed through probability to near certainty.
Indeed not one of more than 900 articles on climate change published in refereed scientific journals
from 1993 to 2003 doubted that anthropogenic warming is occurring. “In legitimate scientific circles,” writes Elizabeth
Kolbert, “it is virtually impossible to find evidence of disagreement over the fundamentals of global
warming.” Evidence from a vast international scientific monitoring effort accumulates almost weekly, as
this sample of newspaper reports shows: an international panel predicts “brutal droughts, floods and
violent storms across the planet over the next century”; climate change could “literally alter ocean currents, wipe away huge portions of Alpine Snowcaps and
in the future, demands urgent action. It
aid the spread of cholera and malaria”; “glaciers in the Antarctic and in Greenland are melting much faster than expected, and…worldwide, plants are blooming several days earlier than a
decade ago”; “rising sea temperatures have been accompanied by a significant global increase in the most destructive hurricanes”; “NASA scientists have concluded from direct temperature
measurements that 2005 was the hottest year on record, with 1998 a close second”; “Earth’s warming climate is estimated to contribute to more than 150,000 deaths and 5 million illnesses
each year” as disease spreads; “widespread bleaching from Texas to Trinidad…killed broad swaths of corals” due to a 2-degree rise in sea temperatures. “The world is slowly disintegrating,”
concluded Inuit hunter Noah Metuq, who lives 30 miles from the Arctic Circle. “They call it climate change…but we just call it breaking up.” From the founding of the first cities some 6,000
years ago until the beginning of the industrial revolution, carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere remained relatively constant at about 280 parts per million (ppm). At present they are
accelerating toward 400 ppm, and by 2050 they will reach 500 ppm, about double pre-industrial levels. Unfortunately, atmospheric CO2 lasts about a century, so there is no way immediately
to reduce levels, only to slow their increase, we are thus in for significant global warming; the only debate is how much and how serous the effects will be. As the newspaper stories quoted
above show, we are already experiencing the effects of 1-2 degree warming in more violent storms, spread of disease, mass die offs of plants
and animals, species
extinction, and threatened inundation of low-lying countries like the Pacific nation of Kiribati and the Netherlands at a
warming of 5 degrees or less the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets could disintegrate, leading to a sea level of rise of 20
feet that would cover North Carolina’s outer banks, swamp the southern third of Florida, and inundate
Manhattan up to the middle of Greenwich Village. Another catastrophic effect would be the collapse of the Atlantic
thermohaline circulation that keeps the winter weather in Europe far warmer than its latitude would otherwise allow. Economist
William Cline once estimated the damage to the United States alone from moderate levels of warming at 1-6 percent of GDP annually; severe
warming could cost 13-26 percent of GDP. But the
most frightening scenario is runaway greenhouse warming, based
on positive feedback from the buildup of water vapor in the atmosphere that is both caused by and
causes hotter surface temperatures. Past ice age transitions, associated with only 5-10 degree changes in average global
temperatures, took place in just decades, even though no one was then pouring ever-increasing amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. Faced
with this specter, the best one can conclude is that “humankind’s continuing enhancement of the natural greenhouse effect is akin to playing
Russian roulette with the earth’s climate and humanity’s life support system. At worst, says physics professor Marty Hoffert of New York
University, “we’re just
going to burn everything up; we’re going to het the atmosphere to the temperature it was in the
Cretaceous when there were crocodiles at the poles, and then everything will collapse.” During the Cold War, astronomer Carl Sagan
popularized a theory of nuclear winter to describe how a thermonuclear war between the Untied States and the Soviet Union would not only
destroy both countries but possible end life on this planet. Global
warming is the post-Cold War era’s equivalent of
nuclear winter at least as serious and considerably better supported scientifically. Over the long run it puts
dangers form terrorism and traditional military challenges to shame . It is a threat not only to the
security and prosperity to the United States, but potentially to the continued existence of life on this
planet.
11
Advantage 3 is US Influence:
The embargo destroys international credibility- the plan is key to restore US influence
AFP ’11 [American Foreign Policy, foreign policy-based magazine run at Princeton University, “Ending
the Embargo Against Cuba: Why Obama’s Baby Steps Are Not Enough,” 3-16,
http://afpprinceton.com/2011/03/ending-the-embargo-against-cuba-why-obama%E2%80%99s-babysteps-are-not-enough/]
As the presidential election of 2012 approaches, more and more critics are deriding President Obama’s pre-election vision of hope and change,
targeting what they consider to be Obama’s naivete in foreign policy. This January, however, the president announced one significant foreign
policy reform that he hopes will counter such criticism. In a memorandum entitled “Reaching Out to the Cuban People,” he detailed foreign
policy changes between the United States and Cuba that ease the fifty-year American embargo on Cuba. The three-part reform measure that
has gone largely unnoticed attempts to create more contact with the citizens of Cuba, and the changes it implements are certainly admirable.
As its failures over the past fifty years have shown, however, the
embargo is a Cold War remnant of political tension that
is hurting American industry, America’s reputation abroad, and most directly, the Cuban people. Analysis of the
negative ramifications of the embargo reveals that President Obama should fully end the oppressive embargo and reconnect the United States
with the Cuban citizenry.¶ The economic embargo was first enacted in 1960 as the swift answer to communist President Fidel Castro’s seizure
of American property in Cuba. Since then, every American president has maintained the embargo in some form, with a conditional promise to
lift it when Cuba adopts a democratic system of government.¶ Last year, President Obama ended restrictions on travel and cash remittances by
family members of Cubans, but his newest move has forced politicians and citizens alike to reconsider the issue. Although Cuba is still not fully
open to the public and businesses, the new policy aims “to enhance contact with the Cuban people and support civil society” by allowing
approved licensed travelers for “purposeful travel.”¶ Following the changes, a variety of groups can visit the communist state: religious
organizations are now able to travel for missionary purposes, academic institutions are able to sponsor study abroad programs, and cultural
groups are encouraged to host conferences along with other forms of “educational exchange.” Additionally, reporters have been given more
freedom to travel to Cuba for journalistic purposes. The new policy also allows remittances of $500 per quarter that can be sent by Americans
to Cuban citizens (excluding senior Cuban government officials and members of the Communist Party). The final part of the memorandum
affects charter flights to Cuba which had been previously restricted to Miami and a few other airports. Now, all international airports can apply
for licenses allowing flights to Cuba for family members and others engaging in “purposeful travel.”¶ The loosening of restrictions continues a
series of recent improvements in American-Cuban relations. Although Cuba is undoubtedly facing economic woes—500,000 government
workers were laid off last September—citizens are slowly approaching true political freedom. In February 2008, Fidel Castro resigned from his
position as president of Cuba due to health reasons, and Cuba’s National Assembly selected his relatively moderate brother, Raul, as his
successor. When taking office, Raul Castro suggested that Cuba may be headed “toward a more democratic society,” and Cuba is indeed
showing signs of change. In 2009 Raul Castro offered to speak with President Obama, saying, “We have sent word to the U.S. government in
private and in public that we are willing to discuss everything, human rights, freedom of the press, political prisoners, everything.” Citizens in
Cuba are now allowed to own cell phones, and farmers can till their own land. Most recently, Cuba has been releasing political prisoners, some
of whom had been sentenced to decades of imprisonment.¶ The political buzz generated by the memorandum is to be expected, given that the
embargo policy has been a part of American diplomacy for fifty years. Like most members of his party, Cornelius Mack
(R-FL) had harsh feelings toward the president’s policy change, saying that the “dictatorship is one of the most brutal in the world. The U.S.
economic embargo must remain in place until tyranny gives way to freedom and democracy.” In a statement that defied the Democratic party
line, Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) echoed the sentiments, calling the loosening of the embargo a “gift to the Castro
brothers [that] will provide the regime with the additional resources it needs to sustain its failing economy.Ӧ Yet the changes are also receiving
support from varied sources. Pepe Hernandez, head of the Cuban-American National Foundation, praised the shift for allowing impoverished
Cubans to fight for economic independence from the Castro administration. Rev. Michael Kinnamon, speaking on behalf of the National Council
of Churches, commended the move, saying, “We look forward to the day when the U. S. embargo of Cuba will be lifted completely.” Even some
Republicans favor the change, including Senator Richard Lugar, who said last year that “the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its
stated purpose of “bringing democracy to the Cuban people.”¶ Those who still favor the use of the embargo see it as a way to pressure the
communist regime of Cuba. The idea was that, the embargo would inflict hunger and suffering among Cubans, weakening the regime and even
spurring a revolt against the Castro regime. But Lugar is correct: the failed history of the embargo should disabuse us of this notion. Over the
last five decades, American-Cuban relations have been characterized by stagnation and hostility. The country has certainly shown signs of
hardship, but the Cuban people have not been able to organize and protest against the government. Instead, Fidel Castro was able to rule with
an iron first, before handing the presidency to his brother. Fidel Castro continues issue regular tirades in the newspaper Granma, which serves
as the mouthpiece for the Cuban Communist Party. Clearly, the outdated embargo has served to strengthen the Castro regime, rather than
create extreme instability. Perhaps most tragic has been the fate of the Cuban people, who continue to suffer economically, politically, and
even emotionally: the nation has one of the highest suicide rates in the world.¶ Although the president deserves praise for the diplomatic
changes, they are not new. During the Carter and Clinton administrations, similar restrictions were lifted, but the changes were short-lived.
Moreover, the embargo under the George W. Bush administration was very strictly enforced, effectively negating Clinton’s reforms. The
recent changes loosen the restrictions, but the basic tenet of banned trade remains intact. American
industries are still not permitted to engage in business with the communist nation. Although weakening the embargo is certainly a step in the
right direction, the nation needs to take further steps to end the punitive policy.¶ Increasing contact with the Cuban
people is certainly not equivalent to accepting communism. Rather, it exposes Cubans to the democratic principles espoused by the United
States and the benefits of capitalism. At the present time, Cubans are inundated with anti-American propaganda spewed by state-run media
12
sources. Even though funds from America may indeed benefit the Cuban economy, it
is time to let diplomacy show American
support for the Cuban people. By abandoning the Cuban people, the United States is leaving them at the mercy of a communist
regime that continues to retain power. Forming economic, academic, and cultural connections will allow the United States to introduce
American ideas to Cubans in a peaceful and effective way.¶ In addition to aiding the Cuban people, ending
the embargo would
strengthen America’s own economic interests and improve her reputation abroad. American businesses
currently yearn for the untapped potential present in Cuba, and the opening of trade would help the United States assert
dominance during a difficult economic time. Furthermore, the negative global consequences of the embargo
would be curbed. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez called the present embargo a “cruel and aggressive policy absolutely contrary
to international law” and much of the international community agrees; in October 2010, the United Nations voted to end the
U.S. embargo for the 19th consecutive year, with 187 members voting against the embargo and the only two votes supporting the
embargo from the United States and Israel.¶ President Obama has taken a step in the right direction with his modification of the embargo
against Cuba, but it is simply not enough. In the current, relatively moderate Cuban political environment, ending the fifty-year-old embargo
would give the Cuban people the American economic and cultural connection they sorely need. If Obama limits his actions to the superficial
changes of Carter and Clinton, both the president and his policies may be gone in 2012. Relations between
the United States
and Cuba cannot afford to wait another fifty years.
Soft power solves war and is key to effective hegemony
Jervis 09 (Robert, professor of international politics at Columbia University, “Unipolarity: A Structural
Perspective,” World Politics Volume 61, Number 1, January 2009)
To say that the system is unipolar is not to argue that the unipole can get everything it wants or that it has no need for others. American
power is very great, but it is still subject to two familiar limitations: it is harder to build than to destroy, and success usually depends on
others’ decisions. This is particularly true of the current system because of what the U.S. wants. If Hitler had won World War II, he might
have been able to maintain his system for some period of time with little cooperation from others because “all” he wanted was to establish
The U.S. wants not only to prevent the rise of a peer competitor but also to
stamp out terrorism, maintain an open international economic system, spread democracy throughout
the world, and establish a high degree of cooperation among countries that remain juridically equal. Even in the military arena, the
U.S. cannot act completely alone. Bases and overflight rights are always needed, and support from
allies, especially Great Britain, is important to validate military action in the eyes of the American public. When one
matches American forces, not against those of an adversary but against the tasks at hand, they often fall short.54 Against terrorism,
force is ineffective without excellent intelligence. Given the international nature of the threat and the difficulties of
gaining information about it, international cooperation is the only route to success. The maintenance of
international prosperity also requires joint efforts, even leaving aside the danger that other countries
could trigger a run on the dollar by cashing in their holdings. Despite its lack of political unity, Europe is in many
the supremacy of the Aryan race.
respects an economic unit, and one with a greater gdp than that of the U.S. Especially because of the growing Chinese economy, economic
power is spread around the world much more equally than is military power, and the open economic system could easily disintegrate
on a whole host of problems such as aids, poverty, and international
crime (even leaving aside climate change), the unipole can lead and exert pressure but cannot dictate. Joint
actions may be necessary to apply sanctions to various unpleasant and recalcitrant regimes; proliferation can be stopped
despite continued unipolarity. In parallel,
only if all the major states (and many minor ones) work to this end; unipolarity did not automatically enable the U.S. to maintain the
coalition against Iraq after the first Gulf War; close ties within the West are needed to reduce the ability of China, Russia, and other states to
play one Western country off against the others. But in comparison with the cold war era, there are fewer incentives today for allies to
coordination not only permitted military efficiencies but, more
importantly, gave credibility to the American nuclear umbrella that protected the allies. Serious splits were dangerous
cooperate with the U.S. During the earlier period unity and close
because they entailed the risk that the Soviet Union would be emboldened. This reason for avoiding squabbles disappeared along with the
USSR, and the point is likely to generalize to other unipolar systems if they involve a decrease of threats that call for maintaining good
relations with the superpower. This does not mean that even in this particular unipolar system the superpower is like Gulliver tied down by
the Lilliputians. In some areas opposition can be self-defeating. Thus for any country to undermine American leadership of the international
economy would be to put its own economy at risk, even if the U.S. did not retaliate, and for a country to sell a large proportion of its dollar
holding would be to depress the value of the dollar, thereby diminishing the worth of the country’s remaining stock of this currency.
