[lenkite]

> They had a decade plus of no economic blockade from the U.S., and still they squandered the opportunity.

Err when was this decade plus of zero economic blockade ? I think you have confused less than two tiny years from 2015-2017. Nothing can be done in 2 years. By the time you setup trade, you are blockaded by the big bully who wants to make you suffer pain and you can do nothing. There is also a big bully base at home to ensure complete compliance to pain.

Blaming a victim for being abused is a really terrific argument.

[kyboren]

Blockade != Embargo.

Canadians have famously enjoyed tourism in Cuba for decades. I've purchased Cuban cigars in Europe. European and Canadian divers have gushed to me about their amazing dive sites.

I'm not going to say US trade policy hasn't hurt Cuba. But it's not like they're totally economically cut off from the world. They ought to be doing much better than they are.

Cuba's problems emanate from Havana, not Washington D.C.

[lenkite]

"Blockade != Embargo."

Irrelevant distinction presently. Kindly do your research and study what is absolutely enforced via both law and unofficial pressure on third parties. Some mere cigars available in Europe and some tourists don't change the essentials.

"Cuba's problems emanate from Havana, not Washington D.C."

Only said so arrogantly by a citizen of a nation who has never suffered from economic suppression. Like slavery, you will need to experience the chains yourself, before you understand the pain and suffering. I am frankly just disgusted at citizens of the West who support such suppression through threats and force and then blame the native government. Your own nations would have experienced severe pain if forced to the same situation, but it must be great to issue declamations from your holier-than-thou throne.

[kyboren]

And from which perfect utopia held back only by the evil West do you hail?

Given your apparent desire to put us in chains to experience pain and suffering, perhaps that's the next place we ought to suppress through threats and force.

It must be great to issue declamations from your holier-than-thou victimhood. It's much easier, too, as you never have to defend anything, because it's always someone else's fault.

PS: Food, medicine, and medical equipment--the essentials--are exempt from the embargo.

[lenkite]

"holier than thou victimhood" ? What a horrible joke. My "utopia", as you term it, is merely asking that Western nations stop bombing, terrorizing and sanctioning other nations before issuing proclamations on "failed states". They would actually get a chance to be successful.

> PS: Food, medicine, and medical equipment--the essentials--are exempt from the embargo.

So deeply ignorant and deliberately blind to the real world. The U.S. significantly constrained Cuba’s ability to buy medical equipment from other countries, not just from the U.S. itself. Cuba cannot legally import any product containing more than "10% U.S. origin components". For some years, it was even 25%!

Even when a product was made in Germany, Japan, or Canada, U.S. parts could make it illegal to sell to Cuba.

2nd order threats and suppression are very effective for propaganda. Permits western supremacists like you to falsely claim that that "the essentials" are exempt.

[kyboren]

Can you show any evidence of any such medical equipment whose export to Cuba was prohibited?

You deftly avoided the question, so I'll ask again: Where are you from?

[lenkite]

> Can you show any evidence of any such medical equipment whose export to Cuba was prohibited?

Here is a UN report.

"Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba"

https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/4090890/files/A_80_83-E...

Here is another report from Cuba Solidarity, which details the cost of the blockade

https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/resources/2025%20blockade%20r...

Here is another report from Cambridge University Press which illustrates an example in Chapter-8

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/economic-sanctions-from...

"For example, the purchase of Vitek 2 Compact 15 laboratory equipment for one of the enterprises that manufactures the Cuban vaccine candidates was cancelled when Canadian supplier North World Industry Inc. (NWI) informed its Cuban customer that the company’s supplier, Biomeriux Canadá, had refused to supply the equipment and its consumables, because the components were manufactured in the US. NWI sought to procure the equipment from Spain, through Biomereux’s European subsidiary, and from Panama, through a Latin American subsidiary, to no avail."

Antoher report of denial during Covid crisis

https://cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news/article/3985/us-company-...

There are a dozen other reports/articles that I can bring up. Most of this research, you could easily find out by yourself. You are just not willing to admit the basic truth to yourself and chosen to deliberately blind your eyes.

(PS: My origin is irrelevant to the evidence. I am not from any NATO nation, obviously not from Cuba myself, belong to a nation formerly under colonial rule and which also experienced Western harsh sanctions in the past.)