I am not interested in the mistakes of history, why repeat them. It will take courage for a president to change our policy since they will have to explain to the refugees that the interests of both countries lay in a new direction and not repeating past mistakes. Bush is the right person for the job.
I don't look to Canadian and European lack of influence in Cuba as a model and I wonder why you try to validate your argument by doing so. Curious.
The entire world USED to trade with Cuba, or rather with a dictator whose stated policy (publicly ststed BTW) is to NOT PAY the foreign debt of those countries that he deems "oppresors", one of those countries is the US.
In light of the fact that International trade has been going on in Cuba for years without significant change, in spite of the well-documented record of non-payment on his his foreign debt, in spite of his statements of solidarity with countries that are sworn enemies of the US( May 21, 2001 Castro declares that Cuba and Iraq will bring the US to its knees), in spite of his record of human rights abuses, in spite of the theft of property belonging to US citizens (if I steal your car, and you don't catch me until the car is too old to be worth anything, will you lend me your car again?), in spite of the billions of dollars in bad debt that he has accumulated over the past years, what reason could you possibly have to want to trade with Castro?
You say that the "embargo" hasn't worked? How many billions of dollars is Castro defaulting on with US creditors?