Furthermore, cooperation often follows strong and essentially unilateral action. Without the war in Iraq it is not likely that we would have
seen the degree of cooperation that the U.S. obtained from Europe in combating the Iranian nuclear program and from Japan and the PRC in
containing North Korea. Nevertheless,
many of the American goals depend on persuading others, not coercing
13
them. Although incentives and even force are not irrelevant to spreading democracy and the free market, at bottom this requires people
to embrace a set of institutions and values. Building the world that the U.S. seeks is a political, social, and even
psychological task for which unilateral measures are likely to be unsuited and for which American
military and economic strength can at best play a supporting role. Success requires that others share the
American vision and believe that its leadership is benign.
Strong US influence is key to solve global war, terrorism, and disease
Reiss ‘08 (Mitchell B., Vice Provost of International Affairs – College of William & Mary, “Restoring
America's Image: What the Next President Can Do”, Survival, October, 50(5))
But first, there is another question to be answered: why should Americans care if the United States is liked or not? After all,
foreign policy is not a popularity contest. Policies that are controversial today may look better in a few years. Perhaps America's unpopularity is
just the price that must be paid for being the world's most powerful country. Yet Americans do care, and their desire to be respected by the
world has been reflected in the campaign rhetoric of both McCain and Obama. This desire extends beyond the normal, near-universal human
wish to be liked, or at least not misunderstood or hated. Americans still believe in John Winthrop's description of America as a 'shining city on
the hill' and want others to view the United States that way as well. But there
is another, larger reason for caring about the rise
of anti- Americanism, one that is related to the United States' status as the world's only superpower. No one
country can defeat today's transnational threats on its own. Terrorism, infectious disease, environmental
pollution, weapons of mass destruction, narcotics and human trafficking - all these can only be solved by states
acting together. If others mistrust the United States or actively work against it, building effective coalitions and
promoting a liberal international order that benefits both Americans and hundreds of millions of other people around the world will be far
more challenging. Ultimately, if the United States has to go it alone or bear most of the costs while others are seen as free
riders, the American people are unlikely to sustain engagement with the world with the same intensity, or even at
all. The history of the last century demonstrates that when the United States retreats from the world, bad things happen.
The United States rejected the League of Nations and turned inwards in the 1920s and 1930s, contributing to the Great
Depression and the onset of the Second World War. After the Vietnam War, a weakened and inward-looking America
prompted some Asian countries to start their own nuclear-weapons programmes, emboldened Islamic
fundamentalists to attack American interests, and encouraged the Soviet Union to occupy Afghanistan. While there are some who
say this couldn't happen today, that America couldn't pull up the drawbridge and retreat behind the parapets, recent opinion polls in the
United States reveal a preference for isolationism not seen since the end of the Vietnam War. It is
hard to imagine any scenario
in which an isolated, disengaged United States would be a better friend and ally to other countries, better promote global
prosperity, more forcefully endorse democracy, social justice and human dignity, or do more to enhance peace and
security.
Disease spread will cause extinction
Yu 09 [Victoria, “Human Extinction: The Uncertainty of Our Fate,” Dartmouth Journal of Undergraduate
Science, May 22, http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/spring-2009/human-extinction-the-uncertainty-of-our-fate]
In the past, humans have indeed fallen victim to viruses. Perhaps the best-known case was the bubonic plague that killed
up to one third of the European population in the mid-14th century (7). While vaccines have been developed for the
plague and some other infectious diseases, new viral strains are constantly emerging — a process that
maintains the possibility of a pandemic-facilitated human extinction. Some surveyed students mentioned AIDS as a
potential pandemic-causing virus. It is true that scientists have been unable thus far to find a sustainable cure for AIDS, mainly due to HIV’s
rapid and constant evolution. Specifically, two factors account for the virus’s abnormally high mutation rate: 1. HIV’s use of reverse
transcriptase, which does not have a proof-reading mechanism, and 2. the lack of an error-correction mechanism in HIV DNA polymerase (8).
Luckily, though, there are certain characteristics of HIV that make it a poor candidate for a large-scale global infection: HIV can lie dormant in
the human body for years without manifesting itself, and AIDS itself does not kill directly, but rather through the weakening of the immune
system. However, for
more easily transmitted viruses such as influenza, the evolution of new strains could
14
prove far more consequential. The simultaneous occurrence of antigenic drift (point mutations that
lead to new strains) and antigenic shift (the inter-species transfer of disease) in the influenza virus
could produce a new version of influenza for which scientists may not immediately find a cure. Since
influenza can spread quickly, this lag time could potentially lead to a “global influenza pandemic,”
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (9). The most recent scare of this variety came in 1918
when bird flu managed to kill over 50 million people around the world in what is sometimes referred to as the Spanish flu pandemic. Perhaps
even more frightening is the fact that only 25 mutations were required to convert the original viral
strain — which could only infect birds — into a human-viable strain (10).
15
Economy
16
US econ down
US economic growth is failing- risk of downturn is high
Snyder 2-20-13 [Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the McIntire School of Commerce at the University of
Virginia with two law degrees from the University of Florida, “20 Signs That The U.S. Economy Is headed
For Big Trouble In The Coming Months Ahead,” http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/20-signsthat-the-u-s-economy-is-heading-for-big-trouble-in-the-months-ahead]
Is the U.S. economy about to experience a major downturn? Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of
signs that economic activity in the United States is really slowing down right now. Freight volumes and
freight expenditures are way down, consumer confidence has declined sharply, major retail chains all over
America are closing hundreds of stores, and the "sequester" threatens to give the American people their first significant opportunity
to experience what "austerity" tastes like. Gas prices are going up rapidly, corporate insiders are dumping massive amounts of stock and there
are high profile corporate bankruptcies in the news almost every single day now. In many ways, what we are going through right now feels very
similar to 2008 before the crash happened. Back then the warning signs of economic trouble were very obvious, but our politicians and the
mainstream media insisted that everything was just fine, and the stock market was very much detached from reality. When the stock market
did finally catch up with reality, it happened very, very rapidly. Sadly, most people do not appear to have learned any lessons from the crisis of
2008. Americans continue
to rack up staggering amounts of debt, and Wall Street is more reckless than
ever. As a society, we seem to have concluded that 2008 was just a temporary malfunction rather than an indication that our entire system
was fundamentally flawed. In the end, we will pay a great price for our overconfidence and our recklessness. With southern Europe's
depression dampening continental demand for goods made in Germany and other northern European nations, the prospects for U.S. exports
and cut-priced competition from Europe in U.S. markets is heating up -- growth and
jobs creation could stay depressed for a
long time.¶ Similarly, the Japanese prime minister's much-heralded stimulus and reforms appear to come down to debasing the nation's
currency to jack up exports to North America and very little else. Labor market reforms have been shelved, and there's no sign Japan will ease
immigration policy or provide new incentives for family formation to counter its declining population. That spells yet more cut-rate competition
for U.S. manufacturers.¶ It is hard to imagine the Federal Reserve could do more to support growth. Already, it is buying virtually all the new
mortgage-backed securities and 70% of the new federal debt issued each month.¶ This is keeping interest rates low and boosting new home
construction, but new
home construction is less than 3% of the economy and cannot carry the recovery.
The US economy is set to decline- recovery will fail
Morici 6-7-13 [Peter, Yahoo! Finance contributor, “Economy Adds 175,000 Jobs, but Trouble Lies
Ahead,” http://finance.yahoo.com/news/economy-adds-175-000-jobs-135300611.html]
The Labor Department announced Friday that the economy added 175,000 jobs in May, but that is hardly
the 360,000 jobs needed each month to bring unemployment down to 6% over the next three years. ¶
The jobless rate remained steady rose to 7.6%, from 7.5% in April.¶ Adding in discouraged adults and part-timers who
want full-time jobs, the unemployment rate becomes 13.8%. And, for many years, inflation-adjusted wages have been falling and income
inequality rising -- this remains a buyers market.¶ Sluggish growth is one culprit -- the Bush expansion delivered only 2.1% annual
GDP growth -- that's about the same as the Obama recovery after 45 months. ¶ Now, defense cutbacks negotiated with Congress during
President Obama's first term have subtracted some $62 billion from federal spending since last fall, and an additional $200 billion in higher
taxes and sequestration spending cuts are further reducing consumer outlays and government spending in the second and third quarters of this
year. ¶ With all this fiscal drag, economists
expect growth to slow to less than 2% in the second quarter, and jobs
creation is likely to slow through the spring and summer.
17
Cuban econ down
Cuba’s economy is struggling- lifting the embargo is key
Fortner ’12 [Melissa Lockhart, Senior External Affairs Officer at Pacific Council on International Policy,
“Cuba reforms: Important changes, but pace is slow,” October 3,
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Americas/Latin-America-Monitor/2012/1003/Cuba-reformsImportant-changes-but-pace-is-slow]
Cuba faces some of the same challenges it has for years. How does one encourage workers to innovate and increase
productivity when there are no material incentives for doing so? How can the country smoothly transition from a centrally-controlled
Communist country to whatever it is becoming as it incorporates means for expanding the private sector? How does one effectively manage
the country’s use of two currencies and mitigate the polarizing effect this can have in terms of income disparities for individuals
with access to only one of those two currencies?¶ And there are other challenges facing the country which keep it on rather fragile
footing. Attracting foreign investment remains a challenge when foreigners cannot be confident that their investments
will be completely safe, given past experience in Cuba and other nations, like Venezuela. The Chinese are doing a fair amount of business in
Cuba these days, including in oil, and economic independence via a major oil discovery remains a hope for Havana: But thus
far, all wells
have come up dry or disappointing. And of course, there is the US embargo.¶ Despite all, Cuba’s economic growth in the
first half of 2012 came in at a respectable 2.1 percent: Better growth than was seen in the United States, in fact. Cuba is trading actively with
partners like Venezuela, China, Spain, Brazil, and Canada, and even with the United States in select industries that meet regulations imposed
around the broader embargo.¶ As in Myanmar, where reforms are proceeding at a somewhat quicker (or at least more publicly visible) pace,
the progress is imperfect. It is piecemeal. And it is not complete. In Myanmar, many political detainees remain imprisoned,
and clashes between Burmese military and local insurgent groups continue. Yet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the country at the end
of last year to applaud its progress on a number of other fronts – establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, general amnesties
of more than 200 political prisoners, institution of new labor laws that allow labor unions and strikes, relaxation of press censorship, and
regulations of currency practices – and since then, Washington has relaxed sanctions and steadily reestablished diplomatic relations in a way
that has allowed the United States to re-engage and be an active part of the reforms and transitions taking place.¶ All this regarding a country
with little strategic interest for the United States given its geographic location half way around the world. Cuba, too, released many of the
individuals identified as political prisoners by the international community. Other reforms have involved expanding the personal economic
rights available to Cubans.¶ Huge
issues still exist. Activists are regularly imprisoned for speaking out. Private sector entrepreneurs
face a range of bureaucratic and supply challenges. But there is an opening during the current transition
to make many more changes that the international community has asked to see but not often actively engaged to assist in moving
forward.¶ We’ve seen it happen with Myanmar: surely there is room for similar processes of re-engagement with
Cuba, at least after Nov. 6, as it moves through its own transition period.
