August 19, 2002 - Ventura County Star
Latest word on Cuba: “Lifting the travel ban is not about Fidel or his regime or exile politics but about Americans' fundamental right to travel where they please. If things are as bad as Mr. Hidalgo says, it would be salutary for Americans to see for themselves.”

May 28, 2002 - Bakersfield Californian
New Cuba look needed: “Encouraging trade, travel and investment with Cuba -- as with most other dictatorships -- affords the United States a chance to best promote its values of political freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights. The United States needs an updated Cuban policy.”

May 14, 2002 - San Francisco Chronicle
Carter in Cuba: “If nothing else, the Carter trip draws attention to the futility of a four-decade trade embargo that may make for good politics in Miami and Havana, but has left the Cuban people mired in a miserable economy.”

Colorado:
July 26, 2002 - Rocky Mountain News (Denver)
Step Toward Sanity on Cuba Policy: “Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., had it exactly right: ‘This is all about freedom. Our government shouldn't tell us where to travel and where not to travel.’”

Florida:
January 8, 2003 – Brandenton Herald
Cuba opening: Port Manatee makes symbolic breakthrough: “Trade with Cuba! That's something Florida business interests have long awaited, since the U.S. government imposed a trade embargo on the island nation 90 miles from Florida's shores when Fidel Castro turned his revolution communist . . . Gov. Jeb Bush, scrambling for new revenue in tough economic times and seeking to diversify Florida's tourism-dependent economy, should take note of the economic potential here. Perhaps he could lobby his brother, the president, to get the embargo repealed altogether.”

January 2, 2003 – Florida Today
’Cuba Plan' reflects need to end embargo: “The long-running foolishness of the U.S. trade embargo against Cuba has become even more clear with this revelation: The state of Florida is panting to do businesses with the island and, under the direction of a governor who publicly backs the failed policy in the strongest possible terms, is quietly laying plans for significant commerce. This comes in a document called the ‘Cuba Plan’ written by Enterprise Florida, the state's privatized economic development agency, which says Florida is ‘positioned better than any other U.S. state’ to help modernize Cuba's destitute economy . . . The surest way to sweep Castro aside is to pull down the barriers and allow Cubans to breathe the fresh air of a free market and the ideas of democracy that would come with it. To do anything less only perpetuates a tragic sham that harms Cubans and Americans.”

December 27, 2002 – News-Press (Fort Myers)
It's time to drop embargo: Florida stands to benefit from trade with Cuba: “The fact that Florida's economic planners are secretly drooling over the prospect of trade with Cuba shows how contradictory and
shortsighted the state is in supporting the failed trade embargo against the Castro regime . . . [S]tate officials realize that Florida's location close to Cuba and its large and prosperous Cuban-American population make it likely to benefit more than any other state if full-scale trade relations resume . . . The dam is about to burst. We think the opportunity to travel freely to Cuba, to reunite families and to make tons of money would quickly overwhelm the hard-core reactionaries . . . Florida is foolish not to push for this fantastic opportunity, for itself and for Cuba.”

October 4, 2002 - St. Petersburg Times
The Havana trade show: “[T]he first-ever trade show of U.S. food products since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution revealed the depth of America's growing interest in normalizing relations with Cuba . . . Ending the embargo makes sense. Squeezing Cuba economically has failed as a strategy to replace Castro. It hurts ordinary Cubans, and it gives rise to the black-market economy that divides the island into haves and have-nots. The concept of free trade, which the United States applies to almost every other trade partner, carries an important political component. Interaction with America helps to unleash democratic forces. Isolating Cuba limits our government from having a positive impact on the island . . . America is still the largest importer of oil from Iraq; there's no reason it shouldn't trade freely with Cuba.”

September 30, 2002 - News-Press (Ft. Myers)
Cuba trade embargo is useless relic; Policy has failed to achieve stated goal of removing Castro: “It’s time to end the failed U.S. trade embargo against Cuba, which — in addition to being ineffectual — is a relic of the Cold War and a diplomatic embarrassment to the United States.”

September 30, 2002 - Palm Beach Post
New Cuba Policy Growing: “While the holdouts in Miami-Dade County and Washington keep looking at the world as though it is 1962, more and more parts of America believe that four decades is long enough to cling to a failed policy. Last week, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro welcomed hundreds of capitalists to the communist island.”

