February 3, 1962, marks the sixtieth anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's Presidential Proclamation 3447 imposing an "embargo on all trade with Cuba" to punish Fidel Castro's revolutionary government for its "alignment with the communist powers," the Soviet Union and China. Despite having failed to bend Havana to Washington's will over the past six decades, the embargo remains the centerpiece of the U.S. policy of "regime change." Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Lester D. Mallory explained the strategy in 1960: "Every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba…denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government."

The anniversary of the embargo offers an occasion to delve into its complexities in order to better understand what Fidel Castro once called "a tangled ball of yarn." 

What exactly is the embargo against Cuba?

"The embargo" is shorthand for a complex patchwork of laws and regulations that comprise the oldest and most comprehensive U.S. economic sanctions against any country in the world. Although President Eisenhower imposed some economic sanctions on Cuba in 1960, the current embargo began when President Kennedy proclaimed a ban on all trade with Cuba in 1962, and a year later invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act to extend the embargo to prohibit all transactions (trade, travel, and financial) unless licensed by the Secretary of the Treasury (at the president's direction). Regulations governing implementation of the embargo and the licensed exceptions are codified in the Treasury Department's Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR).

Several other statutes govern elements of the embargo:

—  The Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 authorizes humanitarian donations of food and medicine, and the sale of telecommunications services and medical supplies, albeit subject to detailed restrictions. It also prohibits trade between the subsidiaries of U.S. companies abroad and Cuba.