Can someone explain to me what's the point in upholding the US sanctions on Cuba that are the root cause for all of this?
Like, what real benefit do the US have from keeping those sanctions up?
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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iirc it's basically to appease the Cuban voting block in Florida who are against the regime in Cuba (because they got kicked out/lost property/whatever). This group holds some amount of sway in federal elections on account of Florida being (having been?) a swing state.
I believe Obama was in the process of mending the relations between the U.S and Cuba, and then Trump got into office and promptly reversed it as a giveaway to this group that now votes Republican.
Domestically, there's a lot of political pull from Cuban exiles, both those who fled during the Cuban Revolution and those who fled afterwards, and their descendants. It doesn't serve US interests in any significant sense at this point, and since the 90s, it's been utterly pointless except as a tool to ensure Florida stays 'in play' with regards to domestic politics.
Hurricane Oscar will hit the island this afternoon. Not good.
I read this as Cuba's electrical grill failure and was not shocked, like at all.
The blockade is becoming genocidal at this point.
As the article indicates, the embargo is not the problem.
They specifically pointed to the embargo twice, as points for wavering food security and oil for energy. It's part of the problem.
Sure you can blame the US first, but we don't run or maintain their electrical plants. There is a paragraph that describes how they get their oil. They pump half of it. B%W, they can buy food from the US. It's not part of the embargo.
So a couple things:
- I'm not entirely blaming the US embargo, the Cuban government is also at fault and are responsible for ensuring food security and electrical production.
- It's ridiculous to claim that the embargo hasn't seriously hindered the growth of Cuba or made it more difficult to maintain status quo for their citizens. The embargo prevents any trade with the Cuba if it involves the US, including foreign companies that want to do business in the US. Food and medicine purchases are allowed but still bound with significant red tape.
Well, it's an island. So, there's little room for growth in the first place. Secondly,they can and do trade with various countries, including Mexico and Canada, which do a lot of business with the US.
There's more to growth than literal expansion. The Helms–Burton Act is what I'm referring to. The companies that trade with Cuba are banned from operating in the US. That doesn't mean no country can trade with Cuba, it's just forcing foreign companies to choose between one of the wealthiest and most populous countries in the world and a poor little island in the Caribbean.
There have been no Caribbean islands I have been to that are what you would call industrial strong. Little resources.
Companies can and do business with Cuba. They just can't use US banking or sell to the US government. It's not slowing Cuba down.
It's like you have no historical context for the topic you're trying to discuss. They do have some heavy industry, they produce 4% of worldwide nickel (and therefore also cobalt). Oil production is also heavy industry. They didn't develop it very much because it's an island, so after the Cuban revolution they relied on the USSR for heavy industry. That was a major flaw in international soviet socialism, relying on the USSR for most industry. However it made sense for an island nation, but impacted them substantially after the USSR was illegally disbanded.
This article has the backdrop of the energy revolution program within the country, started in 2005 to diversify energy production and fight climate change. You want to talk about how the embargo hasn't impacted them? Let's start with how they've been trying to modernize and decarbonize for 20 years, but hurricanes, the embargo, and the historical effects of the embargo have hindered this program.
but impacted them substantially after the USSR was illegally disbanded.
Jesus Christ.
I'm not going to mince words over partisan bs. It was illegally disbanded, just as the US would be illegally disbanded if California, Texas, and New York agreed to leave the US.
I’m not going to mince words over partisan bs. It was illegally disbanded, just as the US would be illegally disbanded if California, Texas, and New York agreed to leave the US.
You have fun with that, buddy.
If you don't like my phrasing, then perhaps you should tell me why it wasn't illegally disbanded. The RSFSR, SDPU, and BSSR leaders met independently and agreed independently to secede from the USSR. That's just as illegal as the example I provided about the US.
Yes, the dissolution was made complete by Gorbachev in an official capacity. That doesn't change the fact that the CIS was started illegally to the personal benefit of Yeltsin, Kravchuk, and Shushkevich.
They don't develop their nichel resources because there is a lot of nichel in this world. Canada and Australlia are the largest producers.
For a country that you believe wants to diversify their energy, they'll be in the dark tonight.
Even in a country that for decades has been accustomed to frequent outages amid a series of economic crises, the grid failure was unprecedented in modern times,
[...]
They also blamed breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained because of a lack of hard currency due to U.S. sanctions, as well as insufficient fuel to operate some facilities.
The blockade is clearly the problem. Cuba is under siege and this is an obvious result.
"Under siege" is when one country won't trade with you, and the more one country won't trade with you, the more siege it is.
The blockade is clearly the problem.
"The blockade"
Jesus fuck, are you being serious right now
"Under siege" is when one country won't trade with you, and the more one country won't trade with you, the more siege it is.
Okay that is clearly a misinterpretation of the embargo.
