Cuban Tariffs: ‘Bad!’ American Tariffs: ‘Good!’

Cuba is officially Communist. So, Americans know that the government’s regulations are bad for the people. They understand that Communist government regulations increase the poverty of families, who face much harder times. ‘Fidel Castro is a bad guy. So is his kid brother.’
So, when they read of import restrictions like these, they know for sure that it’s another mark of Communist tyranny.
Hundreds of thousands of Cubans and Cuban-Americans fly to and from the island each year thanks to the easing of travel restrictions by the U. S. and Cuban governments over the last five years. Their Cuba-bound checked baggage has become a continuous airlift that moves nearly $2 billion of products ranging from razor blades to rice cookers. The baggage carousels at Cuba’s airports often look like they’re disgorging the contents of an entire Wal-Mart or Target store. Many families bring special trailers to carry the bags of their returning family, which often weigh many hundreds of pounds and include items such as bicycles and flat-screen TVs.
But the Cuban government on Monday is enacting new rules meant to take a big bite of that traffic, sharply limiting the amount of goods people can bring into Cuba in their luggage, and ship by boat from abroad. The Cuban government says the restrictions are meant to curb abuses that have turned air travel in particular into a way for professional ‘mules’ to illegally import supplies for both black-market businesses and legal private enterprises that are supposed to buy supplies from the state.
The government has imposed 41 pages of new rules on imports.

This post was published at Tea Party Economist on September 1, 2014.