7 ms·

Under US embargo, not USSR.

by programjames 8mo ago

ch4s3 8mo ago
Or China, Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, and numerous other trade partners.
- cthalupa 8mo ago
  No, but losing the wealthiest nation on the planet as a potential trading partner does mean that you are going to be selling your goods for less than you might be able to otherwise. Being permanently locked out of the most lucrative deals obviously is going to have an economic impact.
  - thomassmith65 8mo ago
    Additionally, the US embargo limits third parties from trading freely with Cuba in certain ways, and prohibits most Americans from traveling to Cuba. Cuba was a popular destination for American tourists prior to the Revolution. And I'm not sure I'll continue to reply to this thread. Somehow I find myself repeatedly defending the Cuban system, of which I am not a fan!
    - ch4s3 8mo ago
      Why defend them? They have for decades exported repression, stoked civil wars, and held their own population captive. And again the embargo doesn’t stop most countries from trading with them. They could host tourists from Europe and do, but almost no one wants to go there. I know people who go regularly for various reasons and they have to bring food with them because there’s so little on the island due to their insane agricultural practices.
      - thomassmith65 8mo ago
        Nuance, I guess. The Soviets were spectacular at chess; that doesn't make me pine for 1960s Moscow.
        ch4s3 8mo ago
        But the Cubans aren’t good at healthcare they just lie about it and no one bothers to follow up.
  - ch4s3 8mo ago
    The Cuban state firms don’t produce anything of value. They’re a net recipient of food aid, their tourism industry is anemic and the largest source of dollars and euros. Their medical exports have been called slave labor by the UN. What could they possibly sell to the US? Even with endless Soviet support in the form of fuel, tractors, and agricultural experts they never produced as much food as the island did before the revolution. The fact is that what little the government earns from trade they’ve always spent on exporting revolution. Cuban intelligence for example was helping run Venezuela’s SEBIN and secret prisons. I’m shocked that people on hacker news defend a place that bans the internet, and locks up people for reading banned books.
    - cthalupa 8mo ago
      You understand that all of this is a feedback loop, right? They've been under embargo for more than half a century. Do you not understand how that can cripple an economy? How it can prevent an economy from growing and developing? You're confusing defending with pointing out objective fact. I don't have to like Cuba, it's current regime, or really anything about it to point out that acting like the state of it's economy and industry isn't massively shaped by the embargo is silly. Hell, if it wasn't, then we could say the embargo is pointless and not having it's intended impact. We're not embargoing them just to go "Well, we at the United States of America think you guys suck." We're explicitly doing it to make them feel economic pain for their policies. It's a very strange conversation we're having where I am pointing out the embargo has worked and you're providing ethical justification for why we should embargo them but also ignoring the actual (desired!) outcome of the embargo.
      - ch4s3 8mo ago
        They had near total subsidy from the USSR from about 1960 until 1990, and in that time they developed precisely no industry and no agricultural output. The Cuban government in the first few decades was primarily focused on exporting revolution, and not on economic development. Despite their ties to the USSR they never even produced anything that could be traded back to the Soviet block, unlike their Eastern European counterparts who also didn't trade with the west. Other communist countries outside of the Soviet orbit like Vietnam also developed local industry and the ability export some agricultural products despite also not trading with the West for a long time, but Cuba's government couldn't muster the focus or ideological flexibility to do so. When most of the communist regimes reformed agriculture and small scale industry int he 1980s, Cuba refused and continued on its ruinous course. They only slightly limited the size of state run farms in the mid 1990s, but it still didn't yield sufficient results to feed the island. In the 2000s China was buying hundreds of tons of sugar from Cuba but stopped because the Cuban government mismanaged production and couldn't meet agreed upon deliverables. There was also a steep decline in Chinese investment from 2017 to 2022 because euphemistically Cuba couldn't protect Chinese investment, or read another way the Cuban government kept stealing from the Chinese. These failures are NOT BECAUSE OF THE EMBARGO. > pointing out objective fact It's not objective fact though. You're falling for Cuban propaganda. To be clear I'd end the embargo tomorrow if I could, but it's crazy to think that it's what held Cuba back. I won't be lectured by someone who doesn't know anything about this topic.

