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Cuba Calculates Cost of 54yr US Embargo At $1.1 Trillion
First time accepted submitter ltorvalds11 writes Cuba says its economy is suffering a "systematic worsening" due to a US embargo, the consequences of which Havana places at $1.1 trillion since Washington imposed the sanctions in 1960, taking into account the depreciation of the dollar against gold. "There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years," Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno told reporters. He also blamed the embargo for the difficulties in accessing internet on the island, saying that the United States creates an obstacle for companies providing broadband services in Cuba. Additionally, he said that the area is one of the "most sensitive" to the embargo, with economic losses estimated at $34.2 million. It is also the sector that has fallen "victim of all kinds of attacks" by the US, as violations of the Cuban radio or electronic space "promote destabilization" of Cuban society, the report notes. The damage to Cuban foreign trade between April 2013 and June 2014 amounted to $3.9 billion, the report said. Without the embargo, Cuba could have earned $205.8 million selling products such as rum and cigars to US consumers. Barack Obama last week signed the one-year extension of the embargo on Cuba, based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917, created to restrict trade with countries hostile to the U.S..
Russian propaganda. These are the same idiots who claimed Russia wasn't ever invading Ukraine.
... a fucked up country full of paranoid war hawks and religious whack-jobs, that's about what you'd expect from america.
"There is not, and there has not been in the world, such a terrorizing and vile violation of human rights of an entire people than the blockade that the US government has been leading against Cuba for 55 years,"
Ha ha ha ha! Funny guy. He needs to read a history book - or even a current weekly magazine.
Abretardo Morono - pushing the limits of ignorant hyperbole!
The righteous communists have a need to trade with the capitalist imperialists? Won't the ghost of Stalin provide for all?
I apologize for the lack of a signature.
Works to something like $20 Billion a year. That's a credible figure. We do $650 billion with Canada in a year, and Cuba ain't that much smaller.
The problem with their argument is that whenever a US President tries to reduce tensions, they do something to ratchet them back up. For example, Obama was inaugurated in Jan of '09, announces easing the embargo by allowing families in the US to visit and send money more easily in April, and by December some poor schmuck (Alan Gross) is rotting in a Cuban jail for bringing computer equipment in for Jewish groups. It's true that if you're an evil dictatorship stopping your local people from doing that is not unreasonable, and it;s true our government paid for it, but it's also true that you could easily stop him seizing his computers and deporting his ass. Now if Obama ever does anything nice for Cuba (such as sticking his neck out on ending the embargo) people supporting the embargo strongly have a trump card: why would we trade with a country that is holding one of our guys in prison for the crime of helping people access the internet?
It would cost them literally nothing to let this guy go, but they insist on keeping him in prison where he can only prevent them from accessing that $20 billion a year export market.
Which means most independent observers have long concluded the Castros like the embargo, because it allows them to claim everything that is wrong with the country is Evil Foreign Gringo's fault. Which justifies things like arresting guys for bringing in computer equipment.
The sins of the father should not be carried by the son. I would continue the embargo for 7 more years and then force Cuba to allow US companies to open up shop there.
All the Cuban government would need to do is completely and utterly flood the U.S. with cheap cocaine. This would rain havoc to all of the American states subsequently prompting the U.S. government to sit down with Cuban officials to work out a deal.
That easy really.
the submitter's username yet?
I'm sure the United States would be more willing to consider ending the embargo if Alan Gross was freed from prison.
`more willing' in this case would mean saying 'No, no, no way' to ending the embargo, rather than 'No, no, no, no way'.
In other words, it is the political reality in the US that makes this impossible, not the imprisonment of a single guy.
This embargo is the most ridiculous political joke still currently going on.
The US needs to end it and everyone should have a nice glass of actual Havana Club, not the disgusting stuff Bacardi produces under that name thanks to corrupt politicians.
Obviously the embargo is nothing to do with the less than perfect human rights in Cuba and everything to do with the large and very vocal Cuban community in the south that hate Cuba with a passion. (Castro et. al. are not angels, but they were never as nasty as Pinochet etc.) The bay of pigs was embarrassing but long before the far more embarrassing Vietnam war, yet Vietnamese are now friends.