Cuba’s economy won’t improve much- gains will unravel
Sullivan 6-12-13 [Mark, Specialist in Latin American Affairs for the Congressional Research Service,
“Cuba: U.S. Policy and Issues for the 113th Congress,”
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/210919.pdf]
Since 2010, however, growth has improved, with 2.4% growth in 2010 and estimated growth ¶ rates of 2.8% and 3.1% in 2011 and 2012,
respectively. The forecast for 2013 is 3.5% growth. ¶ Beyond that, some observers maintain
that Cuba’s efforts to expand the
private sector and boost ¶ productivity, along with favorable external conditions, could increase help growth to over 4% ¶
beginning in 2015, although a withdrawal of support from Venezuela would jeopardize these ¶ forecasts.26 Some economists, however,
maintain that Cuba needs a growth rate of at least 5 to ¶ 7% in order to develop the economy and create
new jobs—increasing internal savings and ¶ attracting foreign investment reportedly are keys to achieving such growth rates.27
18
Plan solves US/Cuban econ
Lifting the embargo strengthens the US and Cuban economy
Bandow ‘12 [Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a former special assistant to
former US president Ronald Reagan, “Time to End the Cuba Embargo,” December 11,
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/time-end-cuba-embargo]
There is essentially no international support for continuing the embargo. For instance, the European Union plans to
explore improving relations with Havana. Spain’s Deputy Foreign Minister Gonzalo de Benito explained that the EU saw a positive evolution in
Cuba. The hope, then, is to move forward in the relationship between the European Union and Cuba.¶ The administration should move now,
before congressmen are focused on the next election. President Obama
should propose legislation to drop (or at least
embargo. He also could use his authority to relax sanctions by, for instance, granting more licenses to visit the
island.¶ Ending the embargo would have obvious economic benefits for both Cubans and Americans. The
U.S. International Trade Commission estimates American losses alone from the embargo as much as
$1.2 billion annually.¶ Expanding economic opportunities also might increase pressure within Cuba for
further economic reform. So far the regime has taken small steps, but rejected significant change. Moreover, thrusting more
Americans into Cuban society could help undermine the ruling system. Despite Fidel Castro’s decline, Cuban politics remains largely
static. A few human rights activists have been released, while Raul Castro has used party purges to entrench loyal elites.¶ Lifting the embargo
significantly loosen) the
would be no panacea. Other countries invest in and trade with Cuba to no obvious political impact. And the lack of widespread economic
reform makes it easier for the regime rather than the people to collect the benefits of trade, in contrast to China. Still, more U.S.
contact
would have an impact. Argued trade specialist Dan Griswold, “American tourists would boost the earnings
of Cubans who rent rooms, drive taxis, sell art, and operate restaurants in their homes. Those dollars would then find their
way to the hundreds of freely priced farmers markets, to carpenters, repairmen, tutors, food venders,
and other entrepreneurs.”¶ The Castro dictatorship ultimately will end up in history’s dustbin. But it will
continue to cause much human hardship along the way.¶ The Heritage Foundation’s John Sweeney complained nearly two decades ago that
“the United States must not abandon the Cuban people by relaxing or lifting the trade embargo against the communist regime.” But the dead
hand of half a century of failed policy is the worst breach of faith with the Cuban people.¶ Lifting sanctions would be a victory not for Fidel
Castro, but for the power of free people to spread liberty. As Griswold argued, “commercial engagement is the best way to encourage more
open societies abroad.” Of course, there are no guarantees. But lifting the embargo would have a greater likelihood of success than continuing
a policy which has failed. Some day the Cuban people will be free. Allowing more contact with Americans likely would make that day come
sooner.
Economic engagement is key to the US and Latin American economies
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Expanded trade, investment, and energy cooperation offer the greatest promise for robust US-Latin American
relations . Independent of ¶ government policies, these areas have seen tremendous growth and development, driven chiefly by the private
sector . The US government needs to ¶ better appreciate the rising importance of Latin America—with its
expanding markets for US exports, burgeoning opportunities for US investments, ¶ enormous reserves of
energy and minerals, and continuing supply of ¶ needed labor—for the longer term performance of the
US economy .¶ With Brazil and many other Latin American economies thriving and showing promise for sustained rapid growth and rising
incomes, the search for ¶ economic opportunities has become the main force shaping relationships in ¶ the hemisphere . Intensive
economic engagement by the United States may ¶ be the best foundation for wider partnerships across
many issues as well as ¶ the best way to energize currently listless US relations with the region .¶ What Latin America’s largely middle and
upper middle income countries—¶ and their increasingly middle class populations—most want and need from ¶ the United States is access to
its $16-trillion-a-year economy, which is more ¶ than three times the region’s economies combined . Most Latin American ¶ nations
experienced quicker recovery from the financial crisis than did ¶ the United States, and they are growing at a faster pace . Nonetheless, they ¶
19
depend on US capital for investment, US markets for their exports, and US ¶ technology and managerial
innovation to lift productivity . They also rely on ¶ the steady remittances from their citizens in the
United States.
20
Plan solves US econ
Lifting the embargo solves US unemployment and small businesses
Hanson et al 1-16-13 [Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy. Harrison
Ealey is a financial analyst, “It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargoof-cuba/]
Yet, estimates
of the sanctions’ annual cost to the U.S. economy range from $1.2 to $3.6 billion,
according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions on trade disproportionately affect U.S. small
businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skirt the embargo. These
restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like Florida, where
the unemployment rate currently stands at 8.1 percent.
Latin America is vital to the US economy
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
While Latin
America has been diversifying its international economic ties, ¶ the region’s expanding economies have become
more critical to US economic growth and stability . Today the United States exports more to Latin ¶
America than it does to Europe; twice as much to Mexico than it does to ¶ China; and more to Chile and Colombia than it does to
Russia .¶ Even a cursory examination of the numbers points to how much the United ¶ States depends on
the region for oil and minerals . Latin America accounts ¶ for a third of US oil imports . Mexico is the second-biggest supplier after ¶
Canada . Venezuela, Brazil, and Colombia sit among the top dozen, and ¶ imports from Brazil are poised to rise sharply with its recent offshore
discoveries . Within a decade, Brazil and Mexico may be two of the three largest suppliers of oil to the United States . The potential for
heightened energy ¶ cooperation in the Americas is huge, with wide-ranging ramifications for ¶ economic well-being and climate change .¶
Latin America is an important destination for US direct and portfolio investments, absorbing each year
about eight percent of all US overseas investment .¶ At the same time, Latin American investment in the United States is
growing fast . And no economic calculus should omit the vital value to the US economy of immigrant workers; US agriculture and construction
industries ¶ are heavily dependent on them . These workers, mostly from
Latin America, ¶ will drive the bulk of US labor
force growth in the next decade and are ¶ important elements in keeping social security solvent over the
longer term.
The plan boosts key sectors of the US economy
Lloyd ’10 [Delia, senior policy manager at BBC Media Action, “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo,”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo]
1. It's good economics. It's
long been recognized that opening up Cuba to American investment would be a
huge boon to the tourism industry in both countries. According to the Cuban government, 250,000 Cuban-Americans visited
from the United States in 2009, up from roughly 170,000 the year before, suggesting a pent-up demand. Lifting the embargo would
also be an enormous boon the U.S. agricultural sector. One 2009 study estimated that doing away with
all financing and travel restrictions on U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba would have boosted 2008 dairy
sales to that country from $13 million to between $39 million and $87 million, increasing U.S. market
share from 6 percent to between 18 and 42 percent.
21
22
Impacts- Economy
Economic decline causes every major impact
Green ‘09 [Michael J., Senior Advisor and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS) and Associate Professor at Georgetown University. Asia Times Online, 3.26.9,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/KC26Dk01.html AD 6/30/09]
Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, analysts at the World Bank and the US Central Intelligence
Agency are just beginning to contemplate the ramifications for international stability if there is not a
recovery in the next year. For the most part, the focus has been on fragile states such as some in Eastern
Europe. However, the Great Depression taught us that a downward global economic spiral can even have
jarring impacts on great powers. It is no mere coincidence that the last great global economic downturn
was followed by the most destructive war in human history. In the 1930s, economic desperation helped
fuel autocratic regimes and protectionism in a downward economic-security death spiral that engulfed
the world in conflict. This spiral was aided by the preoccupation of the United States and other leading nations with economic troubles
at home and insufficient attention to working with other powers to maintain stability abroad. Today's challenges are different, yet 1933's
London Economic Conference, which failed to stop the drift toward deeper depression and world war, should be a cautionary tale for leaders
heading to next month's London Group of 20 (G-20) meeting. There is no
question the US must urgently act to address
banking issues and to restart its economy. But the lessons of the past suggest that we will also have to
keep an eye on those fragile threads in the international system that could begin to unravel if the
financial crisis is not reversed early in the Barack Obama administration and realize that economics and
security are intertwined in most of the critical challenges we face. A disillusioned rising power? Four areas in Asia merit
particular attention, although so far the current financial crisis has not changed Asia's fundamental strategic picture. China is not replacing the
US as regional hegemon, since the leadership in Beijing is too nervous about the political implications of the financial crisis at home to actually
play a leading role in solving it internationally. Predictions that the US will be brought to its knees because China is the leading holder of US
debt often miss key points. China's currency controls and full employment/export-oriented growth strategy give Beijing few choices other than
buying US Treasury bills or harming its own economy. Rather than creating new rules or institutions in international finance, or reorienting the
Chinese economy to generate greater long-term consumer demand at home, Chinese leaders are desperately clinging to the status quo (though
Beijing deserves credit for short-term efforts to stimulate economic growth). The greater danger with China is not an eclipsing of US leadership,
but instead the kind of shift in strategic orientation that happened to Japan after the Great Depression. Japan was arguably not a revisionist
power before 1932 and sought instead to converge with the global economy through open trade and adoption of the gold standard. The
worldwide depression and protectionism of the 1930s devastated the newly exposed Japanese economy
and contributed directly to militaristic and autarkic policies in Asia as the Japanese people reacted
against what counted for globalization at the time. China today is similarly converging with the global
economy, and many experts believe China needs at least 8% annual growth to sustain social stability. Realistic growth predictions for 2009
are closer to 5%. Veteran China hands were watching closely when millions of migrant workers returned to work after the Lunar New Year
holiday last month to find factories closed and jobs gone. There were pockets of protests, but nationwide unrest seems unlikely this year, and
Chinese leaders are working around the clock to ensure that it does not happen next year either. However, the economic slowdown has only
just begun and nobody is certain how it will impact the social contract in China between the ruling communist party and the 1.3 billion Chinese
who have come to see President Hu Jintao's call for "harmonious society" as inextricably linked to his promise of "peaceful development". If the
Japanese example is any precedent, a sustained economic slowdown has the potential to open a dangerous path from economic nationalism to
strategic revisionism in China too. Dangerous states It
is noteworthy that North Korea, Myanmar and Iran have all
intensified their defiance in the wake of the financial crisis, which has distracted the world's leading
nations, limited their moral authority and sown potential discord. With Beijing worried about the
potential impact of North Korean belligerence or instability on Chinese internal stability, and leaders in
Japan and South Korea under siege in parliament because of the collapse of their stock markets, leaders
in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang have grown increasingly boisterous about their country's
claims to great power status as a nuclear weapons state. The junta in Myanmar has chosen this moment to arrest
hundreds of political dissidents and thumb its nose at fellow members of the 10-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Iran continues
its nuclear program while exploiting differences between the US, UK and France (or the P-3 group) and China and Russia - differences that could
become more pronounced if economic friction with Beijing or Russia crowds out cooperation or if Western European governments grow
nervous about sanctions as a tool of policy. It
is possible that the economic downturn will make these dangerous
23
states more pliable because of falling fuel prices (Iran) and greater need for foreign aid (North Korea and
Myanmar), but that may depend on the extent that authoritarian leaders care about the well-being of
their people or face internal political pressures linked to the economy. So far, there is little evidence to
suggest either and much evidence to suggest these dangerous states see an opportunity to advance their
asymmetrical advantages against the international system.
If the recession turns into a depression, multiple scenarios of nuclear war take place:
James Cusick, 3/18/2009 Sunday Herald (Scotland)
http://www.sundayherald.com/oped/opinion/display.var.2495478.0.dont_bank_on_financial_trou
ble_being_resolved_without_conflict.php
I'm not saying that America is about to declare war on China, or that Germany is going to invade France. But there
are profound
economic stresses in central Europe that could rapidly turn into conflict in the bankrupt Baltic states,
Hungary, Ukraine. And if the Great Recession, as the IMF's Dominique Strauss-Kahn called it last week, turns into a
Great Depression, with a prolonged collapse in international trade and financial flows, then we could see countries like
Pakistan disintegrate into nuclear anarchy and war with neighbouring India, which will itself be
experiencing widespread social unrest. Collapsing China could see civil war too; Japan will likely re-arm; Russia will
seek to expand its sphere of economic interests. Need I to go on?
US economic decline causes great WMD wars
Nyquist ‘05 [J.R. renowned expert in geopolitics and international relations, WorldNetDaily
contributing editor, “The Political Consequences of a Financial Crash,” February 4,
www.financialsense.com/stormw...2005/0204.html]
Should the United States experience a severe economic contraction during the second term of
President Bush, the American people will likely support politicians who advocate further
restrictions and controls on our market economy – guaranteeing its strangulation and the steady
pauperization of the country. In Congress today, Sen. Edward Kennedy supports nearly all the
economic dogmas listed above. It is easy to see, therefore, that the coming economic contraction,
due in part to a policy of massive credit expansion, will have serious political consequences for the
Republican Party (to the benefit of the Democrats). Furthermore, an economic contraction will
encourage the formation of anti-capitalist majorities and a turning away from the free market
system. The danger here is not merely economic. The political left openly favors the collapse of
America’s strategic position abroad. The withdrawal of the United States from the Middle East, the
Far East and Europe would catastrophically impact an international system that presently allows 6
billion people to live on the earth’s surface in relative peace. Should anti-capitalist dogmas
overwhelm the global market and trading system that evolved under American leadership, the
planet’s economy would contract and untold millions would die of starvation. Nationalistic
totalitarianism, fueled by a politics of blame, would once again bring war to Asia and Europe. But
this time the war would be waged with mass destruction weapons and the United States would be
blamed because it is the center of global capitalism. Furthermore, if the anti-capitalist party gains
power in Washington, we can expect to see policies of appeasement and unilateral disarmament
enacted. American appeasement and disarmament, in this context, would be an admission of guilt
before the court of world opinion. Russia and China, above all, would exploit this admission to
justify aggressive wars, invasions and mass destruction attacks. A future financial crash, therefore,
must be prevented at all costs. But we cannot do this. As one observer recently lamented, “We
drank the poison and now we must die.”
