President Bush has declared May 21 a "Day of Solidarity with the Cuban People" with the goal of promoting "peaceful democratic change in Cuba and show[ing] support for the Cuban people."  A White House fact sheet notes:

The day will focus on the plight of prisoners of conscience and the lack of civil and political freedoms in Cuba.  The Cuban regime denies its people the most basic freedoms and opportunities that are enshrined in the Inter-American Democratic Charter, the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights. The current regime seeks to legitimize itself both at home and abroad through initiatives which fail to address fundamental economic flaws or promote basic freedoms denied to the Cuban people. Raul Castro’s succession to power occurred without a democratic vote by the Cuban people.

As Fidel Castro exits the political stage, tough questions about Cuba’s tyranny and U.S. policy have emerged once again.  President Bush is absolutely right that getting Cuba right matters, first, because our response will send a signal to the wider world about American values.  Our Cuba policy will show we help neighbors who have suffered oppression and poverty under a callous dictator.  It also matters in terms of the refugee crisis that could follow an economic meltdown 90 miles south of Key West. 

But from the business community’s viewpoint, U.S. policy toward Cuba is an anachronism.  The U.S. embargo began in October 1960.  Implemented to pressure Castro to democratize, the embargo made a martyr out of a tyrant and actually has helped prop up his regime.  Cuba’s poverty is the direct result of a half century of Marxist mismanagement, but the embargo allowed the Castros to blame it on the gringos.

No one seriously argues that the Cuban dictatorship could have withstood five decades of free trade, free markets, and free enterprise, powered by its own entrepreneurial citizens.   But it is fair to ask whether lifting it today would mean rewarding a recalcitrant dictatorship. 

To answer this question, we must be guided by principle.  The U.S. Chamber’s own mission statement commits us to "advancing human progress through an economic, political, and social system based on individual freedom, incentive, initiative, opportunity, and responsibility."  Cuba’s regime is directly opposed to these values and is consequently vulnerable to them as few other regimes.

What does this mean in practice?  Our first steps toward getting Cuba right should underscore our humanitarian values: 

• Ending limits on travel by Cuban-Americans and Cubans living in the United States to visit family members on the island would be a good first step.  U.S. policy should not impede visits between family members, nor should it make these visits a bureaucratic headache. 
• Because hunger should never be a tool of U.S. policy, another good place to start is sales of basic foodstuffs.  In 2000, Congress approved a law that permits U.S. exports of food and medicine to the island, though the law does not permit private financing of these sales.  Allowing private financing would cut through the red tape that limits these sales.

Business executives understand that real change is often incremental, as with these simple proposals.  But in the end, commerce has the power to transform societies.  The best path forward would be to lift the embargo.  But why not show solidarity with these simpler measures?  The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.