Proponents for continuing the Cold War-era U.S. embargo against Cuba, many of whom are Latin Americans, say that as a condition for lifting the embargo, the U.S. government should require the Cuban government to compensate, either with damages or restoration, U.S. companies and even Cuban citizens for the Castro regime’s nationalization of their properties more than 50 years ago.
Really?
Pray tell: What business is it of the U.S. government to right the wrongs that are committed by foreign regimes?
When a U.S. company decides to operate in a foreign country, especially in Latin America, it knows full well that nationalization is one of the risks of doing so. Nobody forces the company to take its operations abroad. It does so entirely of its own volition, knowing what the risks are and voluntarily assuming them.
When things go wrong, why should the U.S. government to be the firm’s daddy? Where in the Constitution does it say that the federal government has the power to come to the aid of U.S. companies who have had their property nationalized by some foreign regime? Where in the Constitution does it grant the federal government the power to sanction such regimes?
The matter is even more problematic insofar as Cuban citizens are concerned. Should the U.S. government really be their papasito too? Sure, socialism is bad. The same with nationalization. Both are highly immoral and unfair. But does that mean that the U.S. government should assume the paternalistic role of righting every wrong committed by every government in the world against its own citizens? Where does the Constitution grant that power?
If the U.S. government is going to be the daddy for U.S. firms and the papasito for Cuban citizens who have had their properties nationalized, then about the same for American families whose ancestors had their gold nationalized by the U.S. government during the 1930s? Wouldn’t it be fair — indeed, much fairer — to compensate all those people before helping people who have had their properties nationalized by the Cuban government?
Remember: For more than 100 years, gold coins were the official money of the United States. The gold-coin system was the monetary system expressly provided for in the Constitution.
Yet, in one fell swoop, the U.S. government nationalized people’s gold, just like the Castro regime would later nationalize people’s businesses and homes. Even worse, U.S. officials declared that owning what had been the lawful, constitutional money of the American people for more than a century would now be considered a felony offense. Americans were ordered to deliver their gold coins to the federal government and then were compensated in devalued paper notes, notes that were irredeemable — i.e., no longer payable in gold as they expressly promised they were.
Where is the constitutional amendment that authorized that revolutionary change in monetary systems? What part of the Constitution authorized the federal government’s nationalization of Americans’ gold coins?
The nationalizations in Cuba, no matter how bad and unfair, are none of the U.S. government’s business and never have been. The U.S. government needs to butt out of Cuban affairs, once and for all. The U.S. government shouldn’t be anyone’s daddy or papasito. It’s time to lift the U.S. government’s 54-year-old cruel, brutal, and hypocritical embargo against Cuba unilaterally, without conditions, requirements, or negotiations.