The core demand of the US embargo has always been democratic elections in Cuba, which Cuba has always rejected. But Cuba's problems extend far beyond the embargo. Most of which could also be solved by having free elections.
Cuba's had a complicated history. It's been 67 years since communism entered and destroyed that island. There are certain things that people don't know or are not told but perhaps a video like this (SPANISH) might help clear things up a bit more for those that don't know. I came across it a few days ago, but can't afford any tools to dub the audio into English, unfortunately but you might be able to enable subtitles:
Vietnam is a communist country. It is a one-party, authoritarian state ruled by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Why has communism not destroyed that country?
Could it perhaps be the US embargo has been more effective at destroying that island? The US does over $150 billion in trade with Vietnam.
Your video link starts '¿Quien financió la revolución?'. Who funded the repressive dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, allowing fertile soils for the seeds of socialism to grow?
Hint: The US seems to prefer funding repressive dictatorships, so long as they support US economic and military interest over the interests of the people in their country. "Before the revolution, U.S. and other foreign investors dominated the Cuban economy, controlling 75% of arable land, 90% of essential services, and 40% of sugar production.", quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba.
"The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution." wrote Schlesinger, quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista .
Then the US, angry that its money maker (and playground for the rich) got taken away, decided take a moral high ground it didn't have before [1] and embargo Cuba.
Does the video address these parts of Cuba's complicated history?
[1] Fun story. I have relatives who lived in Cuba and left for Florida when Castro came to power. One was my aunt. She took a bus in the Tampa area in the early 1960s. A black person came on the bus. My aunt moved to the side to make room for the black person to sit. She was looked at funny, and the black person went to the back of the bus. Cuba under Batista didn't have American segregation laws. "Moral high ground" my ass.
The moral high ground would send oil to Cuba as humanitarian aid, as Mexico wants to do.
It did. The Communist takeover in the North lead to mass starvation deaths and a flood of refugees to the South. The Communist takeover in the South lead to another mass starvation and lots of hunger deaths.
Because the US seems to be doing a lot of trade with a communist country which calls itself Vietnam. And that country seems to be in rather better shape than Cuba, with the biggest difference the US embargo on the latter.
The Cubans who recently died because there's no power for their ventilators didn't die because of Communism, but because the US is preventing oil from getting to the country. The US could do the same to Haiti, or the Bahamas, or Jamaica. Gunboat diplomacy is back on the menu.
">> Cuba's biggest problem is its neighbor that through continuous embargo and immigration blockades helps cement the regime's position."
I'm not sure which embargo you are referring to cause Cuba trades with other countries, but the profits never go to the poor. You don't have to take my word for it:
Cuba exports worldwide 2024:
China $270M
Spain $109M
Germany $68.2M
Macau $57.1M
Switzerland $49.9M
What you should take away from the above is that I have no special skills or agenda
with the exception of having a kind of Spidey sense that warns me when somebody is
dissembling the facts.
You've listed a whole bunch of commodity bulk goods and consumer goods.
The embargo doesn't affect those, which is why they can happen. The embargo isn't a blockade.
It's a series of laws which make it harder even for non-US companies to trade with Cuba. Consider the Helms–Burton Act.
"any non-U.S. company that deals economically with Cuba can be subjected to legal action and that company's leadership can be barred from entry into the United States. Sanctions may be applied to non-U.S. companies trading with Cuba. This means that internationally operating companies have to choose between Cuba and the U.S., which is a much larger market." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act
Suppose you are the Dutch company Philips. You make MRI machines. Cuba wants to buy a few from you. You could do that, but then you would not be able to sell thousands of MRI machines to the US. What do you do?
"The embargo has crippled Cuba’s medical sector since the U.S. set up the economic barrier in the early 1960s. Although the export of medical supplies to Cuba is legal, extensive restrictions limit such sales. “As a matter of [U.S.] policy, the sale of state-of-the-art technology in this sector is not authorized,” according to a 2011 United Nations report. ... The embargo has crippled Cuba’s medical sector since the U.S. set up the economic barrier in the early 1960s. Although the export of medical supplies to Cuba is legal, extensive restrictions limit such sales. “As a matter of [U.S.] policy, the sale of state-of-the-art technology in this sector is not authorized,” according to a 2011 United Nations report."