But what is in it for the Democrats? The US Cubans hate the democrats anyway and will never vote for them. So why would Obama do such an obviously wrong thing with this endless embargo? Is it just habit?
Is connecting jewish families to the internet legal in cuba? If it's not, then what the fuck are you crying about? If I came to the US and sold meth to your kids you'd put me in jail for it, regardless of the legal status of meth in my country.
We're sorry but Cuban political prisoners were not available for comment. Electrical engineers had attempted to increase internet access in Cuba but fled to the freedom of the United States when they were told censorship doesn't allow true internet with scary freedom of speech. http://youtu.be/v5zmNRGAUQY
I was in Cuba earlier this year. They seem to be doing OK for themselves.
Sure, there are towns outside of Havana and Trinidad where there isn't a lot to do, but I didn't see any real evidence of extreme poverty.
As far as I could see, the only thing the embargo is doing is preventing (most) Americans from visiting the place.
Summation 2
...with that trillion that Mr. Burns gave them?
I'm as far of being a puritan as one can be, but it strikes me as odd that a country that still follows socialist/communist guidelines and usually proud itself for its health system claims that the main exports it can provide, assuming the embargo is lifted, are alcoholic drinks and Tabaco. Go figure.
Anyway, the embargo didn't worked, it's obvious. It only provides a nice excuse for the regime for it's own failures, and surely makes Cuban population poorer. Not their leaders, of course, for them there's no shortage of anything, as is usual on communist regimes. It also helps American politicians for demagogically getting votes in Florida, but that's it. The stated goal of promote a more free and market-oriented (which are not the same thing) Cuba is actually getting more difficult because of the Embargo.
Castro might not be able to repay Cuba for this economic loss. Maybe those missiles were a bad idea.
I wonder what the value of American-owned assets nationalized by Castro would be worth today had they never been nationalized. My guess is that it has to be at least Cuba's "cost" or worse.
It'd also be interesting to know the value of the lost productivity imposed by Cuba's communist economics.
Cuba is a complex nation with both good and bad points and we should not adopt just the American view towards Cuba. First the revolution in Cuba went astray and many good people were killed or had their lives ruined. There is also no doubt that Cuba backed a hostile Soviet Union during the cold war. There is also no doubt that prior to Castro American organized crime ran rampant in Cuba and the public in Cuba was being raped by corruption. Some Cubans did better after the communist gained power just as some lost their lives, property or freedom. Meanwhile we all act like blissful idiots by avoiding the real issues. Island nations often lack enough natural resources to provide a decent life for their populations. The type of government does very little to change that. For example if Haiti were to go communist today they would still be a very poor nation. If Cuba adopted the government and laws of Sweden or Switzerland or the US Cuba would still be a suffering nation. Natural resources shrink when used. Every year Cuba has less natural resources. With strict birth control and population control such as allowing no immigration at all Cuba could shrink its population and there would be more natural resources per person which can cause more wealth per person. Civil unrest and revolution are all expressions of over population which we tend to see as poverty. Picture it this way. We give each form of government a resting place in its own paper bag. We place each paper bag in a coffin full of fish guts and seal the coffin. We come back after a month and each form of government will have the same wretched stink. The form of the government does not control the prosperity of a nation. If we try to judge nations by their ability to survive we would be talking about strong monarchies in Egypt or China where concepts of fairness simply were not in play and a monarch with crushing powers determined every little thing.
So, Cuba is our enemy. Yet, we can freely trade with Great Britain and Australia, both of which are doing far more damage to our country? Even China... We only stick to our principles and embargo small countries that we don't really need anything from?
