Cultural exchange and the "blockade"

The most recently publicized victim of Washington’s policy of stifling U.S.-Cuban exchange was Cuban musician Silvio Rodríguez. He applied well in advance from his current residence in Paris for the visa he would need to travel to New York for last evening’s celebration of Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, but as of the time he would have had to depart, the visa was still “pending” a decision by the U.S. State Department—the easiest strategy for quietly denying a visa. Rodríguez issued a statement saying that he found the action “contradictory” to other signs the Obama administration has given thus far, and said that he felt just as discriminated against as he had under previous administrations.

The embargo, as it currently stands, applies to most trade, academic and cultural exchanges.

Many anti-embargo analysts cleverly use U.S.-Soviet relations during the Cold War as a reference point for the cultural embargo of Cuba. Between 1958 and 1988, some 50,000 Soviets—scholars and students, scientists and engineers, writers and journalists, government and party officials, musicians, dancers, athletes, and even a few KGB officers—visited the United States under various exchange programs. An even greater number of Americans traveled to the USSR under the auspices of such programs. Some argue that exchanges like these fostered changes that prepared the way for the lifting of the Iron Curtain and the end of the Cold War, and therefore demonstrated that the best policy for dealing with enemies was not isolation but engagement.

The parallel is difficult to evaluate, since isolation, as yet, has been the only policy toward Cuba that the United States has pursued.