The U.S. Is Responsible For Deteriorating Conditions In Cuba

The United States has had sanctions in place against Cuba for over 60 years, and they remain one of the only holdovers from the Cold War era. The sanctions have done nothing but harm the Cuban people, leaving them with little access to trade partners. The economic instability of the country, and the unrest that we are witnessing this week, are the results of decades of U.S. punishment against a country that poses no significant threat to the United States. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

So if you've been paying attention to the international news this week, and of course, to US lawmakers response to it, you've no doubtedly seen that there are mass protests, thousands of people in the streets in Cuba, because the country is currently, basically experienced a massive lack of resources for their people. Running out of supplies, running out of medical supplies, running out of the basic things these individuals need to survive. And so there's mass protests. Our government has come out and said, we stand with the people of Cuba. Oh, this is horrible what's happening to you, Democrats and Republicans alike. Everybody's standing together linking hands saying, we're standing with you, people of Cuba. Now a couple of them have actually gone as far as to call for regime change in Cuba.

But the United States has a rather sorted history of regime change in Cuba. And as all these politicians come out and say that we stand with these protesters and we demand better for them, it's important to point out that a lot of what's taking place in Cuba is a result of more than 60 years of US sanctions that have been in place on Cuba. In fact, at a recent UN general assembly, the United States and Israel were the only two countries to vote to basically keep Cuba in this current sanctioned state. But the United States has been doing it since October of 1960. That was when the very first US sanctions were placed on Cuba. Then after they overthrew Battista, they got Fidel Castro and Fidel Castro actually wanted to normalize relations between the United States and Cuba. The Eisenhower administration at the time was suspicious of Castro's motives here and basically said, no.

And that forced Cuba to basically double down with their Eastern European allies, which further off the United States, you know, helped the cold war really get going. And then even after the Cold War ended though, the sanctions remained and each time a new presidential administration comes in, this is an issue. Obama to a degree, attempted to normalize some of the relations between US and Cuba. Donald Trump put more sanctions in place. And now we have Biden who swears that he's standing with the people in Cuba. So lift the sanctions. End this holdover from the Cold War that is not doing anything except punishing Cuban citizens. Keep in mind folks, these sanctions were put in place by the United States to do exactly what we're seeing today, to get the people riled up. To basically choke them to the point where they had no choice, but to go to the streets and demand action and demand change. We as a country just thought it would happen 60 years ago.

We didn't think it was going to take six decades for the sanctions to finally choke off the country enough to where the people got off enough to go out in the streets. The United States did this. I mean, there's really no other way to say it. The United States did this. They may not be 100% responsible, but they are right up there at the top, I promise you. And we could make things better for them in a way that doesn't involve regime change. In a way that doesn't involve sending our military down there. We could lift sanctions immediately. We could once and for all finally actually end the Cold War and say, it's done. No more. Effective right this second, normal relations with Cuba.