The economic model and decisions of Cuba is a terrible idea and could never work.
To show you how confident we are in this, we will engineer the harshest economic hit job and we will sanction the sh out of them, and every other country that tries something similar.
So you just made up a rationale for the embargo that's completely divorced from reality and then dunked on it? This would play great on Twitter or Reddit, you should post there as well.
Prior, this was not true. Israel assessed a VAT customs fee which was then transferred to the PA. The US has an FTA with the PA which applies across Gaza and the West Bank.
the point is, if your economic model cannot survive / adapt to the environment it is living in, is it viable? Cuba froze itself in time decades ago, is it just the embargoes? Why do they need capitalist trade to go a single step forward?
It’s the combination of the Castro family leeching off everything that they can plus the Floridians who are still salty about losing their rum factories etc who force the embargo - so it’s both being blocked by a major superpower and having an utterly corrupt government
No they cannot, as US imposes sanction on any country that defies the embargo, so Cuba ends up trading with those that couldn't care less about US embargos.
Welcome to the world of politics and the hypocrisy, where application of rules depends on the weaknesses of who is being blocked.
"Certain jurisdictions, such as the European Union and Canada, have so-called blocking statutes in place that are intended to mitigate the impact of U.S. sanctions on their citizens or entities conducting (in their view) legitimate business in Cuba."
Undoubtedly the US embargo and its extension of potential sanctions to foreign entities which violate are in part causes of a weak economy.
However, this is an incomplete picture. Cuba has essentially no market economy whatsoever. All evidence throughout history shows this is economic suicide and is undoubtedly an even larger cause of their issues. It's so bad that in the FT this week (https://www.ft.com/content/9ca0a495-d5d9-4cc5-acf5-43f42a912...) this incredible line is written:
"Chinese officials have been perplexed and frustrated at the Cuban leadership’s unwillingness to decisively implement a market-oriented reform programme despite the glaring dysfunction of the status quo, the people said."
That's the CHINESE (Marxist at least in name) government lamenting the lack of Cuban adoption of market principles.
Further, the article makes quite clear that the US Embargo, for whatever it is worth, doesn't extend to the entire world (which should be obvious) noting very specific relations with multiple major Chinese companies. So even though Cuba is clearly able to trade with the second largest economy in the world (with giant enterpries like Huawei and ZTE), with a population of greater than 1B, they are still somehow completely incapable of operating a function al economy.
What's more, a cursory understanding of Cuban history should show that they are avowedly enemies of the US having once attempted to host nuclear missiles aimed at the US. What is the US to do? Actively support a regime which has threatened tens of millions of its people?
If Cuba is our ally, they're not going to be China's ally. See Vietnam, which we also had some rocky relations with. It's too late to change things with Cuba now though, Obama tried and failed, so Cuba will be in eternal decline until another revolution.
The Cuban gov would trade with the US if there was some way to end the sanctions and save face. But I don’t see that happening.
Openly hostile lmao it’s such a tiny insignificant island nation- I never understood why the US should be afraid of Cuba - they are just vengeful after losing assets in the revolution. They managed to stamp every single one out in Latin America but viva was defiant.
It’s all about ideology not an actual threat that Cuba would pose
If the Florida based right wing Cubans ever die out or become less interested in politics, then there is a chance to hem relations, but as it is this is deeply tied with America political divisions ATM.
If the US is "almost alone", it shouldn't matter that the US isn't trading with Cuba. It's an island, there are plenty of countries they could trade with.
Cuba is collapsing because of failed economic policies and the resulting emigration.
No there isn't, the selection is reduced to those that couldn't care less about US, as anyone that dares to trade with Cuba is also affected in their US trade.
What can Cuba offer? Same problem with Haiti, what can Haiti offer? Not even China seems interested in paying peanuts for them (The way they are buying Nicaragua and Venezuela)
According to Haiti's Central Bank, total goods exports in 2022 were 1.07 Billion. GDP per capita estimated at $1,748.3 USD. [1]
Cuba is harder to pin down. OEC says they had 1.07 Billion in goods exports in 2022[2], whereas the WTO puts it around 2+ Billion[3]. The World Bank puts GDP per capita at 9,499.6 in 2020 (a bad year)[4], but Cuba doesn't really have a GDP and it changed its monetary system in 2021, so an economist who specializes in Cuba should weigh in here.
But in general, even with the lack of transparency on the Cuban economy, it's quite clear that with Haiti's complete breakdown of government and its historically low GDP per capita, Cuba and its people are in a much healthier economic state and are a much more attractive trading/business partner than Haiti.
Cuba is a pretty popular tourist destination, if nothing else. Cigars and rum are pretty big exports too. Definitely in another league compared to Haiti, as even communism beats anarchy.
I’d say that NATO and EU membership helped. Note that there are many other countries that fell out of the Soviet sphere of influence and didn’t share the same level of success.
That's not what you should give away in exchange for something.
But being human is indeed valuable in a purely utilitarian economic sense, too: it's a prerequisite to being able to teach machines. Services like the more and more elaborate marking / description of data sets are often outsourced to countries that have low-cost labor. It's intellectual work, in a sense.
Unrelated to your current comment, but you mentioned "I let promises of being a millionaire working for a start-up drive me to eating shit for well over ten years...All it cost me was the prime of my life..." [1]
I'm in college and looking to work for a startup when I graduate. I want experience, I want to learn about what building a company is really like - because I have ambitions of starting my own. Your comment felt to me very raw and real, and I'd love to talk more about your experiences working for startups.
And if these comment threads are insufficient, please feel free to contact me at ruchirkavulli[at]gmail[.]com
Man, I wish the sanctions would be lifted just so that the leftists holding these countries hostage, and their fellow travelers, don't have an excuse for running them into the ground because they believe in the worst ideology in history.
Cuba trades just fine with China, EU, Canada even, not even considering South America. The numbers are out there. Also countries like Venezuela were not nearly as heavily sanctioned and yet they speed-ran the left playbook to run their economy into the ground in record time. On the other hand, somehow sanctions didn't do much to damage Russian internal economy, as much as I wish they did - probably because even mafiosos and strongmen are not as dumb as leftists. OTOH^2 economically illiterate Erdogan was able to make lira crash without any sanctions. That was from just one stupid idea, whereas leftism is a whole stupid system.
Also, why should they need trade to provide basic services that most countries provide locally? Forget power, Cuba is/was one of the major, and most famous, tobacco producers. A middle-aged US man once told me he often goes on vacations to Cuba (flying thru Canada), because "girls there will sleep with you for a pack of American cigarettes". The regime is so incompetent they cannot even provide basic local goods that require ~no trade.
China is almost everyone's top-5 trading partner by imports, and half the world by exports, according to the CIA World Fact Book.
The other way around, China puts Taiwan (the closest China has to its own Cuba) on a list of major countries with 291 bn USD* whereas Cuba's total with everyone put together was estimated to be 4.6 bn USD in 2017.
To show you how confident we are in this, we will engineer the harshest economic hit job and we will sanction the sh out of them, and every other country that tries something similar.
Respectfully, the US and its lackeys