The jews ALREADY had internet connection and they DENIED any connection with Gross regarding the smuggled equipment:
As for Gross, Kimber believes that he isn’t the do-gooder most people believe, and that the Cuban Jewish community already was connected to the Internet. In a magazine article, Kimber wrote that Jewish groups in Cuba have denied working with Gross and that during his five trips to Cuba during 2009, Gross “never informed Cuba of his mission.” Gross smuggled equipment in, sometimes using “unsuspecting members of religious groups as ‘mules,’ ” he wrote.
http://washingtonjewishweek.com/13016/dc%e2%80%88confab-ponders-another-prisoner-swap/
Yeah. There's simply no comparison between the US preventing Cubans selling a few cigars and stopping them having Macdonalds on the one hand, and on the other groups like al Qaeda and IS indulging in mass terrorism, mass executions of their enemies or people they just don't like the look of. If you want to get into blockades that are really a much worse "terrorizing and violation of human rights of an entire people" a much better citation would be the blockade of Palestine. If you want to get into bad things the US have done in the last 55 years then Vietnam is a much better example. And if you want to get into "terrorising and violation of human rights of an entire people" throughout history then the Nazi regime's atrocities against the Jews would be right up there; possibly some stuff Genghis Khan did; arguably the 10 years of vicious repression of the Anglo Saxon natives of England by the Normans following the 1066 conquest; probably the treatment of {Africa, South America} by conquistadors and colonialists in the 15th to 20th centuries.
But really? The Cuban blockade? Not even in the same league.
Well the US acted in 1960 to place the embargo, we're still waiting for them to actually think it through. It's funny that Cuba actually has a better medical system then the US, and it's state funded, probably what the embargo was about in the first place.
The people they didn't murder the Cuban revolutionaries stripped of all property and they became paupers overnight. They'd have to ignore their own actions if they want to claim there has never been a more vile violation of human rights. That said the U.S. is under absolutely NO obligation to trade with Cuba. Trade with the USA as you make them like an enemy is NOT a right. Cuba painted itself as the enemy and sided with a regime that pointed thousands of nuclear wardheads at the USA, complaining about a lack of trade as if you had rights to trade is abject nonsense..
I'm puzzled...is "bananas" the link perhaps?
The US has tried to lift the embargo several times. Every time Cuba does something to get it maintained. There was famiously a plane hijacking one of the times we talked about lifting it.
Beyond that, the embargo does not stretch to the whole planet. They can trade with Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China, etc. Just not the US. I think they can trade with any country and europe and probably canada. So... whatever Cuba.
Like most failed states, they're just blaming their incompetence on someone else.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Gross was a saboteur, trying to overthrow the Cuban government. His wife finally admitted as much, as I wrote above.
He was getting money under the Helms-Burton Act. The purpose of the Helms-Burton act was to overthrow the Cuban government. They were paying him to try the unworkable idea of setting up an alternate Internet, to help the Cuban Jews overthrow the Castro government. The Cuban Jews actually got along very well with Raul Castro.
The Cubans want to exchange Gross for 3 Cuban intelligence agents who are in prison right now. They came to the U.S. as undercover agents to monitor the Miami Cubans who were committing acts of terrorism against Cuba, such as blowing up a Cuban plane, and bombing tourist spots.
The U.S. has refused the exchange. The anti-Cuban hard-liners would rather leave Gross in prison than improve relations.
It was the niggers.
Stopped reading when they used the terms embargo and blockade interchangeably.
Still, we should knock it off. We have normal international relations with countries that have much greater sins in their past, or even present.
And here we were taught by Under-development theorists (Marxists) that poverty was caused by exploitation by the capitalist countries (Core-Periphery) and that the solution was to have underdeveloped countries have less trade with capitalist countries. All sorts of regimes copied that (high import tarrifs, refusing outside companies from going in,etc...). Free market economists said that would create more poverty. Marxist economists and theorists said "bullsh1t." So. According to Marxist theorists and economists from the 1950s to the 1990s (out of grad school now - things may have changed) the Cuban embargo should have helped Cuba by saving them from capitalist exploitation.
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The moral of the story is if you own some crappy little island right next to the US and you have crap for local resources, don't ally with some broke ass country like Russia.
Why is this on Slashdot? I have seen many other people attempt to post relevant articles and instead they post this drivel.
