>>That has not stopped South Korea, Japan, China, Germany etc. from pulling themselves out of poverty through trading, often at great distances.
>>
>Michael
>A lot of my golf partners are South Koreans.
>I used to tell them that I was an American GI there, but it became embarassing. Once they heard it, they raked my traps, replaced my divots, held the pin for me, pulled my ball out of the cup and bowed and smiled when I said anything, no matter how inane.
>If you think that South Korea has not benefited from US friendship, ask any South Korean over fifty.
>Ditto with Japan and Germany.
>China is a different kettle of fish, but please don't compare a country with a rich culture dating back thousands of years, a huge land mass and a population of over a billion people to Cuba.

Oh, South Koreans were fortunate to have the US (including you!) as an ally.
Embarrassing as it was for you, the South Koreans really could never thank you enough.

Back to Castro's convenient excuse of the embargo:
A communist dictatorship that murders thousands of dissenters is plenty bad enough to wreck an economy
and there are actually experiments to prove it.

Wars split the countries and made Korea and Germany into accidental experiments in Communism vs Capitalism.
We well know which side ended up impoverished - no embargo for an excuse either.