While USA does not ban everyone from doing trade with Cuba, USA does ban everyone who trades with Cuba from doing trade with the US.

You can clearly see how this creates insentives for not trading with Cuba and instead trading with the far larger market next to it.

A lot of countries do international trade with Cuba. USA is not banning everyone who trades with Cuba. I can go to any licor store in my country and buy a bottle of Cuban ron, for example.

The US penalizes any country giving foreign aid to Cuba, and prevents its membership in International Financial Institutions like the IMF.

Any company in the world doing business in Cuba is also sanctioned by the US and it's employees are barred from entering the US.

You may be able to buy a bottle of Cuban rum at your liquor store, but that store can not do business in the US, use US banks, and the senior employees may be barred from traveling to the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act#Summa...

If Cuba refused to trade with anyone who traded with the US, would you say that Cuba is violating the national autonomy of the US?

Yes, however the severity of the violation is dependent on the influence of the violator. Cuba's violation would be wrong but mostly meaningless compared to the US's.

Would it not be a violation of Cuba's National Autonomy to force them to trade with partner's that they did not wish to trade with?

Yes, but I don't see how that's relevant. Not banning trade doesn't force the countries to trade, it just gives them the choice.

> Not banning trade doesn't force the countries to trade, it just gives them the choice.

And the choice made by the US is to not trade with Cuba or anyone who trades with Cuba - it's their right to make this choice.

It's not. They're free to choose who they trade with, using who that country trades with as a decider violates their autonomy.

You're just framing the violation as a choice and saying it is their right to make that choice. Sure, they also have the right to make the choice to invade Canada, but actually invading is obviously violating their autonomy.

Okay let's use a specific example:

I decide that I don't want to trade with Country A because they are producing weapons that they plan on using to attack me with. Now let's say Country B is trading with Country A, and I think they are trading components being used to produce the weapons in Country A.

Is it a violation of Country B's autonomy for me to decide to not to trade with them because they are trading with country A?

If I believe that anyone who trades with Country A is supplying them resources to build weapons to attack me, and I decide to not trade with any Country who is trading with Country A, am I violating the autonomy for all of those countries?

>Is it a violation of Country B's autonomy for me to decide to not to trade with them because they are trading with country A?

Yes.

>am I violating the autonomy for all of those countries?

Yes.

The clearer example would be imagine country A attacked me, would refusing to trade with country B violate their autonomy? And the answer is still yes, but both country A and B are already violating your autonomy so it's a justifiable violation.

With your example, I wouldn't say producing weapons clearly violated your autonomy, but that's a completely different argument.

Not just the US, but also the third party.

shouldn't countries be allowed to decide whom to trade with? if so, doesn't that extend to countries being allowed to make their own rules of trade, including not trading with those who trade with unfriendly nations?

> shouldn't countries be allowed to decide whom to trade with?

One have to distinguish country and its citizens. Sanctions is not just 'country decides whom to trade with' but 'country restrict freedom of its citizens to trade' and that is rather significant infringement of freedom and as such it has to be justified by its necessity.