Under US embargo, not USSR.

ch4s3 8mo ago

Or China, Spain, Venezuela, Mexico, and numerous other trade partners.

cthalupa 8mo ago
No, but losing the wealthiest nation on the planet as a potential trading partner does mean that you are going to be selling your goods for less than you might be able to otherwise. Being permanently locked out of the most lucrative deals obviously is going to have an economic impact.
- thomassmith65 8mo ago
  Additionally, the US embargo limits third parties from trading freely with Cuba in certain ways, and prohibits most Americans from traveling to Cuba. Cuba was a popular destination for American tourists prior to the Revolution. And I'm not sure I'll continue to reply to this thread. Somehow I find myself repeatedly defending the Cuban system, of which I am not a fan!
  - ch4s3 8mo ago
    Why defend them? They have for decades exported repression, stoked civil wars, and held their own population captive. And again the embargo doesn’t stop most countries from trading with them. They could host tourists from Europe and do, but almost no one wants to go there. I know people who go regularly for various reasons and they have to bring food with them because there’s so little on the island due to their insane agricultural practices.
    - thomassmith65 8mo ago
      Nuance, I guess. The Soviets were spectacular at chess; that doesn't make me pine for 1960s Moscow.
      - ch4s3 8mo ago
        But the Cubans aren’t good at healthcare they just lie about it and no one bothers to follow up.
- ch4s3 8mo ago
  The Cuban state firms don’t produce anything of value. They’re a net recipient of food aid, their tourism industry is anemic and the largest source of dollars and euros. Their medical exports have been called slave labor by the UN. What could they possibly sell to the US? Even with endless Soviet support in the form of fuel, tractors, and agricultural experts they never produced as much food as the island did before the revolution. The fact is that what little the government earns from trade they’ve always spent on exporting revolution. Cuban intelligence for example was helping run Venezuela’s SEBIN and secret prisons. I’m shocked that people on hacker news defend a place that bans the internet, and locks up people for reading banned books.
  - cthalupa 8mo ago
    You understand that all of this is a feedback loop, right? They've been under embargo for more than half a century. Do you not understand how that can cripple an economy? How it can prevent an economy from growing and developing? You're confusing defending with pointing out objective fact. I don't have to like Cuba, it's current regime, or really anything about it to point out that acting like the state of it's economy and industry isn't massively shaped by the embargo is silly. Hell, if it wasn't, then we could say the embargo is pointless and not having it's intended impact. We're not embargoing them just to go "Well, we at the United States of America think you guys suck." We're explicitly doing it to make them feel economic pain for their policies. It's a very strange conversation we're having where I am pointing out the embargo has worked and you're providing ethical justification for why we should embargo them but also ignoring the actual (desired!) outcome of the embargo.
    - ch4s3 8mo ago
      They had near total subsidy from the USSR from about 1960 until 1990, and in that time they developed precisely no industry and no agricultural output. The Cuban government in the first few decades was primarily focused on exporting revolution, and not on economic development. Despite their ties to the USSR they never even produced anything that could be traded back to the Soviet block, unlike their Eastern European counterparts who also didn't trade with the west. Other communist countries outside of the Soviet orbit like Vietnam also developed local industry and the ability export some agricultural products despite also not trading with the West for a long time, but Cuba's government couldn't muster the focus or ideological flexibility to do so. When most of the communist regimes reformed agriculture and small scale industry int he 1980s, Cuba refused and continued on its ruinous course. They only slightly limited the size of state run farms in the mid 1990s, but it still didn't yield sufficient results to feed the island. In the 2000s China was buying hundreds of tons of sugar from Cuba but stopped because the Cuban government mismanaged production and couldn't meet agreed upon deliverables. There was also a steep decline in Chinese investment from 2017 to 2022 because euphemistically Cuba couldn't protect Chinese investment, or read another way the Cuban government kept stealing from the Chinese. These failures are NOT BECAUSE OF THE EMBARGO. > pointing out objective fact It's not objective fact though. You're falling for Cuban propaganda. To be clear I'd end the embargo tomorrow if I could, but it's crazy to think that it's what held Cuba back. I won't be lectured by someone who doesn't know anything about this topic.