24
Economic decline causes nuclear and biological war
Kerpen ‘08 [Oct. 28 policy director for Americans for Prosperity, Phil, From Panic to Depression?,
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OWQ3ZGYzZTQyZGY4ZWFiZWUxNmYwZTJiNWVkMTIxMmU=]
It’s important that we avoid all these policy errors — not just for the sake of our prosperity, but for our
survival. The Great Depression, after all, didn’t end until the advent of World War II, the most destructive war in
the history of the planet. In a world of nuclear and biological weapons and non-state terrorist
organizations that breed on poverty and despair, another global economic breakdown of such extended
duration would risk armed conflicts on an even greater scale.
Collapse of the economy risks end of the planet
T. E. Bearden, 2000 LTC, U.S. Army (Retired), CEO, CTEC Inc., Director, Association of Distinguished
American Scientists (ADAS), Fellow Emeritus, Alpha Foundation's Institute for Advanced Study (AIAS)
June 24, 2000 (HYPERLINK "http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm"
http://www.seaspower.com/EnergyCrisis-Bearden.htm)
As the collapse of the Western economies nears, one may expect catastrophic stress on the 160
developing nations as the developed nations are forced to dramatically curtail orders. International
Strategic Threat Aspects History bears out that desperate nations take desperate actions. Prior to the
final economic collapse, the stress on nations will have increased the intensity and number of their
conflicts, to the point where the arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) now possessed by
some 25 nations, are almost certain to be released. As an example, suppose a starving North Korea {[7]} launches nuclear
weapons upon Japan and South Korea, including U.S. forces there, in a spasmodic suicidal response. Or suppose a desperate China — whose
long-range nuclear missiles (some) can reach the United States — attacks Taiwan. In
addition to immediate responses, the
mutual treaties involved in such scenarios will quickly draw other nations into the conflict, escalating it
significantly. Strategic nuclear studies have shown for decades that, under such extreme stress
conditions, once a few nukes are launched, adversaries and potential adversaries are then compelled to
launch on perception of preparations by one's adversary. The real legacy of the MAD concept is this side of the MAD coin
that is almost never discussed. Without effective defense, the only chance a nation has to survive at all is to launch immediate full-bore pre-
As the studies showed, rapid
escalation to full WMD exchange occurs. Today, a great percent of the WMD arsenals that will be
unleashed, are already on site within the United States itself {[8]}. The resulting great Armageddon will
destroy civilization as we know it, and perhaps most of the biosphere, at least for many decades.
emptive strikes and try to take out its perceived foes as rapidly and massively as possible.
25
Impacts- Hegemony
A prolonged recession will undermine US leadership
Bruce Crumley, 2009 (staff writer, February 25, 2009. Online. Internet. Accessed, April 1, 2009.
(http://watchmannewsletter.typepad.com/news/2009/02/is-the-economic-crisis-a-security-threattoo.html)
Part of the strategic challenge posed by the downturn lies in the realm of the economy itself. Emerging
powers such as China or India could take the opportunity presented by U.S. economic weakness to
extend their own influence in regions traditionally dominated by the U.S. China, in particular, has
already established itself as a major player in Latin America and Africa, and it is investing heavily in
extractive industries across the globe right now, procuring energy supplies — most recently in new oil
deals inked with Russia, Venezuela and Brazil — and other natural resources for its industrial economy.
Global nuclear war
Zalmay Khalilzad, 1995 RAND, The Washington Quarterly, Spring
Under the third option, the United States would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a
global rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this is the best long-term guiding
principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the
United States exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global
environment would be more open and more receptive to American values -- democracy, free markets, and the
rule of law. Second, such a world would have a better chance of dealing cooperatively with
the world's major problems, such as nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by
renegade states, and low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the
rise of another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid another
global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a global nuclear
exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar
balance of power system.
26
Impacts- China war
The loss of US competitiveness leads to military confrontations and demonization of
China:
James Petras, 2005 (former Professor of Sociology at Binghamton). October 22. “Statism or Free
Markets?”
http://www.counterpunch.org/petras10222005.html
The Myth of the "China Threat" Instead of accepting the economic challenge from China and recognizing
the need for re-thinking the misallocations of resources and the over-reliance on the paper economy, retrograde business elites
and overpaid trade union bosses have joined forces with neo-conservative ideologues in promoting
the idea of China as a national security threat which needs to be confronted militarily. The fusion of
militarism abroad and protectionism at home has gained many adherents in Congress and in the
executive branch - setting the stage for a self-fulfilling prophecy . Faced with increasingly bellicose rhetoric from
Washington, China looks eastward toward strengthening its military and economic ties with Russia and Central Asia while diversifying its trade
US militant "protectionist militarism" with its confrontational
approach to China threatens to block the free market of knowledge and technology. China's dynamic growth
with Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.
is not primarily based on "cheap labor" - it relies on the production of millions of highly trained scientific and professional workers each year.
Each year tens of thousands of Chinese students, professors and scientists train abroad - many in the US. Very few US students pursue
advanced degrees in science and engineering, with the result that foreign students - including Chinese - are increasingly critical to the US
science workforce. In this free flow of ideas and scientists, both China and the US theoretically benefit - from a "free market" perspective. But
as we have argued the US is opposed to the free market - especially in the free flow of scientific 'know-how'. The US is doing everything
possible to restrict the exchange of scientists, technology and knowledge - by a wide-ranging definition of "national security". Given their
military definition of the China challenge, Washington argues that Chinese students and scholars should be restricted in what they study, what
they learn as well as their access to technology. Universities, under Pentagon and Department of Commerce ruling, would have to secure
special licenses and mark restricted areas within laboratories to prevent foreign students from using supercomputers, semiconductors, lasers
and sensors in their research. The Department of Commerce plans to tighten controls in the export of commercial technologies (Financial Times
Sept. 1, 2005 p 11). From a free market perspective US export controls to China are self-defeating, lessening exports thus increasing the trade
deficit, and have little impact on China's access to technology via Japan, Korea and Europe. In contrast, in July 2005 the European Union signed
From a militarist-protectionist
perspective the restrictions on ideas and the free circulation of scientists and students can be seen as
part of a campaign of political and perhaps military confrontation and encirclement. 'China bashing'
is merely a response to the loss of competitiveness. Nationalist demagogy in a declining global
contracts with China to develop commercial usages of the Galileo satellite navigation system.
power is a compensatory mechanism for the failure of US capitalism to keep up with the
competition - at least from its locus in the US economy.
That risks a nuclear war:
Ivan Eland, 2005 (Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Peace & Liberty) May 31, 2005.
Accessed August 21, 2010 @ http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1515
At a recent hearing on Capitol Hill, senators of both parties berated the Bush administration’s failure to ratchet up
the pressure on China to reduce the value of its currency, the yuan, by branding that nation as a “currency manipulator.”
The lawmakers also complained that the value of Japan’s yen is too high. But such U.S. government interference in overseas
commerce is ultimately counterproductive and could lead to a greater risk of conflict with other nations.
On foreign currencies, as with many issues, members of Congress respond to the needs of powerful, but narrow, special interests at the
expense of the general public, whose power and interests are more diffuse. Influential U.S. industries that sell overseas face competition from
Chinese and Japanese exports made cheaper by the yuan and yen, currencies that many economists say are held below market value by their
respective governments. Since 1995, the Chinese government has fixed the yuan’s value at 8.28 per dollar. The Japanese central bank, with
more subtlety, purchased large quantities of dollars in 2003 to drive up the value of the dollar vis-à-vis the yen. Although Japan quit that
practice in March 2004, Japanese officials have threatened to resume it if the yen continues to rise against the dollar. In addition to being
disadvantaged in world markets against cheaper Chinese and Japanese products, the artificially low yuan and yen make U.S. exports more
expensive in the large home markets of China and Japan. Although U.S. export industries are hurt by the lower yuan and yen, American
27
consumers here at home enjoy cheaper imports from China and Japan. Less is heard about the advantages to consumers of lower foreign
currencies because consumers have far fewer lobbyists in Washington than do large export firms. Nonetheless, the world would be a better—
and richer—place if the Chinese and Japanese governments avoided trying to influence the value of their currencies and instead allowed them
to float in international currency markets. By distorting their own economies, those governments, like members of the U.S. Congress, are
supporting prominent export industries at the expense of the common consumer. And while they’re at it, China and Japan could further help
their consumers by more fully opening their markets to U.S. goods and services by easing tariff and non-tariff barriers. That said, the
U.S.
government should set a better example by avoiding the kind of pressure on the Chinese and Japanese
governments (and any other government using similar practices) that members of Congress are demanding. If those
governments want to shoot themselves in the foot, there is no reason why the United States needs to shoot itself in the head. Setting a
precedent for U.S. government interference in overseas commerce could
generate further pressure by domestic
groups—for example, domestic industries that compete with imports from China and Japan—to retaliate for Chinese and Japanese
currency manipulation by resorting to import barriers against products from those countries. Some senators are already
threatening to raise tariffs against Chinese goods unless China raises the value of the yuan. And according to the Financial Times, the Bush
administration is privately passing along that threat to the Chinese, warning that the value of the yuan must be raised at least 10 percent to
avoid that protectionist anger in Congress. (The 10 percent figure is an example of government bureaucrats inventing an arbitrary number and
applying it to complex international currency markets.) Thus, government interference in the international marketplace can
ultimately lead to a trade war among nations. In the 1930s, the Smoot-Hawley legislation that increased tariffs in the United States
was followed by retaliation from other nations. Such protectionism deepened the worldwide depression, and that global economic crisis was a
contributing factor to the causes of World War II.
The United States has enough tension with a nuclear-armed
China over the Taiwan issue and dual military buildups without interjecting a trade war into the mix. In fact,
a healthy level of international commerce between the two countries could create a peace lobby in
each nation and a greater incentive to avoid military confrontation .
28
AT: Past recession disproves
Despite the past recession, it could be much worse if we can’t stave off another
downturn
Reich 7-13-10 [Robert, professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former
secretary of labor during the Clinton administration, “The root of economic fragility and political anger,”
http://www.salon.com/news/great_recession/?story=/news/feature/2010/07/13/reich_economic_ange
r]
The crash of 2008 didn’t turn into another Great Depression because the government learned the
importance of flooding the market with cash, thereby temporarily rescuing some stranded consumers
and most big bankers. But the financial rescue didn’t change the economy’s underlying structure —
median wages dropping while those at the top are raking in the lion’s share of income. That’s why
America’s middle class still doesn’t have the purchasing power it needs to reboot the economy, and
why the so-called recovery will be so tepid—maybe even leading to a double dip. It’s also why
America will be vulnerable to even larger speculative booms and deeper busts in the years to come.
Continued worsening of the recession increases likelihood of war
Mead ‘09 [Walter Russell, Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, New
Republic, February 4, http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=571cbbb9-2887-4d81-8542-92e83915f5f8&p=2]
So far, such half-hearted experiments not only have failed to work; they have left the societies that have tried them in a progressively worse
position, farther behind the front-runners as time goes by. Argentina has lost ground to Chile; Russian development has fallen farther behind that
of the Baltic states and Central Europe. Frequently, the crisis has weakened the power of the merchants, industrialists, financiers, and
professionals who want to develop a liberal capitalist society integrated into the world. Crisis can also strengthen the hand of
religious extremists, populist radicals, or authoritarian traditionalists who are determined to resist liberal capitalist society
for a variety of reasons. Meanwhile, the companies and banks based in these societies are often less established and more vulnerable to the
consequences of a financial crisis than more established firms in wealthier societies. As a result, developing countries and countries where
capitalism has relatively recent and shallow roots tend to suffer greater economic and political damage when crisis strikes--as, inevitably, it does.
And, consequently, financial crises often reinforce rather than challenge the global distribution of power and wealth. This may be happening yet
again. None of which means that we can just sit back and enjoy the recession. History may suggest that financial crises actually help capitalist
great powers maintain their leads--but it has other, less reassuring messages as well. If financial crises have been a normal part of
life during the 300-year rise of the liberal capitalist system under the Anglophone powers, so has war. The wars of the League of
Augsburg and the Spanish Succession; the Seven Years War; the American Revolution; the Napoleonic
Wars; the two World Wars; the cold war: The list of wars is almost as long as the list of financial crises. Bad economic times
can breed wars. Europe was a pretty peaceful place in 1928, but the Depression poisoned German public opinion and
helped bring Adolf Hitler to power. If the current crisis turns into a depression, what rough beasts might
start slouching toward Moscow, Karachi, Beijing, or New Delhi to be born? The United States may not, yet,
decline, but, if we can't get the world economy back on track, we may still have to fight.
