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Letter: Our trade policy on Cuba makes little sense

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005 | 10:44 a.m.

Sad enough as the spectacle of international anger toward a U.S. president is -- as seen at the Latin American summit in Argentina recently -- it is even more troubling that the Bush administration, pushing for a free trade agreement among 34 Latin American countries, would make every effort to prevent Cuban participation in it.

Presumably this policy follows a knee-jerk response to a toothless communist regime which, by U.S. standards, makes life intolerable for the Cuban people. Yet few in our government seem to care that maintaining a 44-year-long embargo on the island, imposing tighter visitation restrictions and excluding it from an economic union will result in even greater hardship for Cubans, all in the name of punishing Fidel Castro and appeasing a Miami Cuban voter base.

It is a policy that makes very little sense and diminishes the moral compass that has guided our country for generations.

J.H. Esperian

Las Vegas

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