The Regulations prohibit any person subject to U.S. jurisdiction from dealing in any property in which Cuba or a Cuban national has an interest. All property of Cuba and Cuban nationals in the possession or control of persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction is "blocked." Blocking is a "complete prohibition against transfers or transactions of any kind."[4] Payments, transfers, withdrawals, or other dealings are prohibited with regard to blocked property unless authorized by the Treasury Department
This is fucking ridiculous and not in any way just "one country won't trade with you", and that's before we get into the US using its influence against anyone who wants to trade with Cuba.
This is fucking ridiculous and not in any way just “one country won’t trade with you”.
Sorry, "one country won't do any kind of business with you".
I'm an opponent of the embargo for the simple reason that it's fucking pointless. But the tendency of apologists to point to it as some core cause of Cuba's misfortunes is just the usual perpetual search for a Great Satan to blame their problems on.
Yes, any kind of business. Including using their banking system. Do you not understand how disastrous this was and remains to be to Cuba's ability to trade with the world at large or are you being willfully obtuse? Are you aware of how the US attempts (often successfully) to enforce the sanction on other countries? Again, if you seriously think it's as simple as you put it you need to educate yourself. Here's a start:
The Helms-Burton Act has been the target of criticism from Canadian and European governments in particular, who object to what they say is the extraterritorial pretensions of a piece of legislation aimed at punishing non-U.S. corporations and non-U.S. investors who have economic interests in Cuba.
The United States has threatened to stop financial aid to other countries if they trade non-food items with Cuba. The U.S.'s attempts to do so have been vocally condemned by the United Nations General Assembly as an extraterritorial measure that contravenes "the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention in their internal affairs and freedom of trade and navigation as paramount to the conduct of international affairs".[133] Academic Nigel White writes, "While the U.S. measures against Cuba do not amount to a blockade in a technical or formal sense, their cumulative effect is to put an economic stranglehold on the island, which not only prevents the United States intercourse but also effectively blocks commerce with other states, their citizens and companies."
There's a reason every human rights group and their mother has criticized the embargo and it's not because it's just "one country won't do any kind of business with you".
The Helms-Burton Act. That's really what we're citing. Jesus fucking Christ. Do you know anything about the execution of the act, or did you just skim wiki for whatever looked good?
I mean I know about the results of the act, and the blockade in general. And they're... the state of Cuba for the past 60 years.
I mean I know about the results of the act,
The results of the act being some international mockery and a couple of failed domestic lawsuits enabled by the act, which has been intermittently suspended as a diplomatic tool anyway.
and the blockade in general.
Fuck's sake. You do realize what an actual blockade would look like for Cuba, right?
And they’re… the state of Cuba for the past 60 years.
Oh, here I thought it was grotesque economic mismanagement combined with utter dependence on Soviet subsidies to keep their sluggish economic system going. Subsidies, naturally, which stopped existing in the 90s, though things weren't great before that either.
Perhaps you should read up on the Cuban government's management of cattle on the island, once the second-largest industry in Cuba.
Fuck's sake. You do realize what an actual blockade would look like for Cuba, right?
Yes, things could be worse. They're still bad.
I'm not saying Cuba is competently running their economy, but an incompetently run economy doesn't lead you to the modern state of Cuba. Why are you so intent on ignoring how the US prevents their citizens, and discourages those of other countries, from doing trade with Cuba? Plenty of countries trade with Cuba, including the US itself, but that's all despite US influence. The idea that the US is just not doing business with Cuba is patently false.
Yes, things could be worse. They’re still bad.
In the same way that describing an unauthorized border crossing as an invasion because it "could be worse" but is still "bad". Words have meanings.
I’m not saying Cuba is competently running their economy, but an incompetently run economy doesn’t lead you to the modern state of Cuba.
Oh. It doesn't? I can name plenty of modern states doing worse than Cuba by their own efforts, without any US opposition. Do you know how easy it is to ruin an economy with total control over the government and nearly no private industry?
You wanna explain to me how one of the foremost countries for cattle in the Americas turned into a net importer of dairy products? Or how emergency measures passed for a hurricane in the 1960s which hobbled the Cuban cattle industry weren't lifted until the 20 fucking 20s?
Why are you so intent on ignoring how the US prevents their citizens, and discourages those of other countries, from doing trade with Cuba?
'Discourages' being an apparently very weak stick considering Cuba's current trade relations.
Plenty of countries trade with Cuba, including the US itself, but that’s all despite US influence.
Okay, so the argument, then, is that without the US's influence, Cuba's economy would be... where?
What industry is currently being hobbled to such a degree that it is crippling the nation by American influence?
What industry in Cuba is reasonably functioning?
What industry in Cuba is not being exploited to a significant degree because it can't find buyers or sellers?
Everything is genocide, except Ukrainian and Uyghur genocide, which are Just Anti-Imperialism.
👍
What about the Muslims in china? Lmfao. Gonna accept that genocide yet, Wumao?