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  3. The US Embargo Against Cuba The real dividing line in U.

The US Embargo Against Cuba The real dividing line in U.

游客2023-12-26  9
问题                      The US Embargo Against Cuba
   The real dividing line in U. S. policy toward Cuba is how best to undermine the Castro regime and hasten the island’s day of liberation. For almost half a century, the U. S. government has tried to isolate Cuba economically in an effort to undermine the regime and deprive it of resources. Since 1960, Americans have been barred from trading with, investing in, or traveling to Cuba. The embargo had a national security rationale before 1991, when Castro served as the Soviet Union’s proxy in the Western Hemisphere. But all that changed with the fall of Soviet communism. Today, more than a decade after losing billions in annual economic aid from its former sponsor, Cuba is only a poor and dysfunctional nation of 11 million that poses no threat to American or regional security.
   A 1998 report by the U. S. Defense Intelligence Agency concluded that, "Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U. S. or to other countries in the region. " The report declared Cuba’s military forces "residual" and "defensive." Some officials in the Bush administration have charged that Castro’s government may be supporting terrorists abroad, but the evidence is pretty shaky. And even if true, maintaining a comprehensive trade embargo would be a blunt and ineffective lever for change.
   As a foreign policy tool, the embargo actually enhances Castro’s standing by giving him a handy excuse for the failures of his homegrown Caribbean socialism. He can rail for hours about the suffering the embargo inflicts on Cubans, even though the damage done by his domestic policies is far worse. If the embargo were lifted, the Cuban people would be a bit less deprived and Castro would have no one else to blame for the shortages and stagnation that will persist without real market reforms.
   If the goal of U. S. policy toward Cuba is to help its people achieve freedom and a better life, the economic embargo has completely failed. Its economic effect is to make the people of Cuba worse off by depriving them of lower-cost food and other goods that could be bought from the United States. It means less independence for Cuban workers and entrepreneurs, who could be earning dollars from American tourists and fueling private-sector growth. Meanwhile, Castro and his ruling elite enjoy a comfortable, insulated lifestyle by extracting any meager surplus produced by their captive subjects. [br] The author believes that the ultimate solution to Cuban economic problem lies in______.
选项 A、the fall of the Castro regime
B、the aid from the Soviet Union
C、the end of the embargo
D、domestic market reform
答案 D
解析 构句细节题型，答案是D。此题考查作者心目中古巴经济问题的解决之道，题干原题未直接出现在文章中，但根据提出问题一论证问题一解决问题的一般行文逻辑，我们可以将阅读重心放在文章的后半部分，进一步缩小范围可锁定“If the embargo were lifted，the Cuban people would be a bit less deprived and Castro would have no one else to blame for the shortages and stagnation that will persist without real market reforms．”。提炼此句话，我们可以得到如下信息：“即便解除了禁运，如果没有真正的市场改革，物资短缺和经济停滞仍将持续。”可见正确答案为D。值得一提的是，从英文原句的语法结构上看，对此题具有重要价值的信息并未出现在主句中，而是以正话反说的形式出现在了句末的that从句中，如果拘泥于英文原句的语法重心，可能会被误导选择A或B。本题核心：正确掌握文中相关句语法结构。
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