Should the US maintain the embargo against Cuba?

Cuba has never met the conditions needed to lift the embargo

Question: Should the US maintain the embargo against Cuba?
Position1 of 2›: Yes, the US should maintain the embargo.
Argument‹2 of 3›: Cuba has never met the conditions needed to lift the embargo

The Cuban government has still never met US demands for free elections, the release of its political prisoners, and the end to arbitrary arrests. It would be weak for the US to lift the embargo now.

The argument

The Cuban government is an oppressive authoritarian regime. People are jailed for criticizing the government and cannot live the lives they choose. Minority groups are persecuted and jailed. Ending the embargo would give a green light to the Cuban government’s behavior. Giving up on sanctions would be a betrayal of all those who have suffered at the hands of the current regime and the many Cuban exiles living in the US. America will seem weak if it gives in to Cuba without getting any concessions. When Obama attempted to lighten restrictions on Cuba, it did not lead to the freeing of political prisoners promised by Castro. By some measures the number of political prisoners jailed went up. By keeping the embargo America sends a powerful message to a corrupt regime that it must respect human rights. As it stands the regime has asked that the embargo be lifted without making any concessions. Giving up the embargo means giving up on the fight for liberty. America should keep the embargo until Cuba meets the requirements needed to be a full democracy. The embargo was intended to help Cubans find their way to freedom. It would be weak to go back on the embargo now.

Premises

[P1]Cuba has not yet changed its government or made any concessions to the US.

[P2]When Obama liberalized contact with Cuba, Cuba became more repressive than ever.

[C]America would be weak to give in to Cuba. The embargo should stay until Cuba reforms.

Counter-arguments

The embargo has proved that unilateral sanctions do not work. The embargo imposed on Cuba has not given anybody freedom. It is disingenuous to claim that the sanctions against Cuba are about liberty. There are many states in the world which the US does not punish for their human rights record. The true reasons for the embargo are political, the Cuban-American lobby decides elections in Florida, a swing state. The claim that US is weak to give in to Cuba is based on stubborn machismo rather than pragmatic politics. It is pointless for the US to remain unmoved on the embargo just to prove a point when the sanctions have been largely ineffective. The sanctions against Cuba are not truly about freedom. Insisting on measures that do not work is pointless posturing.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise sets a condition without naming what would satisfy it. If nothing short of a different government counts as a concession, the policy has no terms on which it could ever be lifted — and the counter-argument notes it has run for decades without producing the reform it demands. [Rejecting P2] A period of liberalised contact followed by continued repression shows the two coincided, not that one caused the other, and the argument itself hedges with "by some measures". The further claim that reversing course would look weak concerns American standing rather than Cuban liberty, which is the counter-argument's point that a policy's stated purpose and its actual reasons can come apart.