>>>>>>Still wondering how the embargo caused Cuba's poverty.
>>>>
>>>>Here's a declassified State Department memo from 1960 openly advocating policies to be "as adroit and inconspicuous as possible, [while making] the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."
>>>>
>>>>There's plenty more, e.g. the Helms-Burton Act threatening punishments for foreign individuals or companies that dare to trade with Cuba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act This determination to extend US authority extra-territorially to pursue this obsession with Cuba has caused international exasperation- e.g. in Canada where a lampooning Godfrey-Milliken bill demanded the return of Loyalist property seized by the American government after the American Revolution.
>>>
>>>Poor Cuba, with the US able to bully ALL other countries into joining the embargo.
>>>How did they manage to get Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China etc. to go along with it?
>>>Joking aside, embargoes like this are laughably ineffective.
>>>Heck, even North Korea trades with China.
>>>
>>>The point is, trade is fungible.
>>>If the US does not want to buy your sugar and cigars, then sell them somewhere else.
>>>If you can't buy Chevrolets, check out the Toyotas or Volkswagens.
>>>
>>>An embargo is not a blockade - the rest of the world is still there to trade with.
>>>
>>>I am not arguing in favor of the embargo - it is stupid.
>>>If the state department in 1960 thought a (porous) trade embargo would be any more than a temporary setback, then they were indeed stupid.
>>
>>Yes, trade is fungible but embargoes and blockades increase impedance in the global trading network which, all other things being equal, raises the costs of trading. Those increased costs are ongoing (not temporary) and are borne by Cuba's trading partners as well as Cuba itself.
>
>A blockade might impoverish Cuba, but that does not exist.
>
>Yes, of course the costs of trading are higher the further you go.
>That has not stopped South Korea, Japan, China, Germany etc. from pulling themselves out of poverty through trading, often at great distances.
>
>I could buy the argument that the embargo caused measurably lower growth, but the poverty has other causes.

Trade restrictions such as blockades, embargoes, contraband etc. are also fungible - they all increase trade impedance to different extents.

It could be argued with its (real or attempted) extra-territorial provisions, the US embargo of Cuba has been effectively one of the most severe of modern history. And even if you're only willing to admit "measurably lower growth", when compounded over 50+ years that will have a major effect.

I'm not going to argue it's the sole cause of Cuba's economic woes. I've heard it said that one common observation by defectors from communist/authoritarian regimes is that they knew they had to defect when they visited a typical Western grocery or superstore. Bare shelves in Cuba may be due to real or perceived shortcomings with their government, but trade restrictions have contributed as well.

Bare shelves is also a manifestation of the awful situation in Venezuela at this time - a country which could and should be a leading light in Latin America.