Isn't the U.S. embargo of Cuba the cause of Cuba's economic woes?

Question: Isn't the U.S. embargo of Cuba the cause of Cuba's economic woes?

Answer: This question ignores the fact that every country in the world (other than United States and Israel--which may explain why the Left hates Israel) has normal trade relations with Cuba. As wealthy as Americans are, is the United States the only country in the world that has wealth? The fact is all the countries in Europe, South America, Asia, etc. all have trade relations with Cuba. So the real question is: why isn't Cuba rich from its trade with all these other countries?

The reason why Cuba is so poor is that the right to life -- the political basis of a free market -- and all the corollaries of that right (liberty, property, speech, etc.) does not legally exist in Cuba. In Cuba there is no private property; no private employers (the only employer is the state); the only honest way to support oneself in Cuba is in the "black market."

It is Cuba's absolute socialist system that should be condemned -- not the U.S. embargo.

To recommend that the United States drop the embargo with Cuba after Castro 'nationalized' (robbed) the property of all the American companies who built them (which resulted in the embargo) is unjust to the Americans Castro looted.

The same policy that brought down Apartheid in South Africa is the same policy that will bring down the Castro Regime -- if it is allowed to work.

Perhaps, the real reason that American Leftists want the U.S. to establish normal relations with Cuba is that once we do so, they can further bleed Americans taxpayers dry to support the Castro regime, as they do to support other bankrupt, socialist regimes in other countries.

To send money to Cuba will only further enrich Castro, as all foreign funds invested there do now (since foreign investors don't pay Cubans, but pay the Castro regime, from which the actual workers only receive a miniscule portion). It is the looters in these foreign countries, ready to "profit" from slave labor, that prop up and further empower the Castro regime. It is they along with Dictator Fidel Castro who should be condemned.

Mr. Da Cunha writes for Capitalism Magazine.