You write 'the profits never go to the poor'. That is, of course, nonsense. Some of the international purchases go to health care or electricity generation, a portion of which does go to the poor. Education funding gets high priority, and the country has effectively 100% literacy. You don't get that by having the poor fund their own education.
The Cuba emergency response system is famous for its hurricane preparations. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_emergency_response_system , "Cuba is the largest and most populated island in the Caribbean yet consistently experiences the lowest death tolls during hurricane season.[6][1] According to United Nations, it's not because Cubans are lucky but because they're prepared." Yet somehow you believe poor people weren't part of the 1.5 million people evacuated by the civil defense program during Hurricane Ivan? Compare that to the US civil defense plan to help the poor evacuate from New Orleans should another Katrina threaten, and you'll see how 'the profits never go to the poor' is hyperbole to the point of nonsense.
What you should take from this is you don't understand the topic and your Spidey sense is imaginary.
">> What you should take from this is you don't understand the topic and your Spidey sense is imaginary."
Is it imaginary though?
First, let me congratulate you on having enough electrical power, cool fresh air while posting from your high-end/air-conditioned Cuban compound/hotel while the rest of the population bakes and dies.
While the embargo isn't a total blockade, Cuba trades freely with China, Canada, Spain, EU, even buys US "food/meds" worth "$500M+" yearly in cash.
But that's the point: Helms-Burton deters some deals, yet the regime's communist central planning, GAESA military cartel controlling tourism (55% hotels, $4B+ hoarded while grids collapse), and dual MLC system are why poverty persists.
">> Foreign investment?'"
Profits go straight to regime elites/military, not people, hotels are prioritized over food and power, doctors are exported for hard currency (regime takes 80-90%), leaving hospitals short.
Locals died from blackouts, shortages, malnutrition in 2024-26 crisis (1M+ fled or died, protests crushed).
">> Literacy and hurricane evacuations?"
Real, but irrelevant when daily life starves under totalitarianism that values tourist dollars over citizens.
Sigh, poor Dutch! The bottom line is that the regime's policies outweigh any embargo. Lost USSR billions + mismanagement did this, not Philips MRI sales.
Don't worry annexation, updated extradition laws and fair public trials will resolve all of Cuba's issues by providing a fair legal system that holds its leaders, businesses and citizens equally, retroactively, accountable and punishes abuses in a court of law.
It is clear that the island's hardliners have made the conscious choice to sacrifice the population's wellbeing for foreign tourists and dollars. There needs to be some accountability, some sort of sense of justice in a post-Castro Cuba or the only law that will exist is "The Law of The Jungle," aka "An Eye for An Eye," and nothing will be resolved.
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Why has communism not destroyed that country?
Could it perhaps be the US embargo has been more effective at destroying that island? The US does over $150 billion in trade with Vietnam.
Your video link starts '¿Quien financió la revolución?'. Who funded the repressive dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista, allowing fertile soils for the seeds of socialism to grow?
Hint: The US seems to prefer funding repressive dictatorships, so long as they support US economic and military interest over the interests of the people in their country. "Before the revolution, U.S. and other foreign investors dominated the Cuban economy, controlling 75% of arable land, 90% of essential services, and 40% of sugar production.", quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba.
"The corruption of the Government, the brutality of the police, the government's indifference to the needs of the people for education, medical care, housing, for social justice and economic justice ... is an open invitation to revolution." wrote Schlesinger, quoting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista .
Then the US, angry that its money maker (and playground for the rich) got taken away, decided take a moral high ground it didn't have before [1] and embargo Cuba.
Does the video address these parts of Cuba's complicated history?