The full lifting of the embargo and establishment of full diplomatic relations with Cuba.
It's been close to a generation and the damage being done is pretty obvious.
I think Cuba is also suffering a brain drain. Those who could get out after Baptista and the Bay of Pigs did. What was left was the rabble. But they survived, even under our stupidity.
And up until the 1950's Cuba was a veritable tropical playground.
Honestly, it's time to give up this embargo. It's antiquated, outmoded, and even a little bit hypocritical. We don't have an embargo with China and China is a communist nation. What could it hurt to drop the embargo?
I chatted with a 50 yr old 'pool boy' in Veradero. I asked him his occupation. He said: "Economist". He was earning 300 times as much cleaning hotel pools in the special tourist area than he would have in his profession.
In Trinidad, Cuba, there are extremely well-trained doctors and nurses at clinics... except that there is a real dearth of medicine available.
Cubans are crushed by their so-called government. It is heinous and loathsome.
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." Churchill
*** Don't be dull.***
Isn't imposing a large cost on the other country the whole point of an embargo? What's the complaint here? I mean, Cuba obviously doesn't like it, but it's sort of like Russia claiming that the sanctions for invading Ukraine are costing it money, or Al Qaeda claiming that US military intervention is killing terrorists. That's the intent.
Clearly $1.1 trillion isn't enough considering it hasn't worked.
(Also, does this figure count Russian aid during the Cold War against the loss from not trading with Americans?)
Yes, because in the U.S. you'd never have for-profit prisons, civil forfeiture, or even outright cops stealing cash under the pretence of fighting crime.
The U.S. certainly wouldn't have issues with police beating minorities or killing them, leading to riots. They wouldn't have a growing number of cases of false imprisonment, or police militarization
RT.com is just reporting the story. It is actually Cuba that's making any claims. In fact, the same story is published by several western sources.
Go back to reddit.
Yes! Don't you see? There's really no embargo on Cuba by US. It's all Russian lies!
LIES! LIES, I TELL YOU!
And I wonder what kind of counter-claim of damages the USA can pretend they too suffered in the loss of trade. Probably just about the same amount in total.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
Let's not forget that the best estimates for the death of communist regimes killing their own people is right around 100 million people. Both The Black Book of Communism and R.J. Rummel's Death by Government come up with roughly the same number of people killed.
Communism is incompatible with both human rights and a healthy economy, and never has, never can, and never will meet the needs of its own people or offer better lives than those under capitalism.
Embargoes have nothing to do with it...
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Michael Totten did, and he found a police state overseeing wrenching poverty, complete with shortages for essentials and goods of retched quality.
In short: Communism.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
Cuba, if your country is so fucking stupid as to allow an asshole of a dictator to run it, this is what you get.
Nobody owes you anything if your leaders choose to be stupid fucktards.
If Cuba had oil . . . the embargo would be over really fast.
Ask the Iranians who continue to be under tight US sanctions. Oil hasn't helped them escape thirty years of US economic embargo.
As foreign policy goes, the US' policy on Cuba is probably one of the single most stupid and short-sighted foreign policies there is.
All politics is domestic, and Cuba is the same. As long as there is a very vocal community of Cuban expats that have an axe to grind with the Castro-created regime, the United States will not be lifting sanctions. I think as that generation gets older and fades away, we'll see an easing, but while they're still alive and politically active, change will not happen. Cubans Americans after all make up a large and politically active faction in a crucial swing state (Florida).
Keep watching Russian television and you'll soon become a commy!
Many Americans think their government's embargo blocks all trade with the communist government, but the United States is the top supplier of food and agricultural products to Cuba. In fact, many Cubans depend on rations grown in Arkansas and North Dakota for their rice and beans.
Since December 1999, governors, senators and congressmen from at least 28 U.S. states have visited Cuba, most to talk trade. They keep coming: Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman flew in Sunday with a farm delegation. Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter of Idaho plans a visit next month.
