On more than 30 occasions, the United Nations Assembly has discussed the blockade against Cuba, which costs the island 5 billion dollars annually, according to some estimates. Every year the resolution is proposed and the whole world, through the vote of the absolute majority of the member countries of the United Nations General Assembly, has condemned the imperialist attitude of the United States towards Cuba.
It’s not about the economic model or the US wouldn’t be buddies with Vietnam. This is about United Fruit (now Chiquita), this is about Bacardi, all expropriated without a dime of compensation, and rightfully so for using de facto slave labour under the watchful eye of US-backed dictators, administrating the island as a de facto colony.
The Cuban revolution wasn’t socialist, it was one for independence. The guerillas, once in power, were eyeing vaguely DemSoc politics and a good relationship with the US. The US answered with the Bay of Pigs invasion etc, driving Cuba into the arms of the Soviet Union and acquiring an unhealthy habit of authoritarianism and non-industrialisation in the process, becoming dependent on the block overpaying for their sugar, them underpaying for oil, fertiliser, etc.
The difference to Vietnam? Vietnam was a French colony. The US got over the domino theory which made them wage war there, they never got over the expropriations and losing control over the colony, worst of all, driving it into the hands of their mortal enemy. To relent on the sanctions would mean reflecting on all that and I don’t think the US is politically capable of admitting such a gigantic mistake, both humanitarian and strategic, to themselves.
In a parallel universe, with saner heads in Washington prevailing, Cuba would now be negotiating alongside Puerto Rico about the details of US statehood.