We have no reason to be treating Cuba like this IN the United States. We freely deal with China and offer many economic advantages to our businessmen. But we act like this island in our region with ties to no dangerous military threat is somehow worthy of such treatment. It is time for dialogue, change, and new hope. Thank you for this fine article.

This just shows how obsurd the US's policy toward Cuba is. It's to bad that the Mexican government buckled to pressure from the US. Every country in the world can do business with Cuba except for Americans...why is that, because Castro has out lasted at least a half dozen US presidents. And because some south Floridians don't want normal relations. The HECK with them, a couple hundred thousand people in one city should not be able to make and sustain policy for the entire country. But the Mexican government is a joke anyway

Good for U.S taking a strong stance against the terrorist regime of Castro. If the U.S is serious about its War on Terror then it needs to start in its own neighboorhood, and invade Cuba.

We should not be surprised that this administration, even more than its predecessors, kowtows to the Cuban-Americans of south Florida. The president, and his brother, the governor of Florida, would not hold their current offices if it were not for the anti-Castro pledges they make to win that pivotal voting bloc.

Please dont post any ridiculus comments about invading cuba; go get an education. The US just wants to do buisness with cuba but fidel will not tolerate it. He distrusts the us because of our intrests in cuba during the Batista era; we wanted to annex cuba as part of the usa. Our policies are aimed at ending castros rule through economics, so that we can then continue with our buisness intrests.

I'm really tired of hearing bogus claims about Cuban terrorism vs Cuban terrorism. The US Govt will not normalize relations with Cuba until Cuba agrees to restore ownership of the properties which were nationalized at the time of the Cuban revolution. Flat out, US corporate interests owned most of Cuba, and US corporate interests own the US govt. Cuba is no threat to anyone, and hasn't been for more than 40 years.

Pepito de Miami,
The next step in the War on Terror should be the extradition of the TERRORIST Posada Carriles, thereby, doing something about moral double standards that undermine the US credibility. And then getting rid of all the "Mascanosa cronies" establishment should be next in the list.
Cuban people in Cuba deserve better than the fanaticism of those in Miami.
By the way, what are Castro's connections to terrorism?

How come the U.S. Treasury required the ouster of Cuban officials for violations of U.S. laws by U.S. companies? What did they say to the Sheraton to force them to ouster the Cuban officials? This is very strange. Can the U.S. oil companies develop Cuba oil industries without violating U.S. law? I suppose that they can make a Cuban "subsidiary".

Davis good question , why is US oil companys allowed to do business with Cuba ?

Bet it might have to do with some good old american campaign cash to the Bush regime

It's so petty for this administration to have had these Cubans evicted from the hotel in Mexico. Yet, it's ridiculous and hypocritical for Mexicans to complain about U.S. infingement on their sovereignty, when a corrupt Mexican military routinely escorts drug runners across the Rio Grande into our territory and the president of Mexico has the audacity to lie about it.

Good point toolman28. I wonder if the US news media is up to investigating William Rogers, his connections with the oil executives, the Cuban government and the Bush administration. This should be a good story for the front pages in America.

With republicans its all about money. All that talk about communism, freedom and democracy is just to get votes. Those poor cuban refugees in Miami, and their children, forget that it was the democrats who championed their cause and continue to do so while republicans just give lip service. Ask those who know about the latest insult when our government returned cubans refugees who had reached a highway in the keys that had been destroyed by a hurricane and thus not "connected" to the US. They were returned to Cuba because they had not landed on US territory. Humph. I guess if the Cuban navy had landed there the Bush administration might have had a different view.

How is it that the "representatives of Valero Energy, Exxon Oil, Caterpillar Corp., the Louisiana Department of Economic Development and the Corpus Christi Port Authority" could meet freely with the Cubans (at another hotel) in spite of Helms-Burton? Something is missing in the story.

