The Cuban-American Lobby is holding the US to ransom

The argument

According to recent polling, the majority of Americans do not support the embargo against Cuba. Both democrat and republican voters support putting an end to the sanctions. Florida is an important swing state for winning US elections. Florida is also home to many Cuban-Americans, and the powerful and conservative Cuban-American lobby which has historically supported the embargo. Hillary Clinton has stated that her husband Bill supported the Cuban Embargo initially because it was "good politics" which garnered support from Cuba-Americans. Recent commentators have remarked that Trump's hard-line on Cuba is an attempt to secure votes in Florida. Important supporters of the embargo have included conservative figures such Jorge Mas Canosa, who was at the Bay of Pigs, and who many believed was likely to stand for president in the event of a free Cuba. Although he has since died, the Cuban-Amerian National Foundation he launched with a number of other wealthy Cuban exiles has been a prominent and powerful proponent of the Cuban embargo. Americans do not want an embargo. Successive presidents have supported the embargo as part of a cynical move to win elections.

Premises

Counter-arguments

America should listen to the strongly conservative voice of many the Cuban American exiles. The people and their families know Cuba best and should be allowed to have their say. The fact they are a minority is irrelevant because they are the group most qualified to judge the situation correctly. The views of the Cuban-American come from contact with Cuba, including groups within Cuba such as the Ladies in White who do not wish to see the regime that persecutes them empowered by the US. The minority voice of Cuban Americans should not be ignored, they are the best placed to make a decision on the issue.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] "Recent polling" is cited with no source, date or question wording, and opinion on the embargo has moved considerably over time. The premise also does not distinguish between opposing the embargo and caring enough about it to vote on it, which is what the argument's account of electoral influence requires. [Rejecting P2] That Cuban-Americans decide elections is asserted rather than shown, and it sits in tension with the premise before it: if most Americans oppose the embargo, the argument has to explain why the intensity of a minority prevails, not merely note that Florida is close. Cuban-American opinion is not uniform and has shifted between generations. The conclusion is also a charge of motive drawn from circumstantial evidence — a policy being electorally convenient does not show it was adopted for that reason, and the argument's own examples describe advocates who held the position out of conviction.