[1] Fun story. I have relatives who lived in Cuba and left for Florida when Castro came to power. One was my aunt. She took a bus in the Tampa area in the early 1960s. A black person came on the bus. My aunt moved to the side to make room for the black person to sit. She was looked at funny, and the black person went to the back of the bus. Cuba under Batista didn't have American segregation laws. "Moral high ground" my ass.
The moral high ground would send oil to Cuba as humanitarian aid, as Mexico wants to do.
> Why has communism not destroyed that country?
It did. The Communist takeover in the North lead to mass starvation deaths and a flood of refugees to the South. The Communist takeover in the South lead to another mass starvation and lots of hunger deaths.
Because the US seems to be doing a lot of trade with a communist country which calls itself Vietnam. And that country seems to be in rather better shape than Cuba, with the biggest difference the US embargo on the latter.
The Cubans who recently died because there's no power for their ventilators didn't die because of Communism, but because the US is preventing oil from getting to the country. The US could do the same to Haiti, or the Bahamas, or Jamaica. Gunboat diplomacy is back on the menu.
I'm not sure which embargo you are referring to cause Cuba trades with other countries, but the profits never go to the poor. You don't have to take my word for it:
Cuba exports worldwide 2024: China $270M Spain $109M Germany $68.2M Macau $57.1M Switzerland $49.9M
- Rolled Tobacco/Cigars (Habanos):
- $418M, hand-rolled. - https://www.habanos.com/en/ - https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/rolled-tobacc...
- Hard Liquor/Rum (Havana Club): $75.2M. https://havana-club.com/en/ https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/hard-liquor/r... - Nickel Mattes: $88.6M. https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/nickel-mattes... - Zinc Ore: $107M. https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/zinc-ore/repo... - Coffee: https://www.cubacoffee.co.uk/ - Honey: https://www.apisunhoney.com/ - Spiny Lobster: https://caribexseafoods.com/ - Sugar/Chemicals: oec.world data.
Previous: - https://www.onlineshop-helgoland.de/en/cigars/habanos-brands... - https://www.5thavenue.de/ - https://www.langen-kaffee.de/kaffee/kuba/Kuba/
Sources (all 70+ URLs):
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/cub https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs17/export/cub/all/... https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/exports-by-country https://wits.worldbank.org/countrysnapshot/CUB/textview https://www.worldstopexports.com/cubas-top-10-exports/ https://unctadstat.unctad.org/CountryProfile/GeneralProfile/...
At the risk of repeating myself....
Here are the main links covering OEC subpages, previous links, UN COMTRADE, and Trading Economics for Cuba exports data:
OEC.world (main and subpages): - Country profile: https://oec.world/en/profile/country/cub - Rolled Tobacco: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/rolled-tobacc... - Zinc Ore: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/zinc-ore/repo... - Nickel Mattes: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/nickel-mattes... - Hard Liquor: https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/hard-liquor/r... - Tree map exports: https://oec.world/en/visualize/tree_map/hs17/export/cub/all/... (or similar years)
Trading Economics (full set): - Exports overview: https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/exports - Exports by category: https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/exports-by-category - Exports by country: https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/exports-by-country - Annual exports: https://tradingeconomics.com/cuba/exports-annual
UN COMTRADE / related: - WITS (World Bank, based on COMTRADE): https://wits.worldbank.org/countrysnapshot/CUB - Direct COMTRADE access (example query): https://comtradeplus.un.org/ (search for Cuba exports)
Previous product links: - Habanos cigars: https://www.habanos.com/en/ - Havana Club rum: https://havana-club.com/en/ - Cuban coffee: https://www.cubacoffee.co.uk/ - Honey: https://www.apisunhoney.com/ - Spiny lobster: https://caribexseafoods.com/ - German cigars: https://www.onlineshop-helgoland.de/en/cigars/habanos-brands... - German distributor: https://www.5thavenue.de/ - German coffee: https://www.langen-kaffee.de/kaffee/kuba/Kuba/
What you should take away from the above is that I have no special skills or agenda with the exception of having a kind of Spidey sense that warns me when somebody is dissembling the facts.