September 24, 2002 - Pensacola News Journal
Bush on Cuba trade: Morality, or votes? “Given Gov. Jeb Bush's condemnation of a Pensacola delegation for working to open the door to trade with Cuba, we eagerly await Bush's condemnation of the president of the United States as being a pawn of communist China for supporting greater trade with that dictatorship. Oops - Jeb is on record as supporting trade with China. Hey, this couldn't be about energizing the South Florida anti-Castro vote for his reelection campaign, could it? . . . There's something wrong when it's OK to trade with China, but not Cuba. Maybe it's all about votes for Gov. Jeb Bush.”

September 24, 2002 – Florida Today (Brevard County)
Trading with Cuba: “On Thursday, Cuba will host a large trade show -- the largest since Fidel Castro's rebels took over the island more than 40 years ago -- and Florida will be well-represented at the event. That's as it should be. As the closest U.S. state, Florida will be the gateway for American trade to Cuba when this country's decades-old embargo on the island is lifted. That's when, not if. Although the Castro regime ranks among the most unsavory on the planet, the U.S. sanctions against the island make little sense, now that the Cold War is long over. “

September 22, 2002 - Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)
Florida Opening Doors to Cuba: “You don't have to be ‘soft on Castro’ to recognize that Florida -- especially South Florida -- has the potential to gain the most from any easing of economic sanctions and increasing of trade with Cuba. The benefits might not be immediate since Cuba's economy is in dire straits, but the long-run potential is obvious . . . President Bush, however, remains committed to vetoing any effort to dismantle the embargo. That's shortsighted. “

September 22, 2002 - Palm Beach Post
Cuba law doesn't travel: “The governor [Jeb Bush, Florida] even tried to convince Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura not to join the increasingly frequent American trade-related visits. Yet state Rep. Jerry Maygarden, R-Pensacola, the House majority leader, is among those who recently have gone. So he can go, but Professor Gilson can't? The next thing to go should be the law.”

September 6, 2002 - Pensacola News Journal
Cuba trade mission keeps the door open: “With all due respect to U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, his vote earlier this year to oppose loosening trade restrictions with Cuba was more in line with local - and South Florida - politics than with the realities of Cuba . . . U.S. restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba are having absolutely no impact on Castro's longevity in office. All they do is help impoverish the Cuban people and deny them the kind of contact with Americans - economic, social and political - that would feed a restiveness among the Cuban people and put pressure on Castro to loosen up his restrictions on Cubans' freedoms.”

August 19, 2002 - Palm Beach Post
More Hyperbole on Cuba: “The real issues are political and economic. Forty-three years of isolation have accomplished nothing, and change would benefit the people of both nations.”

August 14, 2002 - Naples Daily News
Guest editorial—Word out of Cuba: “After 40 years, the U.S. economic embargo of Fidel Castro's Cuba has become one of the most dismal failures in the history of U.S. diplomacy. It has endured in no small measure because its most ardent supporters - mostly Cuban expatriates - became a highly organized and well-financed lobby that won friends and influenced politicians in the halls of Congress.”

August 3, 2002 - News Press (Southwest Florida)
It’s time to ease Cuba embargo: “The U.S. Senate and the president should follow the lead of the House of Representatives in lifting restrictions on American citizens traveling to Cuba . . . The latest proposed easing of restrictions is now pending before the Senate. We should urge the upper House to pass it and the president to sign it.”

July 28, 2002 - South Florida Sun-Sentinel
U.S. Policy Needs Reform: “But U.S. policy toward Cuba, after 40 years of failure, also badly needs reform. American tourists are banned from visiting Cuba but are free to visit countries with more repressive regimes like Iraq and North Korea. This makes no sense.”

June 11, 2002 - Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville)
Cuba--Time for change: “Now might be the time to re-evaluate U.S. trade policy toward the impoverished Caribbean island.”

March 25, 2002 – Tampa Tribune
Bush Administration Should Stop Prosecuting Visitors to Cuba: “It is possible to get a license to travel to Cuba for humanitarian, educational, professional and a few other reasons, and thousands go there illegally through a third country. It is time for the games to stop and travel rights of all U.S. citizens to be restored.”

November 17, 2001 – Tampa Tribune
America's Cuban Embargo Increasingly Makes No Sense: “The U.S. embargo and travel ban are becoming increasingly absurd and should be liberally amended or abandoned altogether . . . U.S. citizens are right to want democracy and free enterprise to come to Cuba. Why not try expanding the hurricane assistance program to include free travel? It is hard to see what harm that could do.”