29
Relations
30
Brink
Relations are on the brink
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
If the United States and Latin America do not make the effort now, the chance ¶ may slip away. The most
likely scenario then would be marked by a continued drift in their relationship, further deterioration of hemisphere-wide ¶ institutions, a
reduced ability and willingness to deal with a range of common problems, and a spate of missed opportunities for more robust growth and ¶
greater social equity. The United States and Latin America would go their ¶ separate ways, manage their affairs independently of one another,
and forego ¶ the opportunities that could be harvested by a more productive relationship .¶ There are risks of simply maintaining the status
quo. Urgent problems will ¶ inevitably arise that require trust and effective collaboration to resolve . And ¶ there is a chance that tensions
between the United States and Latin America ¶ could become much worse, adversely affecting everyone’s interests
and wellbeing. It is time to seize the moment and overhaul hemispheric relations.
31
Impacts- Laundry list
The plan is key to solve climate change, proliferation and democracy
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Similarly, Washington’s more than half-century embargo
on Cuba, as well ¶ as other elements of United States’ Cuba policy, is
strongly opposed by all ¶ other countries in the hemisphere . Indeed, the US position on these troublesome issues—
immigration, drug policy, and Cuba—has set Washington ¶ against the consensus view of the hemisphere’s other
34 governments .¶ These issues stand as obstacles to further cooperation in the Americas . The ¶ United States
and the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean need to ¶ resolve them in order to build more productive partnerships .¶ There are
compelling reasons for the United States and Latin America to ¶ pursue more robust ties .¶ Every country in the Americas would benefit from
strengthened and ¶ expanded economic relations, with improved access to each other’s markets, investment capital, and energy resources .
Even with its current economic problems, the United States’ $16-trillion economy is a vital market ¶ and source of capital (including
remittances) and technology for Latin ¶ America, and it could contribute more to the region’s economic performance . For its part, Latin
America’s rising economies will inevitably become ¶ more and more crucial to the United States’
economic future .¶ The United States and many nations of Latin America and the Caribbean ¶ would also
gain a great deal by more cooperation on such global matters ¶ as climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and democracy and human ¶ rights . With a rapidly expanding US Hispanic population of more than 50 ¶ million,
the cultural and demographic integration of the United States and ¶ Latin America is proceeding at an accelerating pace, setting a firmer basis ¶
for hemispheric partnership Despite the multiple opportunities and potential benefits, relations between ¶ the United States and Latin America
remain disappointing . If
new opportunities are not seized, relations will likely continue to drift apart . The
longer the ¶ current situation persists, the harder it will be to reverse course and rebuild ¶ vigorous
cooperation . Hemispheric affairs require urgent attention—both ¶ from the United States and from Latin America and the Caribbean.
32
Impacts- Proliferation
Relations are key to solve proliferation
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Many of the issues
on the hemispheric agenda carry critical global ¶ dimensions . Because of this, the United
States should seek greater ¶ cooperation and consultation with Brazil, Mexico, and other countries of ¶ the region in
world forums addressing shared interests .¶ Brazil has the broadest international presence and influence of any Latin ¶ American nation . In
recent years it has become far more active on global ¶ issues of concern to the United States . The United States and Brazil have ¶ clashed over
such issues as Iran’s nuclear program, non-proliferation, and ¶ the Middle East uprisings, but they have cooperated when their interests ¶
converged, such as in the World Trade Organization and the G-20 (Mexico, ¶ Argentina, and Canada also participate in the G-20), and in efforts
to ¶ rebuild and provide security for Haiti . Washington
has worked with Brazil ¶ and other Latin American countries to
raise the profile of emerging economies in various international financial agencies, including the World Bank ¶
and the International Monetary Fund .¶ In addition to economic and financial matters, Brazil and other Latin ¶ American nations are
assuming enhanced roles on an array of global political, environmental, and security issues . Several for
which US and Latin ¶ American cooperation could become increasingly important include: ¶ As the
world’s lone nuclear-weapons-free region, Latin America has the ¶ opportunity to participate more
actively in non-proliferation efforts .¶ Although US and Latin American interests do not always converge ¶ on non-proliferation
questions, they align on some related goals . For ¶ example, the main proliferation challenges today are found in
developing and unstable parts of the world, as well as in the leakage—or transfer ¶ of nuclear
materials—to terrorists . In that context, south-south connections are crucial . Brazil could play a pivotal role.
33
Impacts- Climate change
Relations solve climate change
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Many countries in the region give priority to climate change challenges .¶ This may position them as a
voice in international debates on this topic .¶ The importance of the Amazon basin to worldwide climate
concerns ¶ gives Brazil and five other South American nations a special role to play .¶ Mexico already has assumed a
prominent position on climate change and ¶ is active in global policy debates . Brazil organized the first-ever global ¶ environmental meeting in
1992 and, this year, will host Rio+20 . Mexico ¶ hosted the second international meeting on climate change in Cancún in ¶ 2010 . The
States is handicapped by its inability to devise a climate ¶ change policy . Still, it should support
coordination on the presumption ¶ of shared interests on a critical policy challenge.
United
34
Leadership
35
Plan solves soft power
The embargo destroys US global soft power
Rumbaut ‘11 [Rubén G. Rumbaut, Professor of Sociology at the School of Social Sciences at UC Irvine,
“The embargo undermines the image of the United States throughout the world,”
http://cubacentral.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/the-un-the-us-embargo-and-the-20-year-rout-10reasons-to-oppose-the-embargo/]
“The
U.S. trade and travel embargo against Cuba is the longest in history, and the most senseless and irredeemable. It
is the act of a bully, based on pique. It is an abysmal moral and political failure, diminishing not Cuba but the U.S. in world
opinion and respect. It has achieved the opposite of what it has sought, hurting both the Cuban people
as well as U.S. interests. The embargo is opposed by virtually the entire world as well as large domestic
majorities, even Cuban exiles and dissidents; yet, the U.S. government persists with its petty punitive
policy, not out of reasoned principle but for internal political posturing. The spectacle of the world’s largest economy and
sole superpower, seeking in vain for half a century to strangle a baseball-loving small developing nation
that dared to defy it, is a modern David and Goliath story — and no one loves Goliath.”
The embargo has destroyed US credibility
Adams ’11 [John Adams, retired Brigadier General US Army, “The embargo hurts U.S. national security
interests,” http://cubacentral.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/the-un-the-us-embargo-and-the-20-yearrout-10-reasons-to-oppose-the-embargo/]
“The U.S. embargo
against Cuba is a Cold War relic that hurts America and Cuba by preventing normal
trade and travel between our two countries. From the perspective of U.S. national security, not only does the embargo prevent our
cooperation with Cuba on common security issues such as crime and terrorism, it hurts U.S. standing throughout the world by
highlighting our aggression against a neighboring country that poses no threat. The United States
demeans itself by this futile and hypocritical policy. It is long past time to repeal the U.S. embargo
against Cuba.”
Lifting the embargo is key to US leadership
Piccone ’09 [Ted Piccone is a senior fellow and deputy director for Foreign Policy at Brookings. Piccone
specializes in U.S.-Latin American relations; global democracy and human rights; and multilateral affairs.
Piccone serves as an advisor to the Club of Madrid and has served on the National Security Council, at
the State Department and Pentagon, “The United Nations Denounces the U.S. Embargo on Cuba …
Again,” Oct. 27, http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2009/10/27-cuba-un-vote-piccone]
For the 18th year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly unequivocally calls for the end of "the
economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba." And once again, the
United States finds itself completely isolated from even its closest friends in the international
community.¶ It wasn’t supposed to be this way. President Obama is committed to a new course of multilateral engagement in which the
United States reassumes its mantle of responsible global citizen. And in many ways, from the formal creation of the G-20 to re-joining the UN
Human Rights Council, the administration has not just talked the talk, but walked the walk, earning him a rather premature though welcomed
Nobel Peace Prize. ¶ But when it comes to Cuba, it’s back to the same old story: all politics is local, in this case, Miami, Florida. Earlier this year,
there was some justified hope that, after eight years of an increasingly onerous set of laws and regulations restricting trade, travel and
remittances between the United States and Cuba, President Obama would fulfill his promise to try a new path of pragmatic but principled
engagement. And winning Florida last November – despite losing the majority of Cuban American votes in Miami – should have given the White
House some elbow room to take some bold actions. But even supporters are disappointed by the excessively cautious steps this administration
36
has taken so far to extend that "unclenched fist" to our closest island neighbor. ¶ If anything, the president seems to have limited his options by
locking himself in to a policy of mutual reciprocity that lets Havana determine the pace of progress in unfreezing 50 years of icy relations. On
more than one occasion, the president has reiterated his view that, in return for letting Cuban-American families travel and send remittances to
their loved ones on the island, the Castro regime must take the next step toward better relations. He reportedly asked his Spanish counterpart,
Prime Minister Jose Luis Zapatero, to tell President Raul Castro to get moving on democratic reforms. According to an unnamed U.S. official
quoted in El Pais, Obama said, "We're taking steps, but if they don't take steps too, it's going to be very hard for us to continue." Of course, the
fact that financial donations from pro-embargo Cuban Americans to the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, which happens to be led by
pro-embargo Cuban-American Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), have jumped six-fold since 2006 also may have something to do with this
approach. It at least seems to reaffirm another old cliché: money talks.¶ While a tit-for-tat approach may assuage the shrinking number of hardliners in Miami, it is unlikely to have any effect on the intended audience – the Cuban regime, now ruled by Fidel Castro’s "younger" brother (78
years old) and a cohort of aged revolutionaries. Cuba has made it very clear that it is prepared to sit down and talk with the United States in a
spirit of mutual respect, i.e., accepting the regime as it is, rather than as we would like it to be. Until then, it will happily promote the image of
David vs. Goliath on the world stage. It is just too potent and too successful a narrative in winning friends for Havana to abandon, even more so
now that its economy is in a shambles and it needs all the friends it can get. ¶ Similarly, the modest steps the administration has taken so far is
unlikely to get much mileage with the other group one would want to influence – the European and other allies who are rooting for a more
multilateral, cooperative and pragmatic U.S. policy on this and a host of other issues. Washington
will have to do much more to
begin turning the tide of international public opinion against the embargo. This does not mean that the United
States should abandon its defense of human rights for all Cubans. But it might want to change its tactics. Spain is touting its policy
of quiet diplomacy as a better model for the European Union, which it chairs in 2010, and has a few, albeit meager concessions by Havana to
back up its argument. We, after 50 years of attempting to punish Cuba for its bad behavior, have none.¶ So a policy designed to isolate a small,
poor Caribbean island has come around full circle to isolate the superpower instead. The
lopsided UN vote reminds us yet again
that it’s time for a change. If President Obama wants to show the world he is prepared to lead in a new
direction, there are a multitude of steps he can take to ease the embargo and improve bilateral relations without
waiting for Congress to act. These include expanding licenses for people-to-people travel for educational, cultural and humanitarian purposes;
allowing more Cubans to travel to the United States; easing the licensing of tradable medicines developed in Cuba; reviewing whether Cuba
should remain on the list of state sponsors of terrorism; and pursuing agreements on disaster relief and marine conservation. But something
tells me that at next year’s UN vote, very little will have changed, in Havana or in Washington.
The embargo destroys US influence
Quiñones 4-18-13 [Brendan Quiñones, M.A. in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall
University with a concentration in Latin America & the Caribbean, “A New Tack for Cuba,”
http://savejersey.com/2013/04/a-new-tac-for-cuba/]
While American policymakers perpetuate the status-quo, third-party states are reaping the serious economic benefits associated with bilateral
trade with Cuba. Though many of these states are our allies, many—such as Venezuela—are undeniably situated in the anti-American
camp, and as such, help
to perpetuate anti-Americanism in Latin America and abroad, using the trade
embargo to bolster their claims. Combating the belligerency of third-party states—and likewise—promoting democracy in Cuba, will
be difficult endeavors indeed. Despite this, the United States should boldly move forward on major diplomatic
reforms with Cuba, ultimately with the goal of exposing the island to American values, and American economic lifeblood. Should such a
policy be adopted, a more egalitarian, democratic future might be realized by all parties involved—as
demonstrated, the status-quo will only serve to deepen authoritarian strains.
