WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US economic embargo on Cuba "has failed," top Republican lawmaker Richard Lugar has said in a report likely to fuel momentum for a shift in US' decades-old policy toward the island.

"After 47 years ... the unilateral embargo on Cuba has failed to achieve its stated purpose of 'bringing democracy to the Cuban people,' said the senator from Indiana -- a senior member or the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "it may have been used as a foil by the regime to demand further sacrifices from Cuba's impoverished population."