Mags, it seemed to me that the Treasury Dept put the pressure on Sheraton, not the Mexican government. That's how they were able to move to another hotel and continue the meeting.

I'd like to see Sheraton get indicted by the Mexicans for discrimination. American companies should act like Americans and not bend to either US or local government pressure, like Google has done in China and many companies that call themselves American do.

American values should not stop at the American border. American companies are like ambassadors from the US and they can make a country pro or anti American on their own. Their behavior should be admonished when they act unAmerican as Sheraton did here, and we should stop ignoring the Bush administration when it shows once again that the law and American values come second to maintaining the political base.

If Sheraton hotel managers in Mexico persist in obeying U.S. laws rather than our own Mexican laws, we should simply boot the entire chain out of our country and allow some other hotel company that shows greater respect for our country and its laws to operate here instead.
Mexico is not a colony. We are an independent nation. Your laws are not our laws. When our companies operate in your country, they respect your laws. If you want your companies to be allowed to operate in our country, they will have to do the same.
This is another example of the kind of U.S. arrogance and colonial thinking that makes so many Mexicans so hostile toward your country.
Keep this up, and we'll have to do like the rest of Latin America and elect a strongly anti-American president.

A Halliburton European subsidiary missed a good contract in Iran under similar conditions. What would have been better for Halliburton an oil deal in war torn Iraq or Iran with no guns or bullets? Now other companies are missing deals with Cuba. As has been remarked previously, we are dealing with China who has a bad human rights record. Is war or peace better for free trade?

It's always amusing to listen to the pedantic left on WashingtonPost.com. I could care less if this sounds "imperialist", but it would behoove Latin America to take more cues from the U.S., not fewer. LatAm is a basket case, pure and simple. That fact has less to do with U.S. foreign policy and more to do with an inability to enact meaningful economic reforms, uproot dictatorships and purge corruption from its governments. You can go ahead and blame those sinister Norte Americanos because that's the world view that best suits you and obscures reality. But does it help your own circumstances on the ground?

Go ahead, SR, and spout your U.S. conventional wisdom about what ails us in Latin America. That is your right. What you don't have a right to do is to impose your laws on us.
What is it about this situation that you do not get?
We are a sovereign, independent nation. We make and enforce our own laws, not your laws.
You surely have enough problems to sort out in your own violence-plagued country without trying to impose your will on us. We, like Canada and most of the rest of the world, have chosen to maintain diplomatic relations with Castro's Cuba. You Americans can do otherwise. But don't try to force us to adopt your foreign policy. We have a different view here.
If you continue to act in this aggressive and colonial way, you will only harm your own interests as a nation.

What I don't get is this: Take the expulsion of the Cubans from the Sheraton right out of the picture, and explain to me why U.S. companies and even a state development department are having meetings with Cuban officials. I thought Helms-Burton would preclude any kind of cooperation of this sort. The Sheraton, as a U.S.-owned company was not allowed to host the meetings, yet the U.S. industry and development representatives involved in them were not considered to be doing a bad by U.S. standards? Where is the logic or what am I missing?

Unfortunately Ramon, the theory and the practice are quite different. The U.S. has no qualms about usurping our sovereignty and you don't have to go back more than a few months to find numerous other examples. Can we say "masiosare"?

Well, Mags, the difference, I guess, is that the American oil Dudes were only 'discussing' doing business with Cuba as opposed to Sheraton actually 'doing' business with Cuba.

Was the Sheraton doing business with Cuba or with Cubans? Is there a difference? Does this mean that US citizens cannot do any business with Cuban citizens regardless of where in the world the Cubans are residing or visiting?

Much blame has been placed on the U.S. sanctions against Cuba and the percieved effect those have had on relations between the two countries and the conditions within Cuba itself. However, as pointed out by a few in this forum, most countries do not apply similar sanctions/embargoes against Cuba. Yet, living conditions within Cuba are still squalid by most standards. So what gives? Is the problem here really with U.S. foreign policy or the Castro regime. The latter it would seem.

