Word: embargoing
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...move last week. Its main objective: to outflank the Reagan Administration and its allies by force of diplomacy and of arms. On the diplomatic front, the Sandinistas were trying -- less than successfully, as it turned out -- to open a rift between the U.S. and Western Europe over the trade embargo that Washington imposed on Nicaragua earlier this month. At the same time, Nicaraguan troops were foraying along the frontier with Honduras in a continuing effort to contain anti-Sandinista contra rebels ensconced in that border region. Closer to home, yet another challenge was looming for the Sandinistas: slowly deepening resentment...
Above all, the Nicaraguan government was intent on creating an image of firmness. On a blitz of Western Europe that was hastily added to a 13-day pilgrimage to East European capitals, President Daniel Ortega Saavedra repeatedly asserted that Nicaragua was not about to bend under the U.S. embargo. In Spain, France, Italy, Finland and Sweden, he pitched strongly to his hosts for help in filling the sizable trade vacuum ($168 million in 1984) left by U.S. sanctions...
...whom, and what did it mean? In carefully worded conversations, some officials in Managua, the capital, let it be known that they were considering the temporary suspension of the country's 15-month-old military draft. The move, coming only a week after imposition of a U.S. trade embargo against Nicaragua, was interpreted by some as a potential peace offering from the Sandinistas to a hostile Reagan Administration. Others preferred to see it as a propaganda ploy, aimed at influencing opinion on Capitol Hill...
...fledgling trade embargo is likely to have little bearing on the outcome of the contra issue. The Sandinistas have already announced a trade offensive in Western Europe and Canada to soften the economic blow, which affects $168 million in U.S.-Nicaraguan commerce. Last week Ortega added a West European tour to his East bloc visit in order to lead that effort...
...sure. Nicaragua (pop. 3 million) is smaller than Cuba (pop. 10 million) and has fewer resources and is a less developed economy. Unlike Cuba, Nicaragua still has a large private sector (at least 60% of its economy), which is likely to be severely hurt by the U.S. embargo. That is one reason, warns Mesa-Lago, why sanctions may serve to rally some Nicaraguans around the very government that Washington finds so repugnant...