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Icons at the Crossroads  |  Cuba and Catholicism  |  An Exile Returns
Testing the Embargo  |  Live Webcasts  |  The Struggling Revolution  |  Related links

After 35 years, debate rages over U.S. trade embargo (CNN) -- When Pope John Paul II lands at Havana's Jose Marti International airport, he will be doing something most U.S. citizens cannot do. Why? Because the United States trade embargo and related travel restrictions prevent U.S. citizens from spending money in Cuba or trading "with the enemy." The U.S. government began implementing economic sanctions against Cuba in 1960 after the Castro government nationalized U.S.-owned assets on the island. In 1962, as Cold War hostility mounted between the two nations, President John F. Kennedy issued an executive order tightening the embargo. The policy was designed to strike a death blow to Castro's brand of communism and his support of revolution. The Cuban Democracy Act, signed into law in 1996 after Cuba shot down two U.S. civilian aircraft, stiffened the embargo by applying it to citizens of other countries. The law penalizes non-U.S. citizens who invest in Cuba by allowing U.S. citizens to sue them -- in U.S. courts -- if they traffic in properties expropriated by the Castro regime after the 1959 revolution. President Clinton has waived this controversial provision, but other nations have objected to the law nonetheless, saying it goes beyond U.S. jurisdiction and seeks to impose Washington's political will on others. M E S S A G E   B O A R D: The U.S. Embargo: Has it gone on too long? There has been heated debate worldwide about the ethics and effectiveness of the U.S. policy. The pope is among the embargo's critics. According to chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls: "For the holy father this is a moral problem, not a political one. (Those) who suffers the most are the weakest: the poor, the women, the children." Many Cubans expect renewed papal criticism of the embargo during his trip, although President Fidel Castro said he has not requested it. If the pope does condemn the embargo during such a closely-watched event, he could bring greater pressure on Washington to modify its 35 year-old policy.

HISTORY FOR THE EMBARGO AGAINST THE EMBARGO EFFECT OF THE SANCTIONS THE FUTURE

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

Related sites:

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• U.S. State Department: U.S.-Cuba policy
• U.S. Treasury Department: Overview of the U.S. embargo
• U.S. Government fact sheet on the Pope's trip to Cuba

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