Georgia:
September 20, 2002 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bluster about Cuba unnecessary: “The [Dan] Fisk [U.S. Department of State] allegation calls to mind the claim of Undersecretary for Arms Control John Bolton, on the eve of Jimmy Carter's visit to Cuba. Bolton tried to undercut Carter's visit by charging that Cuba had developed the capacity to build biological weapons. It turned out to be true. Cuba does have pharmaceutical plants, much like pharmaceutical plants here in the United States, Europe, Asia and a lot of other places on the planet. And yes, those plants could potentially be converted to produce biological weapons, although there wasn't the slightest bit of evidence that Cuba had done so. C'mon guys. Paranoia will destroy ya. Or at least make you look like a blithering idiot.”

May 14, 2002 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bowing to exiles ignores hope for reform in Cuba: “For 40 years, Republicans and Democrats alike have allowed 800,000 Cuban exiles in Florida to dictate U.S. foreign policy, and it's time for that to end . . . If the Bush administration is genuinely interested in encouraging democracy in Cuba, not just pandering to Miami's Castro-haters, it too could play an important role.”

July 8, 2001 – Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Staff Opinion—Tougher trade stance on Cuba a bad idea: “Besides, the [Helms-Burton] law will never achieve its aim of forcing Castro from power. After all --- as Bush has said about China --- the best way to encourage democracy in Cuba is through free trade.”

Illinois:
September 11, 2002 - Chicago Tribune
Foil Castro's Cuba with free trade: “America can help Cuba toward a better future, not as foes but as producers and consumers. First we need to tear down the sugar-cane curtain that still stands between us. “

July 18, 2002 - Chicago Tribune
A chance to think fresh on Cuba: “Certainly, the administration has more important foreign-policy issues on its agenda than maintaining an embargo fueled by Cold War rancor rather than economic or political reality.”

May 16, 2002 – Chicago Tribune
Retirement for Jimmy and Fidel: “The embargo harms the interests of the U.S. and, ironically, those of Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. The bipartisan, bicameral majorities in Congress that oppose the embargo--and could end it tomorrow by a simple vote--ought to do just that.”

May 9, 2002 – Chicago Tribune
Cuban Bogeyman Rides Again: “In 1962, and during the decades of the Cold War, when the Soviets bankrolled Cuban military excursions worldwide, the Castro government was certainly a threat. But after the collapse of the Soviet Union--and along with it the Cuban economy and its military--any credible threat to the U.S. has evaporated. If the Bush administration has proof of renewed Cuban aggression, let's see it--and develop a prudent response. Otherwise, let this bogeyman die a long-overdue death.”

Iowa:
October 3, 2002 - Des Moines Register
Open trade with Cuba: Iowa's economy would gain, and it's the right thing to do: “Iowans in Congress should be working for normal relations with Cuba, not just because it's potentially good for Iowa business but because it's the right thing to do.”

Kentucky:
October 2, 2002 - Kentucky New Era (Hopkinsville)
Cuba Connection: Can Christian County bank on the fledgling Cuban trade potential? “Ten or 20 years ago, trade advocates would have been crucified for urging or facilitating transactions with the Cuban people. But with the burgeoning global economy, fresh technology and the faltering of Communism, overlooking a new trade partner ill serves all of us. That was then, this is now.”

Louisiana:
December 4, 2002 – Daily Advertiser (Lafayette)
Farmers in desperate financial straits: “We Suggest: Trade with Cuba would help save the industry. Louisiana's rice farmers, like others in the state's agriculture industry, are faced with a worsening crisis . . . The American Farm Bureau estimates that Cuba could ‘eventually become a $1billion agricultural-export market for products of U.S. farmers and ranchers.’ The embargo stifles another $250 million in potential annual exports of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and tractors. According to a study last year by the U.S. International Trade Commission, the embargo costs American firms between $684 million and $1.2 billion per year. We join with Louisiana's farmers in urging the president to lift the embargo. For many of them, it is a matter of economic survival.”

Maine:
November 21, 2002 – Bangor Daily
Old World Orders: “Clearly, compared with demands on other Communist nations - China, for instance - the U.S. policy toward Cuba is anomalous, and the annual nonbinding vote by the United Nations calling on the United States to drop the trade embargo is always lopsidedly pro-Cuba. Mr. Morley's point is that the United States is ignoring an opportunity by refusing to look at the progress that Cuba has made and focusing on its glaring shortcomings. The result is seen not only in the United Nations, but in the regular illegal, circuitous travel by Americans to Cuba and the many U.S. organizations that ship aid there - essentially announcing a grass-roots rejection of a major U.S. policy.”

