Cuba/Florida Trade Status Ruling in 2013
HAVANA TIMES — Issues around Florida House Bill 959 could be resolved in 2013, reported Notimex. The bill, which was signed but will not be enforced by Governor Rick Scott, would prohibit state and local governments from doing business or contracting with companies that have commercial ties with Cuba.
An economist at the International University of Florida, Jorge Salazar Carrillo, believes that by 2013 a federal judge will make a ruling so that the case “will go before the state Supreme Court and then the US Supreme Court.”
The law, which was enacted on May 1, was suspended a day later by Scott himself, who argued that it violated federal law. His response sparked protests from hardline Miami politicians who support maintaining the 50-year US blockade against Cuba.
This ill-conceived legislation is the result of overreaching political egos and a seemingly desperate anti-Castro community. Early legislative analysis proclaimed the unconstitutionality of the bill and the fact that it would hurt Florida businesses more than it would impede the Cuban economy, its declared purpose. A far better strategy for regime change in Cuba is the strategy that the Obama administration appears to be tracking. That strategy is to simply do nothing. Time is on the side of democracy. The Castro dictatorship is literally crumbling by the day. The economic reforms taken are too little too late. Cuban demographics show a declining population that gets older and less productive every year. Better to let time and biology take its toll.