> Does the US have outstanding claims against the current Cuban government that leaves the embargo in place?

The Gulf of Mexico is of enormous strategic importance to America. Control of Cuba could blockade New Orleans and thus the Mississippi. I think the embargo has far outlived its usefulness. But keeping the island out of foreign hands is a legitimate geopolitical priority for D.C.

Why would an embargo be in alignment with the goal of keeping foreign influences from controlling Cuba?

> Why would an embargo be in alignment with the goal of keeping foreign influences from controlling Cuba?

When it was initiated, it was to kick the Soviets out. Presently, it signals how seriously D.C. takes the issue. (Cuba is presently allying with Beijing [1].)

I don't think we should embargo or even sanction non-violent actors. (Threatening to blockade the port of New Orleans would be tantamount to a violent threat.) But the history of Havana's actions explains the embargo's origin. Havana's mismanagement of the Cuban economy explains why there isn't a material incentive to prioritize reversal.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/08/politics/cuba-china-spying-fa...

This wikipedia enry gives a lot of detail which is missing from the comments in this thread:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

Like many actions taken by nation states it mostly resulted in the opposite of the intended effect. Cuba became closely aligned with the Soviet Union because of the sanctions which have been widely regarded as complete policy failure.

For real? Who cares about the hypothetical risk of a naval blockade of New Orleans.

> Who cares about the hypothetical risk of a naval blockade of New Orleans

People who consider the future.

I don't see any scenario where the people of New Orleans are left to care and some country can put a naval blockade on the US.

> Control of Cuba could blockade New Orleans and thus the Mississippi.

For a few minutes, maybe, before whoever attempted to use control of Cuba for that purpose ceased to exist, along with all of the facilities they were using for that purpose.

The US military may fail at constructing stable democratic regimes on the far side of the globe, but obliterating someone doing that from Cuba wouldn't be a challenge.

> But keeping the island out of foreign hands is a legitimate geopolitical priority for D.C.

Its a foreign country. Unless the US invades and annexes it, whatever hands its in are going to continue to be foreign.

> whatever hands its in are going to continue to be foreign

Fair enough. Out of an adversary's hands.

Sea trade aside. Missiles from Cuba can reach many important metropoles within minutes. Some would even hit before the gouvernment knows what was hit.

Cop killing fugitives iirc, that Cubans won't hand over (Assata Shakur et al)

France has an US citizen in custody for killing an abortion doctor in the US. Can't extradite him because that would be accessory to death penalty, which a European treaty forbids, I don't remember if the US sent the file to procecute him in France. I don't think France is under embargo.

Can't you just promise not to kill him?

Canada also refuses to extradite people to places with the death penalty unless they promise not to use it, but extradites to usa all the time.

US diplomatic assurances aren't considered reliable (e.g. [1], also you can look up the case of David Mendoza). My understanding is that the State Department makes the promises, and then the Justice Department's policy is to assume that since their department didn't make the assurances, that the assurances that were made don't actually apply to them.

1. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/07/the-us-diplom...

Specifically, it's that due the structure of the US government, it's nigh-impossible for the US to make binding agreements at all, especially in one-off cases like this. Our diplomatic representatives are under the Executive branch, which is subject to change every 4 years, and successors have no obligation to uphold agreements that their predecessors made. The power to actually make law that binds American citizens falls to Congress under the Legislative branch, which has to pass law making any agreement the diplomats make legally binding internally, which they may or may not do, and the diplomats negotiating such terms have no power to sway that one way or another. Then the actual execution of the agreement would fall to the courts, which could potentially find a deal that managed to be negotiated by the diplomats and legislated by congress contradictory to the Constitution, and nullify it.

Add on top of this the difficulty the US has passing any legislation whatsoever, and you've got a whole mess on your hands.

And I almost forgot that the accused would likely be facing charges in an individual state, which adds another layer to the mess, wherein the state likely has the sovereignty to execute one of its residents regardless of any international agreements that the Executive branch of the federal government makes.

Your and other comments below are fascinating, but she was already sentenced to life instead of death, and after her jailbreak was granted asylum as a free woman in Cuba

My understanding is that there are outstanding claims for the American held property that was seized during the communist coop in 1965.

There's also the outstanding issue of political prisoners and open, free elections.

I think America would happily release claims on the property is prisoners were released and free elections held.

The motivation for the embargo was the expropriation of US property within Cuba without payment. And payment has not been tendered in the 70 years since, so technically the underlying issue still remains.

In practice, the issue is really "the communist government of Cuba still exists."

In June 1960 a key incident occurred: Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island, leaving Cuba reliant on Soviet crude oil. Cuba and the Soviet Union signed a trade agreement according to which the Soviet Union would provide 900,000 tons of oil to Cuba. The United States viewed the agreement as a provocation, and successfully urged Esso, Texaco, and Shell to refuse to process Soviet crude in their Havana and Santiago de Cuba refineries. On June 29 and July 1, 1960, Cuba confiscated the refineries.

[Edit] Ok, I see the parent comment is an uncited quote of the Wikipedia page "United_States_embargo_against_Cuba." Like I said below, Wikipedia is oddly lacking in a citation for this action by "Eisenhower's government."

> Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island

I did a hunt for a cite to support this claim, but did not find one. I searched national archives for executive orders [0, 1] and didn't find anything. The Wikipedia pages that have statements like "In June 1960 a key incident occurred: Eisenhower's government refused to export oil to the island" [2] and "This nationalization of property resulted partially from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower's decision to cancel all oil exports to Cuba." [3] are curiously lacking in a citation.

I wish I still had my copy of The Prize which I recall had excellent footnotes and references.

0. https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/e...

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_executive_actions_by_D...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_Petr%C3%B3leo_Union