Also, many are forgetting that most countries apply some of their laws extraterritorially, thus holding their companies and often individuals to certain domestic standards even when doing business abroad. Case in point... anti-bribery laws. U.S. and non-U.S. companies have encountered legal problems with their home governments for accepting bribes (also known as "facillitation payments") from foreign governments.

Ramon, your such an intelligent fellow, why do you have such a heavy chip on your shoulder? You sound like someone who feels weak and oppressed and screams about how dare you do this or that. The Sheraton made a business decision that it would rather be friendly with US government than Mexican government because of financial interests. If Mexico wants to revert to its Anti-American rhetoric, it will be the one to suffer not the US. And by the way if you hate this country, why do alot your countrymen try to come here illegally. Answer because the Mexican policies have never be forward thinking enough to create enough jobs for people who genuinely want to work. It is a tragedy, because with its people and oil revenue its should be a very rich country.

So, Americans, you would agree that a company in your country would be justified in breaking your law if they had to do so to comply with the law in their head offices' country? If not, then how is this case different?

Mags, of course not. Only the decision makers at Treasury, or elsewhere in the government, know the reason why they decided that the consequence to having U.S. companies violate U.S. law (If indeed merely talking to Cubans in Mexico is a violation of the Helms-Burton law) is to force the ouster of CUBANS, not the U.S. executives, from a hotel. It's hard to see what they intended to accomplish by this act. Ultimately all that was accomplished was to amp up anti-American sentiment. If there was a violation of U.S. laws, it needed to be taken up with the U.S. executives.

Mexico is more a threat to us than Cuba. I say stop all business with Mexico, send Mexicans home and instead normalize relations with Cuba. At least the Cuban government, for all its preceived and real ills, respects us. In any case they can't be worse than the French, Chinese, and others that we already deal with.

As an American of Mexican descent, I feel it is a bunch of crap when Mexicans accuse the US of not respecting its soverignty, when teh Mexican government actively encourages its citizens to break Us laws.

Furthermore,

My wife is from Guatemala and her family is always telling me about the horrible treatment that Mexico gives to Guatemalan migrants. We should never give the mexican governmetn any validity when it acts in such a hypocritical way. I don't disagree with much of the Mexican sentiment regarding immingrants, I am for mroe immigration and I want to legalize those that are here, but I can't stand this hypocritical Moexican government acting so self-rightious when it is one of the worst and most corrupt around.

Not certain that it is against Mexican law for the Sheraton to throw the Cubans out. In any event, the local neighborhood council has been inspecting the hotel for violations so that it can be shutdown. One possible violation involves the lack of a restraunt menu in braille.

Give me a break ramon. The mexican government spends immense amounts of time and money trying to tell the U.S. government how it should run its immigration policy. Mexico encourages illegal immigrantion and also encoruages its citizens in the U.S. not to integrate. Mexican soldiers help narco trafficers cross the border. Face it--mexico is a fabulous place to visit, but has a crippled government that refuses to reform itself and has to export its own citizens to survive. Mexico will remain a backwater and source of cheap labor for the forseeable future not because the people are incapable, but because the culture, elite, and government are too bass ackwards to get it together.

mexicans that tend to detest the U.S. are the over-educated wealthy folk who secretly wish they had a blue passport and have never quite gotten over their inferiority complex vis-a-vis the U.S. They care so much about us, we just do not care about you much beyond the beaches and the labor pool.

But as long as Cozumel keeps the Marine Park in good shape, the tequila flows, and Mexico keeps producing self destructive "leaders" like jorge castenada and derbez, we should be in good shape. Just do not expect us to care much about law in a country where the rule of law does not exist.

(And I really loved living in mexico for a few years.)

The Sheraton Hotel incident shows how servile Vicente Fox is to U.S. interests.

Maybe the Mexicans will elect a new president this year that will defend and protect Mexico's sovereignty and independence.

