Thomas Donahue, President of the US Chamber of Congress, is calling for an easing of the US embargo against Cuba after visiting the island country for three days at the end of May. The embargo is enforced by a series of legislative acts beginning with the signing of The Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, and continuing most recently with the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000.
Donahue, who has been a long-time supporter of lifting the embargo, praised the growth of free enterprise in Cuba as a result of reforms made in recent years by the Cuban President Raúl Castro, successor to his brother Fidel. He believes that the embargo hurts free enterprise for American companies that would like to do business in Cuba.
Castro’s reforms have created a small-business owners class as well as private cooperatives. The Cuban government is also seeking foreign investment. This is Donahue’s first trip to Cuba in 15 years.
“I’m here because of the evidence that we’re seeing in Cuba of an extraordinary expansion of free enterprise, the reduction in government jobs, and more private hiring, all of which is moving in the right direction,” said Donohue.
The US Chamber of Commerce is one of the most influential lobbying groups in the US, and it claims that it is the world’s biggest business organization.
“As you know the chamber for years has been opposed to the sanctions as they are used,” he said to reporters shortly after his arrival.
Not everyone in the US is as ready to lift the embargo, however. New Jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez expressed skepticism about Donahue’s trip. He explained that he is afraid that such a policy could strengthen a government that “jails foreign business leaders without justification, violates international labor standards and denies its citizens their basic rights.”
“Such conditions hardly seem an attractive opportunity for any responsible business leader,” said Menendez, a leading Cuban-American spokesman supporting severe economic sanctions against the one-party state.
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