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‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis
(www.theguardian.com)
United States needs to stop the stupid sanctions
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
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This is what those sanctions are meant to cause. The idea is to force a change in regime from within. It's ridiculous that we're still doing it 50 years later.
Yes, but that won't solve the fundamental problems that led up to this.
Yet it might have solved those problems had the sanctions been lifted 20+ years ago, allowing Cuba more access to diversifying their power grid through being able to get better deals for parts than they currently can.
The sanctions are part and parcel to why they're struggling, and to ignore that they've been extremely limited in who they can trade with, and that limits their options for budgeting what they can buy because they have very few suppliers, is foolhardy.
No, we can't fix the past, but we can recognize that it might have gone very differently had sanctions been lifted long ago.
The fundamental problem is not "Cuba pays slightly more for its parts from China", the fundamental problems run much deeper. Cuba spent thirty years embracing a position as a resource colony for the Soviet Union in exchange for massive subsidies on their sugar exports (the Sovs paid 5x the market price for Cuban sugar) and invested that money - nobly, but not wisely - in raising living standards instead of the creation of an economic base that wasn't reliant on total vassalhood to a powerful state on the other side of the planet.
It emerged from the end of the Cold War with a well-educated and healthy population, but no real economic prospects with the collapse of the Soviet Union and its massive amounts of aid which subsidized the sluggish economy of the Cuban government. So what did the Cuban government do?
Nothing.
Fucking nothing.
Not wholly true, I suppose - they vacillated between encouraging private enterprise and cracking down on it, which, ironically, was more ruinous than just doing either alone. Fidel Castro himself admitted that the government policy royally fucked up in the 90s-2000s transitional period. After Fidel's death, Raoul also admitted that the agricultural sector of the country was ultra-fucked. After Raoul's retirement, the Cuban government has been hesitant to make fundamental changes to the government because the Castro family was what lent the government legitimacy outside of its socialist credentials - leaving them slowly taking on water and sinking in a mess several decades in the making.
As it stands now, Cuba is reliant on a meagre tobacco industry, rum, promising mineral rights to China, and remittances from the expats in the dreaded Yanqui Empire (the remittances quite literally outstripping the total value of Cuba's exports).
Aint this is the state goal of the santions tho
If any other country like China or Russia blockaded a country to the point where it would cause a collapse ... we'd probably start WWIII in defence.
US does it and it's just taken as a normal part of world politics and perfectly acceptable.
What the hell did Cuba do to deserve this? They had a difference of opinion and they didn't want to be taken advantage of ... they've since had to be literally starved to death because of it.
An embargo is not a blockade.
The embargo excludes food and medicine, and, in fact, Cuba has, previously, explicitly rejected unconditional offers of US aid.
Cuba's core problems are not due to the embargo, as much as the Cuban government and the terminally online left would like to peddle that narrative.
The embargo is stupid, pointless, and immoral. But it's not what's causing Cuba's current problems in any significant degree.
The state-wide weed markets are another example of what happens when the US government decides your business shouldn't be recognized by banks abroad.
Call it what you want but the effect is still the same.
Yes Cuba can trade with whoever they want in the world ... the US just makes it so difficult and complicated that no one wants to be bothered.
Is that why Cuba's biggest trade partner is that notable enemy of America, Canada?
Yes but the amount of trade that happens is so miniscule that it doesn't do much for their economy.
It's like having someone pin you to the ground, tie up your hands and feet and rest their knee on your neck and then ask why you're having a hard time getting up on your own
Yes but the amount of trade that happens is so miniscule that it doesn’t do much for their economy.
Bruh, Cuban-Canadian trade is worth over a billion annually. They're one of Canada's largest trade partners.
I guess the Netherlands and Spain are also inconsequential, and China is, of course, holding back on TRULY trading with Cuba out of fear for US sanctions despite the fact that China is already trading with Cuba on a massive scale.
Cuba was the third richest country in Latin America before the fall of the SovUnion. Could it possibly be that their economy was built on a house of cards and they haven't meaningfully shifted since it fell?
At some point you have to accept that the embargo, while wrong, is just not even close to core to the problems Cuba faces.
Netherlands and Spain
Just to give a perspective on this: The Dutch are notorious traders, that is, much of their business involves being middlemen, lots of stuff made anywhere in the EU flows via the Netherlands, nominally or physically. Spain, well, is self-explanatory: They're speaking Spanish over there. The EU overall is Cuba's second largest import and third largest export partner, a third of tourists to Cuba come from the EU.
As to the EU itself: It's generally illegal to comply with US sanctions on Cuba and Iran. If you're affected you can contact the commission and ask for an exemption if it's really bad but generally speaking you're supposed to work with the commission to find a way around the sanctions. There's literally EU civil servants specialised in sanction-busting by finding ways to transfer money, ship stuff etc. that doesn't involve the US.
They used to enjoy preferential tariffs but have become too rich by now so standard tariffs apply.
At some point you have to accept that the embargo, while wrong, is just not even close to core to the problems Cuba faces.
True. Also it would be way worse if Cuba didn't have Canada and the EU to fall back on. Also, OTOH: The current trouble is specifically cause by US sanctions -- secondary ones regarding Venezuelan gas, though, not the primary ones on Cuba itself. Cuba doesn't really have money to import that stuff and the Venezuelians are basically giving it away for free when you happen to be Cuba so of course they're buying it.
Heck in a couple month's time we might be seeing news about a large-scale Namibia-style investment: Build lots of renewables with European money, gain a stable electricity network and pay the whole shebang back with hydrogen exports. Cuba is plenty stable (and sunny) enough for such a deal.
Errrm Russia is literally in the process of attacking a neighbouring country right now. They are tying their very best to make this country collapse with things far worse than sanctions, and no one has started WW3 yet.
What the hell did Cuba do to deserve this?
The embargo? Seized a bunch of American-owned property in the revolution. The US said "you can nationalize it, but you gotta pay for it". The Cuban government said no, and the US said "then we won't do business with you".
Lot of property owned by Americans out there in the world. Makes people think twice about treating it as a free cash grab bag if the last group to try it regretted it.
Also, as someone else pointed out, it's an embargo, not a blockade, which would be forcibly preventing them from doing business with anyone else, like, parking warships offshore and not letting anything in or out. A blockade would be an act of war. Embargoes are not.
Seized or reclaimed? The colonial gaze is strong here.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/26/cuba-power-grid-failure-financial-crisis