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I say we let them drill it's their land anyway.

I think the problem is that many of these pools of undersea oil cross international boundaries. It's kind of like the situation between Iraq and Kuwait before the first Desert Storm. There was a huge pool of oil overlapping both countries' territories. Saddam had neglected oil exploration and was tapping only relatively small amounts, whereas Kuwait was just swimming in it. Basically, if Cuba drills and finds one of these pools near the center line, it will basically extract billions of barrels of what could have been pumped out by an American oil company - on which it would have paid taxes - not to mention the millions of individual investors who would have received dividends or made capital gains on the oil find. Instead, all the money will go to Cuba. The politicians we have in office aren't Americans and certainly don't represent our interests - they see themselves as world leaders ultimately accountable to billions of foreigners.