Washington's sanctions choke off most trade with Cuba, but a law passed by Congress in 2000 authorized cash-only purchases of U.S. food and agricultural products and was cheered by major U.S. farm firms like Archer Daniels Midland Co. interested in the untapped Cuban market.
Cuba refused to import one grain of rice for more than a year because of a dispute over financing, but finally agreed to take advantage of the law after Hurricane Michelle in November 2001 cut into its food stocks.
Since then, Cuba has paid more than $1.5 billion for American food and agricultural products, said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council of New York.
The $340 million in exports in 2006 represented a drop of about 3 percent from 2005, which was down from nearly $392 million in 2004. Kavulich said the decline was caused mostly by generous subsidies and credits from Venezuela and China.
But the U.S. remains on top. Its main exports to Cuba include chicken, wheat, corn, rice and soybeans - much of it doled out to Cubans on the government ration. The United States also sends Cuba brand-name cola, mayonnaise, hot sauce and candy bars, as well as dairy cows.
Kirby Jones, founder of the U.S.-Cuba Trade Association in Washington, said Cuba's food import company Alimport has an entire department dedicated to American purchases.
I guess the stakes are high when you try to play cold politics. Perhaps in the future countries will learn not to put missiles on the doorstep of a superpower. The cost benefit analysis should revel that it isn't worthwhile to poke the bear.
Based on talking to people who live there: the govt LOVES blaming their terrible economic performance on the US embargo. And if you think about it its a great scapegoat.
Cuba has better medical system the US? You are stupid... free and no liability doesn't mean better, many people die in their dirty and under supplied hospitals everyday and nobody knows about it. Go live in Cuba and the cubans way of live... you'll be back in 10 days.
If America had just allowed free trade with Cuba the inflow of US culture into the country would've long turned it into a pro-US state
Certainly the embargo itself is quite extraordinary and has been condemned every year by the UN General Assembly for over 20 years.
However US belligerence towards Cuba goes far beyond just the embargo. There were attempts to invade, overthrow the government, assassinate Castro, and a whole host of physical acts of terrorism and sabotage under Operation Mongoose.
The origin of US interest in Cuba goes back far beyond Castro. John Quincy Adams had his eye on Cuba as far back as 1823 but it wasn't until the Cuban war of independence against Spain that the US saw an opening. US troops were sent to "help" the Cubans, but once the Spanish were kicked out, the US troops refused to leave. Cuba wasn't annexed but it was a de facto takeover. Eventually US forces did leave but only on condition that the Cubans sign the Platt Amendment which included various punitive clauses including US rights for a naval station. It was a Godfather-style "offer they couldn't refuse".
Guantanamo Bay is that very naval base. Of course the Cubans absolutely oppose the presence of the base, but they lack the military means to do anything about it. Just think about that for a moment. The US has a military base in a country against the express wishes of it's government. Can you imagine the international outrage if any other country tried to get away with such an act?
None of this history excuses the human rights abuses inside Cuba (not that the US is so squeaky clean in this area though) but it's important to realize that even if Cuba had been some kind of socialist democracy, the US would have still tried to exert control and would have likely had much more success in doing so. It may have even gone as far as overthrowing the democratic government as happened in Guatemala.
I hope that Cuba becomes a democracy as soon as possible, but I fear that such a dramatic political change will not change US ambitions.
I mean, most of the first wave that left Cuba with the Revolution were supporters of the Battista dictatorship, and the Mafia (who ran Havana). Come on, tell me that's not the case, and I'll call you either ignorant, or a liar.
But the US used to support *any* tin-plated dictator with delusions of grandeur, as long as they loudly and vocally claimed to be anti=Communist, never mind what they did to their own people. We "engaged" with China... what reason is there for the embargo?
mark
I'm sure Cuba would be more willing to consider releasing Alan Gross from prison if the Cuban 5 were freed from prison. It doesn't help relations when you imprison counter-terrorism operatives for being spies. Their only crime was preventing more bombings of innocents in Havana.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Was RT anchor Abby Martin's condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine "propaganda"? http://www.cnn.com/2014/03/04/... RT is state-funded, but its anchors are not controlled by any means. There are US government-paid trolls all over this thread.