And the gusanitos in Miami should go back to the Big Five and eat a Big Mac.

Point of fact: in 2004, John Kerry won 64%. That argument about pandering to Floridians is wearing thin. This is about the bad blood between Castro and Bushes.

Ah yes, the supine Vicente Fox, the former Coca Cola executive always eager to do Washington's bidding.
That man and his party are toast, I'm afraid.

This is why I rent exclusively from Alamo, especially when driving to Mexico City to watch the juniors preening at Taco Bell.

U.S. companies meeting with Cuban government officials does not violate Helms-Burton. Many U.S. companies are talking to the Cuban government in advance of the end of the embargo to get a foot in the door, including LEGAL meetings IN Cuba. The advantage to the Cuban government is that these companies will hopefully lobby to end the embargo.

Anyone who can call Cuba a terrorist country obviously is an extremist or is completely uneducated on the subject. The U.S. beef with Cuba is purely political and monetary, fueled by the hate of the wealthy Cuban exiles in Florida.

Let's also dispense right now with the mythology that the Cubans who came here in 1959-60 came here for freedom. There was no freedom in Cuba before Castro. The people who came here were participants in, supporters of or beneficiaries of the Bautista/Mafia/Sugar Company dictatorship. They came to escape prosecution for their crimes.

Ramon, you sound as ignorant as a US Neo-Con. Go ahead and elect an anti-American President. I am sure the 10 million illegal Mexicans in the US will be able to find jobs in Mexico.

DZ, you are absolutely right. Those are the same individuals who will head back to Cuba to try and regain their positions of power once Castro is out of the way.

Thanks for the explanation, Jennifer. Given the information you provide, the so-called logic followed by the Sheraton's management is hard to understand. The American officials and businessmen may freely set up deals with Cubans, yet an American company felt itself obliged to deny service to Cubans even though it had no qualms about taking their money for services unrendered.

I think it was silly to expel the cubans from the Sheraton hotel. It probably did more damage to the US than if nothing had been done. On the other hand, Castro is helping spread a marxist revolution in Latinamerica. He has been Chavez's mentor in Venezuela for some time already. Both have hinted publically at uniting Venezuela and Cuba under the same political regime. Venezuela is full of cuban agents, many posing as venezuelans. Under these conditions, US companies should think twice about helping Castro spread his marxist totalitarianism to the rest of the continent. Whatever resources are invested in Cuba, will help Castro, not the citizens of Cuba. I should add that US policy towards LA has not helped either. If they want to help, they should design, propose, lobby and actively implement a consensual plan for rapid, balanced and thorough human, social and economic growth in the region. It is in the US best interest to do so. Only then will the free trade agreement proposed by Mr. Bush, make sense.

More of the usual stupidity from the government of the United States. It's what we've come to expect and why we regard your government and indeed your country with such disdain.
One day the U.S. may become a mature nation and a responsible player on the world stage. Right now, that day seems a long way off.
Grow up, Americans!

As a supporter of Presidents Castro, Chavez, Morales, Lula, Vasquez and Kirchner, I'm delighted to see the U.S. government bolster support for leftwing governments throughout our part of the world.
Nice work, George. Keep it up!

Honestly!!! who gives a darn 'bout Patriotic and absurd nationalism? if only respect as a word could be spelled with all of its 7 letters by everyone concerned.

CAPITALISM IS BOUND TO FAIL, IN ALL OVER THE WORLD.

LOOK AT ITS CRUELTIES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.

CAPITALISM IS TO DODGE,LOOT AND KILL.

CAPITALISM IS TO GIVE ALL WEALTH IN TO A FEW HANDS. IT WILL FAIL VERY SOON IN ALL OVER THE WORLD. E-MAIL:- truth2000teller@yahoo.com

CAPITALISM IS BOUND TO FAIL, IN ALL OVER THE WORLD.

LOOK AT ITS CRUELTIES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.

