"We will continue to enforce economic sanctions and ban travel to Cuba until Cuba's government shows real reform." With this pronouncement in Miami on May 20, 2002, George W. Bush affirmed North American determination to carry on with the forty-three-year-old U.S. embargo on Cuba and thereby became the twelfth U.S. President to uphold sanctions against the government of Fidel Castro.
While much has remained unchanged in the six years since the appearance of the second edition of this book, it is nevertheless true that portents of change are everywhere to be seen. Certainly,change can be discerned in the climate of popular opinion, change that reveals itself principally in the form of new dispositions for public debate on the efficacy of a policy that previously enjoyed overwhelming and undis- puted bipartisan support. In the last six years, public opinion polls have shown repeatedly that a majority of the American people favor expand- ing contacts between the people of both countries. Important sectors of the business community have raised their voices to question the wisdom of a policy that has placed Cuban markets beyond the reach of U.S. producers. Ever-growing numbers of legislators from both houses of Congress, and particularly representatives from farm states, have been among the most zealous advocates of expanded trade relationsbetween Cuba and the United States. In July 2002, over the strong objections of the White House, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved legislation to end the enforcement of the U.S. travel ban to Cuba.