The embargo doesn't affect those, which is why they can happen. The embargo isn't a blockade.
It's a series of laws which make it harder even for non-US companies to trade with Cuba. Consider the Helms–Burton Act.
"any non-U.S. company that deals economically with Cuba can be subjected to legal action and that company's leadership can be barred from entry into the United States. Sanctions may be applied to non-U.S. companies trading with Cuba. This means that internationally operating companies have to choose between Cuba and the U.S., which is a much larger market." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helms%E2%80%93Burton_Act
Suppose you are the Dutch company Philips. You make MRI machines. Cuba wants to buy a few from you. You could do that, but then you would not be able to sell thousands of MRI machines to the US. What do you do?
Hence why there are articles like https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/as-cuba-u-s-relat...
"The embargo has crippled Cuba’s medical sector since the U.S. set up the economic barrier in the early 1960s. Although the export of medical supplies to Cuba is legal, extensive restrictions limit such sales. “As a matter of [U.S.] policy, the sale of state-of-the-art technology in this sector is not authorized,” according to a 2011 United Nations report. ... The embargo has crippled Cuba’s medical sector since the U.S. set up the economic barrier in the early 1960s. Although the export of medical supplies to Cuba is legal, extensive restrictions limit such sales. “As a matter of [U.S.] policy, the sale of state-of-the-art technology in this sector is not authorized,” according to a 2011 United Nations report."
You write 'the profits never go to the poor'. That is, of course, nonsense. Some of the international purchases go to health care or electricity generation, a portion of which does go to the poor. Education funding gets high priority, and the country has effectively 100% literacy. You don't get that by having the poor fund their own education.
The Cuba emergency response system is famous for its hurricane preparations. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba_emergency_response_system , "Cuba is the largest and most populated island in the Caribbean yet consistently experiences the lowest death tolls during hurricane season.[6][1] According to United Nations, it's not because Cubans are lucky but because they're prepared." Yet somehow you believe poor people weren't part of the 1.5 million people evacuated by the civil defense program during Hurricane Ivan? Compare that to the US civil defense plan to help the poor evacuate from New Orleans should another Katrina threaten, and you'll see how 'the profits never go to the poor' is hyperbole to the point of nonsense.
What you should take from this is you don't understand the topic and your Spidey sense is imaginary.
Is it imaginary though?
First, let me congratulate you on having enough electrical power, cool fresh air while posting from your high-end/air-conditioned Cuban compound/hotel while the rest of the population bakes and dies.
While the embargo isn't a total blockade, Cuba trades freely with China, Canada, Spain, EU, even buys US "food/meds" worth "$500M+" yearly in cash.
But that's the point: Helms-Burton deters some deals, yet the regime's communist central planning, GAESA military cartel controlling tourism (55% hotels, $4B+ hoarded while grids collapse), and dual MLC system are why poverty persists.
">> Foreign investment?'"
Profits go straight to regime elites/military, not people, hotels are prioritized over food and power, doctors are exported for hard currency (regime takes 80-90%), leaving hospitals short.
Locals died from blackouts, shortages, malnutrition in 2024-26 crisis (1M+ fled or died, protests crushed).
">> Literacy and hurricane evacuations?"
Real, but irrelevant when daily life starves under totalitarianism that values tourist dollars over citizens.
Sigh, poor Dutch! The bottom line is that the regime's policies outweigh any embargo. Lost USSR billions + mismanagement did this, not Philips MRI sales.
Don't worry annexation, updated extradition laws and fair public trials will resolve all of Cuba's issues by providing a fair legal system that holds its leaders, businesses and citizens equally, retroactively, accountable and punishes abuses in a court of law.
It is clear that the island's hardliners have made the conscious choice to sacrifice the population's wellbeing for foreign tourists and dollars. There needs to be some accountability, some sort of sense of justice in a post-Castro Cuba or the only law that will exist is "The Law of The Jungle," aka "An Eye for An Eye," and nothing will be resolved.