Changing public support for the US trade embargo on Cuba

Digging through some grad school papers, I'd like to share some work I did on public opinion towards the U.S. embargo on Cuba, before it becomes totally irrelevant.

The question I had concerned an apparent growth in support for trade and travel normalization towards the island. The "embargo" refers to the trade sanctions placed on Cuba in 1961 and strengthened or modified several times since. The GAO calls it "the most comprehensive set of US economic sanctions on any country."

When the Cold War ended in the 1990s and the communist threat had presumably been defeated, Cuba watchers predicted that the fall of the communist regime was imminent. We see how that panned out. Yet despite continued abuses by the Castro regime, Americans, who were once staunchly opposed to easing trade restrictions towards Cuba, are now generally supportive of trade liberalization according to polling over the last twenty years as shown in the figure below (which draws from 19 polls conducted between 1990 and 2009 in which respondents were asked specifically about their opinion on the trade embargo against Cuba). 

Admittedly, certain polls do show an ambivalent opinion on the embargo and one actually shows Americans still supporting the policy. Whether American opinion is firmly planted in either camp is beyond the scope of this paper to prove. More likely, Americans in general are either uneducated on the matter or unconcerned with it, and as a result, ambivalent. Nevertheless, while certainly not uniform in the degree of opposition towards the embargo, the results indicate that the trend away from the strong support for the policy in the 1990s, and more or less towards support for normalization today, is clear.

What accounts for this change? The changing demographics in the Cuban-American (CA in figure 2) population—particularly in the southern part of the state of Florida—has led to a perceivable change in attitude in that population and as a result, the American population in general concerning policy towards Cuba. Understandably, Americans of Cuban descent are a tiny minority of the population and cannot possibly account for the total swing in opinion.

However, because Cuban-Americans are a relatively distinct group--50 percent living in Miami-Dade, Florida alone, and generally an older population--among Latinos, and foreign policy making is a peculiar process (relative to other policy processes), their influence is outsized. The fact that Florida is a swing state and a major electoral prize for presidential elections certainly doesn't hurt. But Americans' views of foreign policy issues tend to be more "expert"-driven than other policy areas. Unless they perceive a strong division among experts--knowledgeable and outspoken officials, business elite, members of the press, etc.--they are likely to accept the current policies as status quo. The most outspoken and influential elites have, until recently, tended to support hard-line policies towards the island.


And what, exactly has changed? Well, the demographic makeup of the influential Cuban-American population (especially in south Florida) has changed, or, more accurately, continued changing (since the 1980s) and may have reached a tipping point.

Perhaps the most important shift in demographics among Cuban-Americans is the percentage of foreign born vs. those born in the United States. A 2002 University of Miami report shows that in 1980, the large majority, 78%, of Cubans living in America were born abroad. Ten years later, that figure had dropped to 72%, and by the year 2000: 68%. By the year 2008, when the Pew Hispanic Center last produced its Cuban-American profile report, approximately 60% of the population was foreign born. While such a profile is still unique among Hispanic populations in the United States, it demonstrates a significant change in the population over time.

Hidden within the unique age and SEC makeup of Cubans in America is an important division amongst early émigrés (pre-1980) and late émigrés (post-1980).

The first large waves of Cuban emigrants began leaving the island in the 1960s and 70s because of political oppression from the Castro regime. These groups, who had learned to survive amidst the conservative Batista regime and were in turn abused by the Communists, were driven to leave the island by politically based attacks coming from newly powerful leftists. The rationale for leaving the island then, was clearly political for most of the early groups of émigrés. United States policy concerning these groups was also very generous. Where the Cuban authorities were happy to allow dissidents and opponents leave the island, American authorities instituted policies granting immediate citizenship and even financial aid to new arrivals.

In the late 1970s and especially in 1980, emigration patterns from Cuba began to change. As Cuban exit restrictions grew stronger and Castro’s main political foes were mostly gone, emigration declined. However, in 1980, a spike in anti-Castro sentiment—which some attribute to increased visitation from Cubans living in America—led to a unilateral decision by the regime to allow those who wished to leave the island to do so from the northwestern port of Mariel.

The main driver behind the Mariel boat lift and most subsequent emigration was economic, not political. As islanders watched their economy and infrastructure decay, dreams of prosperity in the US created a strong incentive to leave. The Marielitos, as they are known, were an economically disadvantaged group compared with the pre-1980 groups. While Castro also released some criminals and mentally ill persons, the poor and working class and dark-skinned made up the largest portion of the 1980 and following emigrant groups. Finally, these groups, who were largely raised and socialized in communist Cuba, did not receive the same generous treatment from the United States upon arrival and were less welcome than their conservative, more affluent older counterparts were.

While sons and daughters of the pre-1980 group of emigres adopt some of their parents’ animosity towards the Cuban regime, young Cubans as a group tend to be very much more open to the possibility of diplomatic, travel, or trade liberalization. As they come of age, and become more influential in business, media, and social spheres, their weak support for (or perhaps lower concern with) hard-line policy towards the island will continue to influence broader public opinion.

Excluding the surge in Balsero arrivals in 1994, the stabilization of immigration patterns since 1980 has resulted in destabilization in the Cuban-American population in recent years. A steady stream of economic refugees from the island, combined with an aging conservative, hard-line population of political refugees and a growing influence of younger, liberal Cuban-Americans has resulted in a changing profile that looks nothing as it did 30 years ago.

In short, the more things have stayed the same, the more they have changed.