To the editor:

Thank you for your series on the limits on travel to and trade with Cuba. I came to the United States in 1960. I have family in Cuba and visit there when I can. I consider the embargo/blockade a policy that is not only bad but counterproductive and immoral.

The Torricelli and Helms-Burton laws, which turned the embargo into a full-front global assault on contacts with Cuba, attempt to impose U.S. domestic electoral concerns on the entire world. Their purpose is to create such misery on the island as to lead to a civil war, after which, ultra-conservatives in Miami, and their friends, could take over the state assets, privatize them to themselves, and become instant millionaires. Yet, after 45 years, there is no reason to believe that the policy will work except to maintain certain jobs and political connections in the United States, while bringing further misery on the people of Cuba.

It’s time to put an end to this harmful and baseless policy, paid for by and maintained in the name of U.S. taxpayers.

Luis Rumbaut,

Washington, D.C.