37
Impacts- War
Soft power solves global warfare
Nye ’96 [Joe, Dean of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, Washington Quarterly, "Conflicts after
the Cold War,” 19.1]
As a result of such disjunctions between borders and peoples, there
have been some 30 communal conflicts since the
end of the Cold War, many of them still ongoing. Communal conflicts, particularly those involving wars of secession,
are very difficult to manage through the UN and other institutions built to address interstate conflicts. The UN, regional
organizations, alliances, and individual states cannot provide a universal answer to the dilemma of self-determination versus the inviolability of
established borders, particularly when so many states face potential communal conflicts of their own. In a world of identity crises on many
levels of analysis, it is not clear which selves deserve sovereignty: nationalities, ethnic groups, linguistic groups, or religious groups. Similarly,
uses of force for deterrence, compellence, and reassurance are much harder to carry out when both
those using force and those on the receiving end are disparate coalitions of international
organizations, states, and sub national groups. Moreover, although few communal conflicts by themselves threaten security
beyond their regions, some impose risks of "horizontal" escalation, or the spread to other states within their
respective regions. This can happen through the involvement of affiliated ethnic groups that spread across borders, the sudden flood of
refugees into neighboring states, or the use of neighboring territories to ship weapons to combatants. The use of ethnic
propaganda also raises the risk of "vertical" escalation to more intense violence, more sophisticated
and destructive weapons, and harsher attacks on civilian populations as well as military personnel. There is also the danger that
communal conflicts could become more numerous if the UN and regional security organizations lose the credibility, willingness, and capabilities
Leadership by the United States, as
leading democracy, is a key factor in limiting the
frequency and destructiveness of great power, regional, and communal conflicts. The paradox of the postnecessary to deal with such conflicts. Preventing and Addressing Conflicts: The Pivotal U.S. Role
the world's leading economy, its most powerful military force,, and a
cold war role of the United States is that it is the most powerful state in terms of both "hard" power resources (its economy and military forces)
and "soft" ones (the appeal of its political system and culture), yet it is not so powerful that it can achieve all its international goals by acting
alone. The United States lacks both the international and domestic prerequisites to resolve every conflict, and in each case its role must be
proportionate to its interests at stake and the costs of pursuing them. Yet the United States can
continue to enable and
mobilize international coalitions to pursue shared security interests, whether or not the United States itself supplies
large military forces. The U.S. role will thus not be that of a lone global policeman; rather, the United States can frequently serve as
the sheriff of the posse, leading shifting coalitions of friends and allies to address shared security
concerns within the legitimizing framework of international organizations. This requires sustained attention to
the infrastructure and institutional mechanisms that make U.S. leadership effective and joint action possible: forward stationing and preventive
deployments of U.S. and allied forces, prepositioning of U.S. and allied equipment, advance planning and joint training to ensure
interoperability with allied forces, and steady improvement in the conflict resolution abilities of an interlocking set of bilateral alliances,
regional security organizations and alliances, and global institutions.
38
Impacts- Hege
Hege solves global war
Zhang and Shi ‘11 – *Yuhan Zhang is a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
Washington, D.C.; Lin Shi is from Columbia University. She also serves as an independent consultant for
the Eurasia Group and a consultant for the World Bank in Washington, D.C. (America’s decline: A
harbinger of conflict and rivalry, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2011/01/22/americas-decline-aharbinger-of-conflict-and-rivalry/)
This does not necessarily mean that the US is in systemic decline, but it encompasses a trend that appears to be negative and perhaps alarming.
Although the US still possesses incomparable military prowess and its economy remains the world’s largest, the once seemingly indomitable
chasm that separated America from anyone else is narrowing. Thus, the
global distribution of power is shifting, and the
inevitable result will be a world that is less peaceful, liberal and prosperous, burdened by a dearth of effective
conflict regulation. Over the past two decades, no other state has had the ability to seriously challenge the US military. Under these
circumstances, motivated by both opportunity and fear, many actors have bandwagoned with US hegemony and accepted a
subordinate role. Canada, most of Western Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Singapore and the Philippines have all joined the US,
creating a status quo that has tended to mute great power conflicts. However, as the hegemony that drew these powers together withers, so
will the pulling power behind the US alliance. The result will be an international order where power is more diffuse, American interests and
influence can be more readily challenged, and conflicts or wars may be harder to avoid. As history attests,
power decline and
redistribution result in military confrontation. For example, in the late 19th century America’s emergence as a regional power
saw it launch its first overseas war of conquest towards Spain. By the turn of the 20th century, accompanying the increase in US power and
waning of British power, the American Navy had begun to challenge the notion that Britain ‘rules the waves.’ Such a notion would eventually
see the US attain the status of sole guardians of the Western Hemisphere’s security to become the order-creating Leviathan shaping the
international system with democracy and rule of law. Defining this US-centred system are three key characteristics: enforcement of property
rights, constraints on the actions of powerful individuals and groups and some degree of equal opportunities for broad segments of society. As
a result of such political stability, free markets, liberal trade and flexible financial mechanisms have appeared.
And, with this, many countries have sought opportunities to enter this system, proliferating stable and cooperative relations. However, what
will happen to these advances as America’s influence declines? Given that America’s
authority, although sullied at times, has
benefited people across much of Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans, as well as parts of Africa and,
quite extensively, Asia, the answer to this question could affect global society in a profoundly detrimental way. Public imagination and
academia have anticipated that a post-hegemonic world would return to the problems of the 1930s: regional blocs,
trade conflicts and strategic rivalry. Furthermore, multilateral institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank or the WTO
might give way to regional organisations. For example, Europe and East Asia would each step forward to fill the vacuum left by
Washington’s withering leadership to pursue their own visions of regional political and economic orders. Free markets would become more
politicised — and, well, less free — and major powers would compete for supremacy. Additionally, such power plays have historically possessed
a zero-sum element. In the late 1960s and 1970s, US economic power declined relative to the rise of the Japanese and Western European
economies, with the US dollar also becoming less attractive. And, as American power eroded, so did international regimes (such as the Bretton
Woods System in 1973). A world without American hegemony is one where great power wars re-emerge, the
liberal international system is supplanted by an authoritarian one, and trade protectionism devolves into restrictive, anti-globalisation barriers.
This, at least, is one possibility we can forecast in a future that will inevitably be devoid of unrivalled US primacy.
39
Impacts- Laundry list
Soft power is key to solve disease, econ growth, terrorism, and drug trafficking
Nye ’03 [Joseph, Former Assistant Secretary Of Defense “U.S. Power and Strategy after Iraq”, Jul/Aug
2003, Proquest]
The problem for U.S. power in the twenty-first century is that more and more continues to fall outside the control of even the most powerful
state. Although
the United States does well on the traditional measures of hard power, these
measures fail to capture the ongoing transformation of world politics brought about by
globalization and the democratization of technology. The paradox of American power is that world politics is
changing in a way that makes it impossible for the strongest world power since Rome to achieve
some of its most crucial international goals alone. The United States lacks both the international
and the domestic capacity to resolve conflicts that are internal to other societies and to monitor
and control transnational developments that threaten Americans at home. On many of today's
key issues, such as international financial stability, drug trafficking, the spread of diseases, and
especially the new terrorism, military power alone simply cannot produce success, and its use
can sometimes be counterproductive. Instead, as the most powerful country, the United States
must mobilize international coalitions to address these shared threats and challenges. By
devaluing soft power and institutions, the new unilateralist coalition of Jacksonians and neoWilsonians is depriving Washington of some of its most important instruments for the
implementation of the new national security strategy. If they manage to continue with this tack, the United States
could fail what Henry Kissinger called the historical test for this generation of American leaders: to use current preponderant U.S. power to
achieve an international consensus behind widely accepted norms that will protect American values in a more uncertain future. Fortunately,
this outcome is not preordained.
Only soft power allows us to confront problems related to global terrorism, WMD
proliferation, climate change and disease
Nye ’04 [Joseph, “US Military Primacy is Fact - so, Now, Work on 'Soft Power' of Persuasion”, 4-29-2004,
Google]
Hard power can rest on tangible inducements (carrots), or threats (sticks), to get others to change their position. But sometimes governments
can get the outcomes they want without threats or payoffs. The indirect way to a desirable outcome has been called the second face of power.
A country may obtain outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example,
Soft
power co-opts people rather than coerces them. It rests on the ability to set the agenda or shape
the preferences of others. It is a mistake to discount soft power as just a question of image, public relations, and ephemeral
popularity. It is a form of power - a means of pursuing national interests. When America discounts the importance of its
attractiveness to other countries, it pays a price. When US policies lose their legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of
others, attitudes of distrust tend to fester and further reduce its leverage. The manner with which the US went
aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense, it is also important to set the agenda and attract others in world politics.
into Iraq undercut American soft power. That did not prevent the success of the four-week military campaign, but it made others less willing to
help in the reconstruction of Iraq and made the American occupation more costly in the hard-power resources of blood and treasure. Because
of its leading edge in the information revolution and its past investment in military power, the US probably will remain the world's single most
powerful country well into the 21st century. But not
all the important types of power come from the barrel of a
gun. Hard power is relevant to getting desired outcomes, but transnational issues such as climate
change, infectious diseases, international crime, and terrorism cannot be resolved by military
force alone. Soft power is particularly important in dealing with these issues, where military power alone simply cannot produce success,
and can even be counterproductive. America's success in coping with the new transnational threats of
40
terrorism and weapons of mass destruction will depend on a deeper understanding of the role of
soft power and developing a better balance of hard and soft power in foreign policy.
41
Democracy
42
1AC Module
The plan is vital to Cuban democracy- threatens the entire region
IAD ’12 [Inter-American Dialogue, research organization with majority of Board of Directors from Latin
American and Caribbean nations, “Remaking the Relationship: The United States and Latin America,”
April, http://www.thedialogue.org/PublicationFiles/IAD2012PolicyReportFINAL.pdf]
Cuba, too, poses a significant challenge for relations between the United ¶ States and Latin America . The 50-year-old US
embargo
against Cuba is ¶ rightly criticized throughout the hemisphere as a failed and punitive instrument . It has
long been a strain on US-Latin American relations . Although ¶ the United States has recently moved in the right direction and
taken steps ¶ to relax restrictions on travel to Cuba, Washington needs to do far more ¶ to dismantle its severe, outdated constraints on
normalized relations with ¶ Cuba . Cuba
is one of the residual issues that most obstructs more effective ¶ US-Latin
American engagement .¶ At the same time, Cuba’s authoritarian regime should be of utmost concern ¶ to all
countries in the Americas . At present, it is the only country without ¶ free, multi-party elections, and its
government fully controls the press .¶ Latin American and Caribbean nations could be instrumental in supporting ¶
Cuba’s eventual transition to democratic rule . An end to the US policy of ¶ isolating Cuba, without
setting aside US concern about human rights violations, would be an important first step.
Latin American democracy prevents conflict escalation- has global effects
UNDP ’13 [United Nations Development Programme, “UNDERSTANDING SOCIAL CONFLICT IN LATIN
AMERICA,”
http://www.undp.org/content/dam/undp/library/crisis%20prevention/Understanding%20Social%20Con
flict%20in%20Latin%20America%202013%20ENG.pdf]
Social conflicts affecting Latin America between 2009 and 2010 arose within a historical context influenced by the region’s relative success in
resisting the global economic crisis. During ¶ this period, Latin
America sustained significant rates of economic growth, reduced its
poverty ¶ rates, and maintained a mostly optimistic and positive public opinion of democracy as a political system. Despite this
progress and the diversity of national contexts, there are problems, ¶ trends, and choices encountered throughout the region which
provide a common platform ¶ for social conflict.¶ Latin American societies are generally characterized by an excessively concentrated power, ¶
markets that are uncompetitive in the global economy, relatively weak state institutions of ¶ questionable legitimacy, limited citizen
participation, and inadequate institutional recognition ¶ of cultural identities. In order to
solve the problems between states
and societies—especially ¶ in terms of representation, participation, and mediation—it is necessary to reject all forms of ¶
authoritarianism. Accordingly, States and societies should advocate a kind of political coexistence that does not deny the different types
of power, conflict, or discrepancies that exist in ¶ a plural society.¶ In recent years, Latin America has experienced a political
transformation that could strengthen democracy, foster development, and improve its global standing
over the long term. This transformation is facilitated by political changes which include the erosion of the legitimacy ¶ of political parties
and the emergence or reemergence of variety of movements and regimes ¶ (characterized here as popular nationalism, pragmatic reformism,
and conservative modernism). Considering that societies result from conflict processes, it is natural that social conflict ¶ is a central part of this
transformation. Social conflict in the region should therefore not be ¶ considered a negative phenomenon. If it is managed through dialogue
and negotiation—and ¶ both structural and circumstantial issues are addressed—it can offer means and opportunities ¶ for pursuing greater
social equality.¶ Political systems play an important role in conflict management. Countries and societies respond
differently to similar demands depending on what kind of institutions they have. The ¶ state’s historical role as a social actor is a central factor
in the contemporary dynamics of the ¶ region’s social conflicts. The state not only reflects social and political conflicts, but it is a central
element of the system of economic interests and relationships between political actors ¶ which define the dynamics of conflict.¶ Governability
is a requisite for development and functional democracy, and thus it can have ¶ a profound effect on the evolution of societies and states. In
large part, governability is determined by the political capacity of States and societies to manage their conflicts without ¶ compromising
institutions and stability. Although structural issues continue to be significant ¶ sources of instability in the region,
particularly in terms of socioeconomic problems and institutional failures, the study summarized here shows that social conflict in Latin America
does ¶ not present serious problems for governability.¶ The characteristics and capacities of States and institutions, including their capacities to
manage conflicts, vary significantly across the region. The Latin American State has a central role in ¶ negotiations and conflicts, but
43
paradoxically it has limited capacities for managing and resolving them without threatening social cohesion and democracy. In countries where
the State ¶ is weak and lacks legitimacy, citizen participation is required to manage social conflicts. Similarly, local
institutions and
municipalities are becoming legitimate and important actors in the ¶ management of conflicts.¶ The analysis of social
conflicts in Latin America reveals that they are commonly managed in ¶ para-institutional contexts, and the relationship between State and
social groups often shifts ¶ between formal and informal contexts. Actors in social conflicts still resort to institutions and ¶ norms to pursue
their interests, but such recourse is often accompanied by para-institutional ¶ measures in which informal social networks and mechanisms
help to regulate social relations ¶ between individuals and formal institutions. It is precisely within this para-institutional domain ¶ that social
actors mobilize.¶ Social conflict in Latin America can be divided into three broad categories that represent the ¶ different kinds of demands that
are collectively pursued: social reproduction, institutional, and ¶ cultural conflicts. Social reproduction conflicts stem from demands relating to
labor and wage issues. Institutional conflicts most often address the inefficiencies or weaknesses of norms ¶ and institutions. Cultural conflicts
generally involve demands related to quality of life issues, ¶ the recognition of identities, third generation rights, and the concept of cultural
citizenship. ¶ Cultural
conflicts in particular have significant systemic consequences given the growing role ¶ of
culture in a newly globalized Latin America.¶ Countries with broad social inequality and governments with scarce legitimacy
experience ¶ greater numbers of conflicts. Conversely, more socially-equitable countries with governments ¶ that enjoy greater
levels of legitimacy experience fewer conflicts. More complex relationships ¶ were observed between the quantity of conflicts
and other factors, such as conflict radicalization, institutional legitimacy, and social gaps. However, in general, conflicts tend to escalate ¶ and
radicalize because institutional frameworks are incapable of offering solutions and spaces ¶ for negotiation.¶ Finally there is a growing trend for
traditional and spontaneous conflicts and actors to spread, ¶ mobilize, and gain support through information and communications networks.
