Cuban products, including cigars, have been illegal in the United States since the Cuban Trade Embargo was signed by President Kennedy in 1962. Our friends at Cigar Aficionado magazine really enjoy Cuban cigars, and would like to see an end to the ban. In fact, in a video on their website ("The Best Cigar of the Year"), two of the magazine's editors can be seen smoking their favorite Cuban cigars in a New York City cigar bar. In the June issue of the magazine, they editorialize about the waste of U.S. tax dollars spent chasing cigar smokers.
Now, it's time to let us know what you think. If you are a U.S. cigar smoker, please cast your vote in our latest cigar poll and let us know to what degree you support the Cuban Trade Embargo.
Now, it's time to let us know what you think. If you are a U.S. cigar smoker, please cast your vote in our latest cigar poll and let us know to what degree you support the Cuban Trade Embargo.
Comments
Everyone seems to forget that the embargo on Cuba is in place, not only for political reasons, but for reasons to protect the rightful owners of properties seized by the Castro regime. Businesses and private properties, including those of tobacco farmers and cigar makers, were taken by the Cuban government in attempts to “socialize” the economy. It is unfair to those whose properties were taken, and cigar brands “stolen”, to continue to purchase them from Cuba. It is my opinion that many so-called “Cuban” cigars are fakes, and if you do happen to get your hands on an authentic one, it is, at best, of equal quality to those made elsewhere.
The trade embargo was rightfully put in place as a forceful step responding to the Cuban Missle crisis. It helped avoid a global nuclear war between the USA and the USSR. It’s primary current purpose is to help Republicans win Florida elections. Men like Oliva and Perdomo, who lost all they had to Castro;s dictatorship, lifted themselves back up. Those workers and families receive nothing from the American companies selling non-Cuban cigars under their brands. All they get from the US government are efforts to regulate and tax them out of existence. There is no embargo any more, only a prohibition against American citizens. Cuba and Altadis sell as much as they can produce to the rest of the world. The time is right for free markets and negotiations. Our security forces should be focusing on terrorism, narcotics and securing our borders, not on cigars.
To Jersey:
Do not confuse the Cuban Trade Embargo adopted in February 1962, which was in response to Castro’s communist regime seizing the property of private citizens, with the blockade of October 1962, which was in response to the missile crisis.
Some freedom!! American citizens can’t even smoke a Cuban cigar while traveling abroad? How stupid are Americans. Stupid enough to think a Martian invasion was underway.
I definitley support something needs to be done. I believe Obama suggested something like allowing few things from Cuban now that they got cell phones.
I say add to that list. Even when JFK passed the embargo, the next day he sent his general to get 1000 or so Cuban cigars to stack around the office.
JFK had his press secretary stock up on Cuban cigars before he signed the embargo. Click here for the full story direct from the horse’s mouth.
From an outsiders perspective I’d rather leave the ban as is! If the U.S. have access to Habanos cigars supply for the rest of the world will become an issue. Call me selfish.. I know…
Well, I’m not quite sure, if it’s all political and anti-comunism then I show little suport. Comunism tends to destroy the progress of many arts and companies. While I do not support comunism I also do not believe in opposing it so strongly in other countries to the extent that it effects that country’s economy and trade. But on the other hand, I wonder about the possible security threats if any. In short, my constitutional rights have not been compromised, and while I would like to try a Cuban, I believe that the art may have been effected by the economical negativities of comunism. Which is my greatest lament in this subject.
Sure glad to be Canadian. Not sure that in 2011 the reason for the embargo is justified as in 1962.
I could (can) buy Cuban cigars in Manhattan, Boston, Washington, L.A., all over the USA.. The embargo is stupid and punitive to a population that needs help. Communism rots from within because it does not reward effort and achievement. And because every so-called communist regime is just another dictatorship.
That said, the one communist leader who looked like he would really improve things in his country, Miguel Allende, was assassinated-with US complicity.