Maryland:
May 10, 2002 –Baltimore Sun
Playing the terror card: “It certainly fits the Bush stance on Cuba and Fidel Castro: demonize and isolate. It's a tired, old political line that more Americans are rejecting. The collapse of the Soviet Union left Cuba without its longtime financial and political patron; it's time that the United States fill that vacuum.”

Massachusetts:
August 7, 2002 - Boston Globe
Bush’s Cuban Conflict: “President Bush has signaled his intention to veto legislation passed by the Republican-dominated House of Representatives last month that would ease restrictions on trade with and travel to Cuba . . . He ought to follow the lead of Congress and relinquish his grasp on a 40-year-old policy that is little more than symbolic.”

July 29, 2002 - Boston Herald
Opening travel to Cuba: “The vote by the House to lift the 40-year-old prohibition on general travel to Cuba was the right thing to do - the more Americans able to travel to Cuba, to interact with the locals, the better. The Bush administration should drop threats of a veto, accept this long overdue change and plan ways to take advantage of it.”

March 1, 2002 – Boston Globe
Cubans at the door: “As a first step that means lifting the trade embargo and encouraging US-Cuban contacts. When Castro goes, Cuba will change, for better or worse, and the United States will bear the consequences of this transformation.”

Minnesota:
September 10, 2002 - Minneapolis Star/Tribune
The Cuba trip / Jesse should ignore Bush bullying: “The embargo has failed. Rather than giving the Cuban people a reason to depose Castro, it has helped him retain power by allowing him to make a scapegoat of Uncle Sam. Further, the embargo has withheld from the Cuban people the many benefits -- economic and otherwise -- of U.S. trade, while denying Americans free travel and access to a nearby market.”

August 8, 2002 – Pioneer Press
Ventura’s Cuba Trip: “Part of Ventura's purpose is a desire to persuade Washington policymakers to abandon the embargo. We share the governor's faith in free trade, and his belief that the embargo on Cuba is a failed and cruel policy.”

New Hampshire:
September 24, 2002 - Concord Monitor
Cuba libre: “Freer trade will mean faster freedom for Cuban people. For some, particularly in the conservative Cuban-American community in south Florida, Fidel Castro remains the devil. For much of the rest of America, the 76-year-old dictator has long since ceased to be a serious threat to America's national security despite recent attempts to paint him as a patron of terrorists.”

New York:
July 21, 2002 - New York Daily News
Lift this Iron Curtain: “Cuba will neither revive nor thrive until it turns to freedom. The U.S. can help, not by shutting out this country just 90 miles from our shores, but by fostering an exchange of goods and - equally important - an exchange. This is an example button of ideas. Lift the ban. Open the gates.”

May 16, 2002 – New York Times
Journey to Havana: “The heartening news is that even plenty of Republicans are tired of having American foreign policy hijacked by anti-Castro activists in a key electoral state . . . The House voted by a wide margin last year to lift the ban. The measure has broad support in the Senate, too. One of these days, the Bush brothers will recognize that the isolation of Cuba serves neither American nor Cuban interests.”

May 9, 2002 – Wall Street Journal
Bush’s Cuba Pickle: “And lifting the embargo would, as we wrote in these columns back in 1994, ‘help precisely those forces that are most likely to liberate Cuba's economic and political power structure.’"

July 14, 2001 – New York Times
Misguided Sanctions: The Helms-Burton Act tries “to haul foreign companies into American courts and bar the companies' executives from entering the United States. These laws only irritate American allies. President Bush and the House Financial Services Committee should act to neutralize the laws and seek other ways to promote democratic change in partnership with other nations.”

Oklahoma:
August 5, 2002 – Daily Oklahoman
Let Freedom Ring; Cuban Embargo Needs to End: “The embargo made sense 40 years ago,
when Cuba was a staging area for the Soviet Union's nightmarish mischief. But the Soviet threat is long gone . . . Freedom, particularly in a wired world, is intoxicating and contagious. It happened in eastern Europe in the late 1980s. It is happening in China now. And it would happen in Cuba.”