The region ¶ is taking part in a new global system made up of real-time networks of information flow and ¶ exchange, affecting society and its
dynamics. Technology and globalization are affecting the ¶ evolution of social conflicts in the region by redefining public space, favoring
individual capacity and participation, fostering spontaneity, and elevating the profile of actors and issues.
Latin American instability causes global war
Rochlin ‘94 [James Francis, Professor of Political Science at Okanagan U. College, Discovering the
Americas: The Evolution of Canadian Foreign Policy Towards Latin America, 130-131]
While there were economic motivations for Canadian policy in Central America, security considerations were perhaps more important.
Canada possessed an interest in promoting stability in the face of a potential decline of U.S. hegemony in the Americas. Perceptions
of
declining U.S. influence in the region – which had some credibility in 1979-1984 due to the wildly inequitable divisions of wealth
in some U.S. client states in Latin America, in addition to political repression, under-development, mounting external debt, anti-American
sentiment produced by decades of subjugation to U.S. strategic and economic interests, and so on – were linked to the prospect of
explosive events occurring in the hemisphere. Hence, the Central American imbroglio was viewed as a fuse which could ignite a
cataclysmic process throughout the region. Analysts at the time worried that in a worstcase scenario, instability created by a
regional war, beginning in Central America and spreading elsewhere in Latin America, might preoccupy
Washington to the extent that the United States would be unable to perform adequately its important
hegemonic role in the international arena – a concern expressed by the director of research for Canada’s Standing Committee
Report on Central America. It was feared that such a predicament could generate increased global instability and
perhaps even a hegemonic war. This is one of the motivations which led Canada to become involved in efforts at regional conflict
resolution, such as Contadora, as will be discussed in the next chapter.
Democracy solves extinction
Diamond 95 [Larry Diamond, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, December, PROMOTING
DEMOCRACY IN THE 1990S, 1995, p. http://www.carnegie.org//sub/pubs/deadly/diam_rpt.html]
Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons continue to proliferate. The very source of life on Earth, the global
ecosystem, appears increasingly endangered. Most of these new and unconventional threats to security are
associated with or aggravated by the weakness or absence of democracy, with its provisions for legality,
accountability, popular sovereignty and openness. The experience of this century offers important lessons. Countries that
govern themselves in a truly democratic fashion do not go to war with one another. They do not aggress against
their neighbors to aggrandize themselves or glorify their leaders. Democratic governments do not ethnically "cleanse"
their own populations, and they are much less likely to face ethnic insurgency. Democracies do not sponsor
44
terrorism against one another. They do not build weapons of mass destruction to use on or to threaten one another.
Democratic countries form more reliable, open, and enduring trading partnerships. In the long run they offer better and more stable climates
for investment. They
are more environmentally responsible because they must answer to their own
citizens, who organize to protest the destruction of their environments.
45
Plan solves democracy
Lifting the embargo is key to Cuban democracy
Tisdall 4-8-13 [Simon Tisdall is assistant editor and foreign affairs columnist of the Guardian. He was
previously foreign editor of the Guardian and the Observer and served as White House corespondent
and U.S. editor in Washington D.C., “Time for U.S. and Cuba to kiss and make up,”
http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/08/opinion/opinion-simon-tisdall-cuba]
There are other reasons for believing the time is right for Obama to end the Cuba stalemate. The recent death of Hugo
Chavez, Venezuela's influential president, has robbed Havana of a strong supporter, both political and financial. ¶ Chavez was not interested in a
rapprochement with the U.S., either by Cuba or Venezuela. His revolutionary beliefs did not allow for an accommodation with the American
"imperialists." His successors may not take so militant a line, especially given that Venezuela continues to trade heavily with the U.S., a privilege
not allowed Cuba.¶ The so-called "pink tide" that has brought several left-wing leaders to power in Latin America in the past decade is not
exactly on the ebb, but the hostility countries such as Brazil, Ecuador and Bolivia felt towards the Bush administration has abated. In fact,
according to Sweig's article, U.S. business with Latin America as a whole is booming, up 20% in 2011. The U.S. imports more crude oil from
Venezuela and Mexico than from the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia. The U.S. does three times more business with Latin America than
with China.¶ The stand-off over Cuba is an obstacle to advancing U.S. interests and business in Latin American countries, and vice versa. The
continuation of the embargo has left the U.S. almost totally isolated at the United Nations, and at sharp odds with its major allies, including
Britain and the EU.¶ But more importantly, the
continued ostracism of Cuba's people -- for they, not the Havana
the biggest losers -- is unfair, unkind and unnecessary. If the U.S. wants full democracy in
Cuba, then it should open up fully to ordinary Cubans. Tear down the artificial walls that separate the
people of the two countries and, as Mao Zedong once said, let a hundred flowers bloom.
government, are
Lifting the embargo bolsters Cuban democracy
Lloyd ’10 [Delia, senior policy manager at BBC Media Action, “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo,”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo]
6. It's counter-productive. Isolating
Cuba has been more than ineffective. It's also provided the Castro brothers
with a convenient political scapegoat for the country's ongoing economic problems, rather than drawing
attention to their own mismanagement. Moreover, in banning the shipment of information-technology
products, the United States has effectively assisted the Cuban government in shutting out information
from the outside world, yet another potential catalyst for democratization.
46
Add-Ons
47
Terrorism
The plan frees up resources to solve terrorism
Lukas ’01 [Aaron Lukas is an analyst at the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies, “It’s Time,
Finally, to End the Cuban Embargo,” December 14, http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/itstime-finally-end-cuban-embargo]
Not only has the
embargo backfired, it wastes American resources that are needed to fight terrorism.
Treasury officials who could be unraveling terrorist financial networks are instead tracing property
owned by Spanish hotels in Cuba to make sure it wasn’t stolen from Americans decades ago. INS agents that could be
watching our borders for suicide bombers are instead worrying about tourists who may have spent
money in Havana. These shouldn’t be our top priorities. In fact, they shouldn’t be priorities at all.
Terrorism causes nuclear war
Ayson ‘10 [Robert, Professor of Strategic Studies and Director of the Centre for Strategic Studies: New
Zealand at the Victoria University of Wellington, “After a Terrorist Nuclear Attack: Envisaging Catalytic
Effects,” July, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, Vol. 33, Issue 7, InformaWorld]
But these two nuclear worlds—a non-state actor nuclear attack and a catastrophic interstate nuclear exchange—are not necessarily separable.
It is just possible that some
sort of terrorist attack, and especially an act of nuclear terrorism, could precipitate a
chain of events leading to a massive exchange of nuclear weapons between two or more of the states
that possess them. In this context, today’s and tomorrow’s terrorist groups might assume the place allotted during the early Cold War years to
new state possessors of small nuclear arsenals who were seen as raising
the risks of a catalytic nuclear war between the
superpowers started by third parties. These risks were considered in the late 1950s and early 1960s as concerns grew about
nuclear proliferation, the so-called n+1 problem. It may require a considerable amount of imagination to depict an especially plausible situation
where an act of nuclear terrorism could lead to such a massive inter-state nuclear war. For example, in the event of a terrorist nuclear attack on
the United States, it might well be wondered just how Russia and/or China could plausibly be brought into the picture, not least because they
seem unlikely to be fingered as the most obvious state sponsors or encouragers of terrorist groups. They would seem far too responsible to be
involved in supporting that sort of terrorist behavior that could just as easily threaten them as well. Some possibilities, however remote, do
suggest themselves. For example, how might the United States react if it was thought or discovered that the fissile material used in the act of
nuclear terrorism had come from Russian stocks,40 and if for some reason Moscow denied any responsibility for nuclear laxity? The correct
attribution of that nuclear material to a particular country might not be a case of science fiction given the observation by Michael May et al.