CAPITALISM IS TO DODGE,LOOT AND KILL.

CAPITALISM IS TO GIVE ALL WEALTH IN TO A FEW HANDS. IT WILL FAIL VERY SOON IN ALL OVER THE WORLD. E-MAIL:- truth2000teller@yahoo.com

CAPITALISM IS BOUND TO FAIL, IN ALL OVER THE WORLD.

LOOK AT ITS CRUELTIES IN IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN.

CAPITALISM IS TO DODGE,LOOT AND KILL.

CAPITALISM IS TO GIVE ALL WEALTH IN TO A FEW HANDS. IT WILL FAIL VERY SOON IN ALL OVER THE WORLD. E-MAIL:- truth2000teller@yahoo.com

CAPITALISM WIIL GET FAILED IN ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH IN NEXT 30 YEARS!!!!!!!!

CAPITALISM WIIL GET FAILED IN ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH IN NEXT 30 YEARS!!!!!!!!

CAPITALISM WIIL GET FAILED IN ALL OVER THE WORLD WITH IN NEXT 30 YEARS!!!!!!!!

A SERIOUS LETTR TO ALL THE GOD FATHERS OF PAKISTAN


WHY BANIZIR AND NAWAZ DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE DIEYING PAKISTANIS, BECAUSE OF HUNGER AND POVERTY.
--------------------------------------------

JUST IMAGINE, AS WHY THEY DO NOT TALK ABOUT FEUDALISM, CAPITALISM, INEFFICIENT BUREAUCRACY
AND PRIVATIZATION???????

PRIVATIZATION , CAPITALISM AND FEUDALISM HAS PROVED AS A NIGHT MARE IN PAKISTAN.

CAPITALISM AND FEUDALISM, IS SUPPORTED IN PAKISTAN,BY INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL VESTED INTREST.

THE RULLING CLASSES ARE JUST INTRESTED TO PROTECT THEIR ASSETS, IN PAKISTAN.

IN RETURN TO THIS PROTECTION, THEY RENDER SERVICES, TO THEIR MASTERS.

THIS HISTORY GOES BACK TO 1857,WHEN LOCAL GHADDARS WERE AWARDED BY THE BRITISH,FOR THEIR SERVICES AGAINST THE FREEDOM FIGHTERS.

THESE GHADDARS AGAIN SUPPORTED THE BRITISH IN FIRST AND SECOND WORLD WAR.

STEP BY STEP, GENERATION AFTER GENERATION, THEY SUPPORTED THE INTERNATIONAL VESTED INTREST, THROUGH, AYUB KHAN, YAHYA KHAN, ZIA UL HAQ, AND OTHERS.

NOW THEY ARE IMPOSING WTO, PRIVATIZATION, FIRING OF THE WORKERS FROM THE INSTITUTIONS, BY DIFFERENT WAYS AND MEANS.

THIS IS ALL ON THE INSTRUCTIONS OF THEIR, INTERNATIONAL MASTERS.

BUT THE WORKERS OF PAKISTAN ARE NOW MUCH VIGILANT. THEY WILL GET FAILED, THESE INVESTORS BUYING THE ASSETS, OF THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN.

ALL ACTS TO SUPPRESS THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN, WILL LEAD TO, THE DISMEMBERMENT OF PAKISTAN, AND THE RULLING CALASS WILL BE THE MAIN LOSSER.

THE FIRED WORKERS FROM THE NATIONALISED INSTITUTIONS, BY ANY WAY,GODEN SHAKE HAND, VRSS, DOWNSIZING, RIGHT SIZING ETC. MUST BE OFFERED RE-EMPLOYMENT
BY THE GOVT. IN THE SAME SCALE, WHEN THEY WERE FIRED ETC.

PLASE CHANGE YOUR POLICIES IN THE FAVOUR OF THE PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN,
OTHER WISE YOU WILL AGAIN FACE AN OTHER DHACCA FALL.

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