I don’t know whether Jay-Z and Beyoncé violated American law when they celebrated their wedding anniversary in Cuba.
MEXICO CITY — The United States Treasury Department has begun investigating whether Jay-Z and Beyoncé — music’s royal couple — violated the trade embargo against Cuba by traveling to the island two weeks ago during their wedding anniversary, according to officials and a person who helped arrange their visit.
In a sudden predictable controversy that proves the embers of conflict between Miami and Havana are never far from becoming flames, Treasury officials on Monday said they were working on a response to demands for more information about the trip from two Cuban-American lawmakers from South Florida — Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans, who appear to be using the highly photographed visit to rekindle outrage about Americans going to Cuba for fun.
“Cuba’s tourism industry is wholly state-controlled,” Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and Mr. Diaz-Balart wrote in a letter to the Treasury Department on Friday, “therefore, U.S. dollars spent on Cuban tourism directly fund the machinery of oppression that brutally represses the Cuban people.”
But what I do know is that it is far past time to end this stupid trade embargo. On November 18, 1963, four days before he was assassinated, President Kennedy gave an speech in Miami before the Inter-American Press Association. His audience was stridently anti-Castro, but Castro was also part of his intended audience. Here’s an excerpt from that speech.
It is important to restate what now divides Cuba from my country and from the other countries of this hemisphere. It is the fact that a small band of conspirators has stripped the Cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence and sovereignty of the Cuban nation to forces beyond the hemisphere. They have made Cuba a victim of foreign imperialism, an instrument of the policy of others, a weapon in an effort dictated by external powers to subvert the other American Republics. This, and this alone, divides us. As long as this is true, nothing is possible. Without it, everything is possible. Once this barrier is removed, we will be ready and anxious to work with the Cuban people in pursuit of those progressive goals which a few short years ago stirred their hopes and the sympathy of many people throughout the hemisphere.
No Cuban need feel trapped between dependence on the broken promises of foreign communism and the hostility of the rest of the hemisphere. For once Cuban sovereignty has been restored we will extend the hand of friendship and assistance to a Cuba whose political and economic institutions have been shaped by the will of the Cuban people.
Maybe some people haven’t noticed, but the Soviet Union collapsed 22 years ago. Cuba hasn’t been dependent on “foreign communism” for more than two decades. They are no longer “an instrument of the policy of others.” If that, and that alone, is what divided us during the heart of the Cold War, and if it was true that “Once this barrier is removed, we will be ready and anxious to work with the Cuban people in pursuit of…progressive goals,” then we should end the Cuban embargo.
We don’t have to do it unilaterally. I am sure the Cuban government would be willing to negotiate the release of some political prisoners or others who we feel indebted to, if we are willing to restore normal relations with their government. Perhaps we have some people in custody that they would like to see released.
The killing of JFK cut off negotiations that were ongoing between Kennedy and Castro. We shouldn’t let his murder continue to undermine negotiations between Washington and Havana.
C’mon, Obama. Kick Bob Menendez in the ass, and let’s get this done.