that while the debris resulting from a nuclear explosion would be “spread over a wide area in tiny fragments, its radioactivity makes it
detectable, identifiable and collectable, and a wealth of information can be obtained from its analysis: the efficiency of the explosion, the
materials used and, most important … some indication of where the nuclear material came from.”41 Alternatively, if the act of nuclear
terrorism came as a complete surprise, and American officials refused to believe that a terrorist group was fully responsible (or responsible at
all) suspicion would shift immediately to state possessors. Ruling out Western ally countries like the United Kingdom and France, and probably
Israel and India as well, authorities in Washington would be left with a very short list consisting of North Korea, perhaps Iran if its program
continues, and possibly Pakistan. But at
what stage would Russia and China be definitely ruled out in this high stakes game
if the act of nuclear terrorism occurred against a backdrop of existing tension in
Washington’s relations with Russia and/or China, and at a time when threats had already been traded between these major powers,
would officials and political leaders not be tempted to assume the worst ? Of course, the chances of this
of nuclear Cluedo? In particular,
occurring would only seem to increase if the United States was already involved in some sort of limited armed conflict with Russia and/or China,
or if they were confronting each other from a distance in a proxy war, as unlikely as these developments may seem at the present time. The
reverse might well apply too: should a nuclear terrorist attack occur in Russia or China during a period of heightened tension or even limited
conflict with the United States, could Moscow and Beijing resist the pressures that might rise domestically to consider the United States as a
possible perpetrator or encourager of the attack? Washington’s
early response to a terrorist nuclear attack on its own soil might
the possibility of an unwanted (and nuclear aided) confrontation with Russia and/or China. For example, in the
noise and confusion during the immediate aftermath of the terrorist nuclear attack, the U.S. president might be expected to
place the country’s armed forces, including its nuclear arsenal, on a higher stage of alert. In such a tense environment,
also raise
48
when careful planning runs up against the friction of reality, it
is just possible that Moscow and/or China might
mistakenly read this as a sign of U.S. intentions to use force (and possibly nuclear force) against them. In that situation,
the temptations to preempt such actions might grow, although it must be admitted that any preemption would probably still meet
with a devastating response. As part of its initial response to the act of nuclear terrorism (as discussed earlier) Washington might decide to
order a significant conventional (or nuclear) retaliatory or disarming attack against the leadership of the terrorist group and/or states seen to
support that group. Depending on the identity and especially the location of these targets, Russia and/or China might interpret such action as
being far too close for their comfort, and potentially as an infringement on their spheres of influence and even on their sovereignty. One farfetched but perhaps not impossible scenario might stem from a judgment in Washington that some of the main aiders and abetters of the
terrorist action resided somewhere such as Chechnya, perhaps in connection with what Allison claims is the “Chechen insurgents’ … longstanding interest in all things nuclear.”42 American pressure on that part of the world would almost certainly raise alarms in Moscow that
might require a degree of advanced consultation from Washington that the latter found itself unable or unwilling to provide. There is also the
question of how other nuclear-armed states respond to the act of nuclear terrorism on another member of that special club. It could
reasonably be expected that following a nuclear terrorist attack on the United States, bothRussia and China would extend immediate sympathy
and support to Washington and would work alongside the United States in the Security Council. But there is just a chance, albeit a slim one,
where the support of Russia and/or China is less automatic in some cases than in others. For example, what would happen if the United States
wished to discuss its right to retaliate against groups based in their territory? If, for some reason, Washington found the responses of Russia
and China deeply underwhelming, (neither “for us or against us”) might it also suspect that they secretly were in cahoots with the group,
increasing (again perhaps ever so slightly) the chances of a major exchange. If the terrorist group had some connections to groups in Russia and
China, or existed in areas of the world over which Russia and China held sway, and if Washington felt that Moscow or Beijing were placing a
curiously modest level of pressure on them, what conclusions might it then draw about their culpability
49
Environment
The embargo prevents environmental cooperation
Whittle ’11 [Daniel Whittle, Senior Attorney and Cuba Program Director for the Environmental Defense
Fund, “The embargo hobbles our ability to protect the environment,”
http://cubacentral.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/the-un-the-us-embargo-and-the-20-year-rout-10reasons-to-oppose-the-embargo/]
“Oil
drilling in Cuban waters creates an unprecedented urgency to rethink U.S. policy toward Cuba. An
oil spill in Cuba could be disastrous to shorelines, marine life, coastal communities and livelihoods in
both countries. The U.S. should eliminate political and legal obstacles that hinder its ability to share
expertise if an emergency occurs in shared waters. The Obama Administration has taken some positive steps to promote
scientific exchange and dialogue on environmental protection with Cuba. Environmental diplomacy—done right and carried out in
good faith—can lay a foundation for real and lasting improvement in Cuba-U.S. relations. “
Ecosystem collapse risks extinction
Coyne and Hoekstra 7 (Jerry and Hopi, *professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at
the University of Chicago AND Associate Professor in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary
Biology at Harvard University, New Republic, “The Greatest Dying,” 9/24,
http://www.truthout.org/article/jerry-coyne-and-hopi-e-hoekstra-the-greatest-dying)
But it isn't just the destruction of the rainforests that should trouble us. Healthy
ecosystems the world over provide hidden services
like waste disposal, nutrient cycling, soil formation, water purification, and oxygen production. Such
services are best rendered by ecosystems that are diverse. Yet, through both intention and accident, humans have introduced exotic species
that turn biodiversity into monoculture. Fast-growing zebra mussels, for example, have outcompeted more than 15 species of native mussels in
North America's Great Lakes and have damaged harbors and water-treatment plants. Native prairies are becoming dominated by single species
(often genetically homogenous) of corn or wheat. Thanks to these developments,
soils will erode and become unproductive which, along with temperature change, will diminish agricultural yields. Meanwhile, with increased pollution and runoff, as well
as reduced forest cover, ecosystems will no longer be able to purify water; and a shortage of clean water
spells disaster. In many ways, oceans are the most vulnerable areas of all. As overfishing eliminates major predators, while polluted and
warming waters kill off phytoplankton, the intricate aquatic food web could collapse from both sides. Fish, on which
so many humans depend, will be a fond memory. As phytoplankton vanish, so does the ability of the
oceans to absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. (Half of the oxygen we breathe is made by
phytoplankton, with the rest coming from land plants.) Species extinction is also imperiling coral reefs - a major
problem since these reefs have far more than recreational value: They provide tremendous amounts of food for human
populations and buffer coastlines against erosion. In fact, the global value of "hidden" services provided by ecosystems those services, like waste disposal, that aren't bought and sold in the marketplace - has been estimated to be as much as $50 trillion per year,
roughly equal to the gross domestic product of all countries combined. And that doesn't include tangible goods like fish and timber. Life as we
know it would be impossible if ecosystems collapsed. Yet that is where we're heading if species extinction continues at its current pace.
Extinction also has a huge impact on medicine. Who really cares if, say, a worm in the remote swamps of French Guiana goes extinct? Well,
those who suffer from cardiovascular disease. The recent discovery of a rare South American leech has led to the isolation of a powerful
enzyme that, unlike other anticoagulants, not only prevents blood from clotting but also dissolves existing clots. And it's not just this one
species of worm: Its wriggly relatives have evolved other biomedically valuable proteins, including antistatin (a potential anticancer agent),
decorsin and ornatin (platelet aggregation inhibitors), and hirudin (another anticoagulant). Plants, too, are pharmaceutical gold mines. The bark
of trees, for example, has given us quinine (the first cure for malaria), taxol (a drug highly effective against ovarian and breast cancer), and
aspirin. More than a quarter of the medicines on our pharmacy shelves were originally derived from plants. The sap of the Madagascar
periwinkle contains more than 70 useful alkaloids, including vincristine, a powerful anticancer drug that saved the life of one of our friends. Of
the roughly 250,000 plant species on Earth, fewer than 5 percent have been screened for pharmaceutical properties. Who knows what lifesaving drugs remain to be discovered? Given current extinction rates, it's estimated that we're losing one valuable drug every two years. Our
arguments so far have tacitly assumed that species are worth saving only in proportion to their economic value and their effects on our quality
50
of life, an attitude that is strongly ingrained, especially in Americans. That is why conservationists always base their case on an economic
calculus. But we biologists know in our hearts that there are deeper and equally compelling reasons to worry about the loss of biodiversity:
namely, simple morality and intellectual values that transcend pecuniary interests. What, for example, gives us the right to destroy other
creatures? And what could be more thrilling than looking around us, seeing that we are surrounded by our evolutionary cousins, and realizing
that we all got here by the same simple process of natural selection? To biologists, and potentially everyone else, apprehending the genetic
kinship and common origin of all species is a spiritual experience - not necessarily religious, but spiritual nonetheless, for it stirs the soul. But,
whether or not one is moved by such concerns, it is certain that our
future is bleak if we do nothing to stem this sixth
extinction. We are creating a world in which exotic diseases flourish but natural medicinal cures are
lost; a world in which carbon waste accumulates while food sources dwindle; a world of sweltering
heat, failing crops, and impure water. In the end, we must accept the possibility that we ourselves are not
immune to extinction. Or, if we survive, perhaps only a few of us will remain, scratching out a grubby existence on a devastated planet.
Global warming will seem like a secondary problem when humanity finally faces the consequences of
what we have done to nature: not just another Great Dying, but perhaps the greatest dying of them
all.
51
Alliances
The embargo weakens US alliances
Hanson et al 1-16-13 [Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy. Harrison
Ealey is a financial analyst, “It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargoof-cuba/]
At present, the
U.S. is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba. The embargo has long been a point of
friction between the United States and allies in Europe, South America, and Canada. Every year since
1992, the U.S. has been publically condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counterproductive
and worn out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all 5,911 U.S. companies
nationalized during the Castro takeover have dropped their claims.
Alliances solve nuclear wars
Ross ’98 [Douglas, professor of political science at Simon Fraser University, Canada’s functional
isolationism and the future of weapons of mass destruction, International Journal, Winter 1998/1999,
lexis]
Thus, an easily accessible tax base has long been available for spending much more on international security than recent governments have
been willing to contemplate. Negotiating the landmines ban, discouraging trade in small arms, promoting the United Nations arms register are
all worthwhile, popular activities that polish the national self-image. But they should all be supplements to, not substitutes for, a
proportionately equitable commitment of resources to the management and prevention of international conflict – and thus the containment of
the WMD threat. Future American
governments will not ‘police the world’ alone. For almost fifty years the Soviet threat
by enmeshing the
capabilities of the United States and other leading powers in a co-operative security management regime
where the burdens are widely shared does the world community have any plausible hope of avoiding
warfare involving nuclear or other WMD.
compelled disproportionate military expenditures and sacrifice by the United States. That world is gone. Only
52
Inequality
The embargo causes economic inequality
Lloyd ’10 [Delia, senior policy manager at BBC Media Action, “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo,”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo]
7. It's inhumane. If
strategic arguments don't persuade you that it's time to end the embargo, then perhaps
humanitarian arguments will. For as anyone who's traveled to the island knows, there's a decidedly enclave-like feel to those areas
of the economy where capitalism has been allowed to flourish in a limited sense (e.g. tourism) and the rest of the island, which feels
very much like the remnant of an exhausted socialist economic model. When I went there in the 1990s with my
sister, I remember the throngs of men who would cluster outside the tourist haunts. They'd hope to persuade visitors like me to pretend to be
their escort so they could sneak into the fancier hotels and nightclubs, which they could not enter otherwise. Horse -- yes, horse -- was a
common offering on menus back then. That situation has apparently eased in recent years as the government has opened up more sectors of
the economy to ordinary Cubans. But the
selective nature of that deregulation has only exacerbated economic
inequalities. Again, one can argue that the problem here is one of poor domestic policy choices, rather than the embargo. But it's not clear
that ordinary Cubans perceive that distinction. Moreover, when you stand in the airport and watch tourists disembark
with bucket-loads of basic medical supplies, which they promptly hand over to their (native) friends and
family, it's hard not to feel that U.S. policy is perpetuating an injustice.
We must reject economic inequality where we can
Ellis ’03 [Justin, writer for The Chicago Maroon, “Fear and dehumanization,” 1-24-03,
http://chicagomaroon.com/2003/01/24/fear-and-dehumanization/]
Because I refuse to dehumanize an enemy, I cannot, in good conscience, describe myself as truly right, or truly wrong, or do the same for my
enemy. America is not a pristine beacon of democracy and goodness. Neither is it a despicable imperialistic monolith. To salvage some poor
semblance of sanity, we must admit our wrongs and fix them, while simultaneously addressing the wrongs of the Arab world. To invade Iraq
without an energy conservation plan, without a humane end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and without
an end to capital punishment
and economic inequality, would be to put ourselves above reproach. We would be accessories to a foul
and bloody crime. I also cannot refuse my enemy human rights. Hamdi should not go free. Neither should Padilla, and most likely, neither
should the captives of Guantamano Bay. They deserve the right to due process. The classification of enemies as combatants is a legal fiction.
Hamdi, if he took up arms against his country, is a traitor. Let us put Hamdi on trial for treason. Only then can his punishment not be our guilt
nor his imprisonment our shame. Only if the terrorists are given the same legal rights as all other human beings can we even pretend that our
side is moral.¶ Of course, the partisans of al Qaeda do not care if we have the right to due process. They only wish our deaths. However, if we
deny a shared framework within which to govern our lives, we have lost ourselves. What worth is it to survive, if one lives under constant
suspicion and fear of one’s own government, where the courts are a farce and representative democracy a mockery? The rights and political
system of the United States must survive without encroachment.¶ Finally, these rights
must be, if possible, extended to all
peoples. The United States is not alone against the world. It must make itself into the capstone of a new internationalism in which all
countries would participate in the defense of liberty. The President, when he threatened the United Nations with irrelevancy, in effect claimed
that the rest of the world’s citizens were inferior. This is absurd. Remember, as was once claimed by a few spurious rebels, that all people are
created equal. Remember that all those people deserve freedom, security, health, and economic opportunity. Remember that we have no
other moral option. If anyone is to fight for one’s self-defense as a people, one must do it united with all civilization.¶ The position that I have
suggested lies at an uneasy meridian. No position is entirely right, especially one of ourselves. This nightmare will not pass without much pain,
much death, and much suffering. Fear will remain with us longer than we can now realize. But we can, at least, and I believe that we
must,
stand in defense of human life and human dignity. We have no other choice. In such a total darkness, let us hope and work
for a small, flickering light.
53
2AC
54
Plan Popular
The plan is politically popular
Lloyd ’10 [Delia, senior policy manager at BBC Media Action, “Ten Reasons to Lift the Cuba Embargo,”
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/24/ten-reasons-to-lift-the-cuba-embargo]
9. It's unpopular. According to the travel-service provider Orbitz Worldwide, 67
percent of Americans favor lifting the travel
ban, and 72 percent believe that expanding travel to Cuba would positively impact the lives of Cubans. Orbitz has collected more
than 100,000 signatures in favor of restoring travel to Cuba through its OpenCuba.org drive. And according to Rep. Jeff
Flake (R-Ariz.), one of the leading proponents of lifting the embargo, if a vote in Congress were taken secretly, the ban on travel and trade
would most likely fall. In other words, the environment to lift sanctions may be ripe politically in a way that it
wasn't even six months ago.
55
2AC Tradeoff DA
Turn- the embargo drains tons of money and resources
Hanson et al 1-16-13 [Daniel Hanson is an economics researcher at the American Enterprise Institute.
Dayne Batten is affiliated with the University of North Carolina Department of Public Policy. Harrison
Ealey is a financial analyst, “It's Time For The U.S. To End Its Senseless Embargo Of Cuba,”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2013/01/16/its-time-for-the-u-s-to-end-its-senseless-embargoof-cuba/]
Since Fidel Castro abdicated power to his brother Raul in 2008, the government has undertaken more than 300 economic reforms designed to
encourage enterprise, and restrictions have been lifted on property use, travel, farming, municipal governance, electronics access, and more.
Cuba is still a place of oppression and gross human rights abuse, but recent events would indicate the 11 million person nation is moving in the
right direction.¶ Despite this progress, the
U.S. spends massive amounts of money trying to keep illicit Cuban goods
out of the United States. At least 10 different agencies are responsible for enforcing different provisions
of the embargo, and according to the Government Accountability Office, the U.S. government devotes hundreds of
millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man hours to administering the embargo each year.