October 30, 2001 – Tulsa World
Staff Opinion—Cuba who? Last vestige of Cold War removed: “Now the United States should take the step to drop its decades-old economic and travel restrictions on Cuba. The new markets in Cuba could help U.S. farmers and other exporters.”

Pennsylvania:
July 29, 2002 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
America Libre; U.S. Citizens See Cuba for Themselves: “The Berlin Wall has come down, Russia is an ally and the Cold War is over. But there's still that cigar-chomping dictator in Cuba. Forty years after the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. government continues, as part of an economic embargo, to restrict travel to the island. If you want to go to Havana for a holiday, the government says ‘no.’ But soon that might -- and should -- change.”

June 4, 2002 - Harrison Daily Times
Normalizing with Cuba (By D. Jeff Christenson, Publisher): “I stand behind President Bush on most of his policies and decisions. However, continuing to shut out Cuba of our trade agreements is a waste of time. We haven't changed anything about them in the 42 years we have had a trade embargo with them, so what's the use. Normalizing relations with Cuba makes all the sense in the world to me.”

South Carolina:
January 8, 2003 – Post and Courier (Charleston)
End farcical Cuban embargo: “Should a list of U.S. foreign policy failures ever be compiled, there's little doubt it would be topped by the economic embargo imposed on Cuba . . . This farce could be ended by allowing ordinary Americans to visit Cuba and by lifting all restrictions on investment, financing and trade. Castro would try to prevent economic freedom flowing into Cuba; but now that the Cuban people have got a taste for American food, he might not be able to stop it, even though he must know that once Cuba's isolation is ended, his power will be on the wane.”

January 5, 2003 – Times and Democrat
Agriculture has eyes on Cuba: “Even as South Carolina farm leaders are urging the federal government not to overlook the drought-caused disaster here and elsewhere, agriculture has its eye as much on opportunity as assistance. The U.S. closed-door policy toward Cuba is an obstacle, one around which agriculture is trying to maneuver in looking to a potentially lucrative market. The Cuban market holds particular potential for South Carolina, from which Farm Bureau President David Winkles joined his counterparts from four other states and the American Farm Bureau president on a Cuban mission in November . . . In the process of good business, America will also be using one of its greatest tools for promoting freedom and good will: Our ability to feed people . . . Castro will not be there forever. It's time to cultivate a new relationship.”

Texas:
November 20, 2002 – Houston Chronicle
Rum War: Sometimes even Fidel Castro is on the right side: “The overall good of American business should never play second fiddle to the special interest of just one company. Such is the case in the international trademark dispute between rum-makers Bacardi Ltd. and Pernod Ricard . . . To make a long story short, a last-minute provision -- called Section 211 -- in the 1998 appropriations bill passed by a Republican Congress was specifically designed to help Bacardi distribute its "Havana Club" rum in the United States at the expense of Pernod Ricard . . . In other words, American business may get a drumming over this rum-dumb special-interest law that helps only Bacardi. Section 211 should be repealed. Right is right.”

September 2, 2002 - San Antonio Express-News
Senate should OK bill to ease Cuba embargo: “The House voted to ease the economic sanctions. The Senate should approve a similar bill next month . . . House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Flower Mound, went even further, saying that the economic embargo has failed and should be lifted. The Senate should approve a similar bill when Congress resumes its session this week. Although President Bush has promised a veto, the bill should at least reach his desk.”

September 2, 2002 – Dallas Morning News
Cuba Ban: Restrictions on travel ought to go: “It's time for a different approach. It's time to apply to Cuba the very same unassailable logic that Mr. Bush applies to Communist China - using trade and travel as levers to open the Asian giant to moderating influences.”

May 24, 2002 - Austin American Statesman
Embargo hasn't loosened Castro's grip on Cuba: “It is well past time for larger steps to be taken toward normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations. Yes, the anti-Castroistas in Miami are noisy, but so were those who opposed opening relations with China. The trade embargo imposed on Cuba hasn't loosened Castro's grip one bit. It's a lesson 40 years in the making, and one that eluded 10 presidents during their tenures. Amazing. Simply amazing.”

May 22, 2002 - Fort Worth Star Telegram
Facing Havana: “It is quite obvious that our current policy toward Cuba has not worked. Now is the time to rethink it, for the sake of the Cuban people.”