Monty Burns did save the cuban revolution then!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trouble_with_Trillions
Funny fact, why a socialist society needs the capitalist world. What caused the Cuban economy to be what it is today is the policy attached to USSR majors interests. The Cuban island became a huge monoculture and the major sugar cane exporter to USSR. When USSR got on pieces Cuba lost its major source of income. USA forbid some (not all) national companies to deal with Cuba, but all other countries in the world has some sort of business with Cuba. For instance, Brazil has built a port and an airport in Cuba. Brazilian president is pushing pharmaceutics companies to install subsidiaries in Cuba, the imports of physicians from Cuba to Brazil is providing almost a billion dollars to Cuba. So this is just an excuse for the failure of socialism and dictatorship that owns the island.
Your first sentence isn't one. It's a fragment.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
That's quite silly. If you starve to death under capitalism, it's not the government, its just the system, so that's fine. That's why
Average life expectancy has *decreased* in the former USSR since the fall of communism.
Compare Haiti with Cuba in the last 60 years, or even with Dominican Republic, and take into account all those deaths "by system". Nevermind adding "external" factors like capitalism needed expansion that constantly pushes for colonialism.
Not that communism is perfect or even viable, but both your references are just propaganda
American Propaganda. These are the same idiots who claimed 9/1 wasn't an inside job.
Lord knows, that's one organization that knows the value of inflation.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
One problem with your reasoning. Polish leaders very heartily embraced the West and NATO membership. In Cuba, on the other hand, the Castro brothers managed to hang on to power despite the economic crisis caused by the disappearance of theirr USSR sugar-daddy. If Cuba's economy had gotten a boost from the USA, the Castros would have used the additional revenue to further solidify their grip on power. I don't see a path to obtaining a Poland-like outcome, and you sure haven't pointed out such a path.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
Actually the U.S. hasn't even had much luck getting the Cuban gov't to allow the Cuban people to hear uncensored *radio.*
What a crazy series of claims, overall. Would Cuba's overlords like a high-speed, uncensored internet link from Miami? Doesn't seem hard ...
Of course, the crazy runs deep and is bilateral: the U.S. has a crazy embargo, and has for decades.
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
why would we trade with a country that is holding one of our guys in prison for the crime of helping people access the internet?
That's a good question. Why do we trade with Russia and China? Both of these nations have US citizens in their prisons.
Open trade with Soviet Union is one of the things that helped end the Cold War. Let them look at how good we have things over here.
Of course people on both sides of the ocean seem to want a new Cold War and are doing everything they can to drive a wedge between the East and the West again.
Perhaps you shouldn't have picked Russia's side in the cold war?
What did you think was going to happen when you let the Russians deploy ballistic missiles?
Cuba was a big trading partner before the Castros. I have to imagine if relations had stayed normal, it would be similar to Mexico or Canada (after all, Cuba is the closest country to the US other than those two, discounting the uninhabited islands that make Alaska and Russia nearer each other.)
$1.1 Trillion is only about 3 years of trade to/from Mexico or Canada. So over 54 years, I would imagine it would be higher.
...we give China most favored nation status.
WTF?
"Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society." Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Oliver_Wendell_Holmes,_Jr.
I doubt that there are many government mandated taxes in say ...Somalia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalia_(1991-2006)
Really? Asking for actual evidence rather than handwaving indicates that I "clearly don't want to believe"? That's about the most ignorant and stupid thing I've ever heard.
I wonder how large is the count for the US (alone, not even talking about what Europeans have done...):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overseas_interventions_of_the_United_States
Here is one article about this:
http://www.countercurrents.org/lucas240407.htm
>Deaths In Other Nations Since WW II Due To Us Interventions
>The overall conclusion reached is that the United States most likely has been responsible since WWII for the deaths of between 20 and 30 million people in wars and conflicts scattered over the world.
>24 April, 2007
That also doesn't include things like blockades and the destruction of, say, other economies, long-term effects of weapons, their health care systems, their food security and so on...