May 15, 2002 - Amarillo Globe
It is well worth the trip to Cuba: “By acquiescing to Cuba, as many would view the dissolution of the embargo, the United States would not be conceding defeat but realizing that our strategy needs to be reworked. Continuing a failed policy is a show of weakness, not strength . . . If the United States believes trade and business connections can bring about democratic reforms in an oppressed nation governed by iron-fisted leaders, as we do with China, it is hypocritical to treat Cuba in any other fashion. Jimmy Carter's visit proves that.”

June 29, 2001 - Dallas Morning News
Unintended Consequences; Cuban aid bill would weaken opposition to Castro: “The United States should lift or greatly loosen its embargo so that Mr. Castro may take full blame for his people's penury. And it should stop passing laws that perpetuate their misery.”

March 11, 2001 – Dallas Morning News
Cuba: Engagement should replace failed embargo: “The Bush administration, which supports economic engagement with China as a means of influencing the Communist giant, should apply the same logic to Cuba, a relatively minor country with which it has much less to lose. After 42 years, it's worth the attempt.”

Utah:
March 18, 2001 - Salt Lake City Tribune
Staff Opinion—More Exposure, Not Embargoes, Would Help The Cuban People's Transition to Capitalism: “If, as our official policy claims, we really want to encourage open economies and a peaceful transition to a stable, democratic form of government, the most direct route isn't through embargoes or other punitive actions, but through increasing Cubans' exposure to Americans and Western values. Castro would hate it.”

Washington:
January 2, 2002 – Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Ties with Cuba hold promise: “Seattle has a sister relationship with Havana's Department of Urban Agriculture. Tacoma is sister city of Cienfuegos, Cuba. The United States has opened the door to Russia, China, Vietnam and even North Korea. King County pairing up with the people in Cuba's Granma province would hardly be, well, radical. This is an effort to cultivate a long-term human relationship that could well lead to a productive economic relationship later. It's an excellent opportunity to display the benefits of our culture and governance to people who've had ample opportunity to experience the failings of their own. hat's something everyone should be able to salute.”

June 11, 2001 – Seattle Times
End the charade of Cuba trade act: “Trade with Cuba is no more dangerous to the United States than trade with Honduras. The embargo of Cuba should be lifted. As a step toward that, the Helms-Burton Act waiver should be extended for another six months, and President Bush should recommend that the law be repealed. “

Wisconsin:
August 21, 2002 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Take brats and beer to Cuba: “After 40 years, the U.S. economic embargo of Fidel Castro's Cuba has become one of the most dismal failures in the history of U.S. diplomacy. It has endured in no small measure because its most ardent supporters - mostly Cuban expatriates - became a highly organized and well-financed lobby that won friends and influenced politicians in the halls of Congress.”

International:
January 2, 2003 – The Economist (England)
Cuba and the United States: The Americans have come: “Embargo or not, the United States is now Fidel Castro's economic partner . . . In 2002, they shipped food worth around $165m, helping to turn the United States into Cuba's tenth-biggest trading partner, according to unofficial estimates. Ordinary Cubans rave about the long-forbidden fruit arriving on their tables. Juicy and crisp American apples are hawked on street corners. Meaty American chickens are rationed at neighbourhood stores. American rice is said to be fluffier than the Vietnamese or Chinese varieties Cubans have grown used to. Even such icons of imperialism as chewing gum and peanut butter are now on sale . . . Despite all the insults still hurled across the Florida straits, ‘the embargo is becoming a sieve’, says a European diplomat. All the more reason to scrap it.”

May 15, 2002 – The Guardian (England)
Why Carter is smarter; George Bush's Cuba policy is in disarray: “All this raises far more questions about the Bush administration than it does about Cuba or other homes of wickedness. Firstly, who's actually in charge? Secondly, why is the "war on terror" being manipulated to suit a regressive conservative agenda? Thirdly, is presidential brother Jeb Bush's need of Cuban votes in his coming Florida gubernatorial re-election bid in any way connected? Finally, when is the US right going to stop persecuting Cuba and seek a partnership for peace?”

April 5, 2002 – Toronto Star (Ontario, Canada)
Not our embargo: “A Canadian businessman who sold water purification equipment in Cuba faces the prospect of years in prison after being convicted in a Philadelphia court of breaking the U.S. trade embargo with the Communist-ruled island. Forget for the moment that the 40-year-old U.S. embargo is an antiquated holdover from the Cold War . . . Odd. American farmers with powerful lobby groups get to trade with Cuba but water purification salesmen face jail.”

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