US, Cuba seek to normalize relations

[ksen]

Cuba has trade agreements with many countries already.

OK. Doesn't help that much if you don't produce stuff does it? Hence my comment that it probably matters more that they adopt free trade internally.

They are starting produce stuff. For example they have a growing biomedical industry.

There are also reforms being put in place to correct what you are calling "internal free trade."

 Economy of Cuba

In 2010, Fidel Castro, in agreement with Raúl Castro's reformist sentiment, admitted that the Cuban model based on the old Soviet model of centralized planning was no longer sustainable for the Cuban economy. While both leaders remain committed to dialectical materialism, they are encouraging the creation of a co-operative variant of socialism where the state plays a less active role in the economy, and the formation of worker-owned co-operatives and self-employed enterprises is being encouraged.[48]

To remedy Cuba's economic structural distortions and inefficiencies, the government has reformed the Cuban model as the Sixth Congress approved expansion of the internal market and access to global markets on April 18, 2011. They anticipate full implementation by 2015. This is considered an updating of the Cuban socialist model, although is commonly referred to as economic reforms. A comprehensive list compiled through an examination of articles from Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Jorge Dominguez, Omar Perez Villanueva, Vidal Alejandro, Philip Peters and the Economist outlining the main policy guidelines (Lineamientos) is as follows:[49][50]

##Budget expenditure adjustments (education, healthcare, sports, culture)
##Change in the structure of employment; reduce inflated payrolls and increase work in the non-state sector.
##Legalizing of 201 different personal business licenses
##Fallow state land in usufruct to leased residents to plow
##Incentives for non-state employment, as a re-launch of self-employed work
##Proposals for creation of non-agricultural cooperatives
##Hiring of labor by self-employed (cuentapropistas)
##Legalization of sale and private ownership of homes and cars as of October 2011
##Greater autonomy for state firms
##Search for food self-sufficiency, gradual elimination of universal rationing and change to targeting poorest population
##Possibility to rent state-run enterprises to self-employed, among them state restaurants
##Separation of state and business functions
##Tax policy update
##Easing travel restrictions for Cubans
##Strategies for external debt restructuring

On December 20, 2011 a new credit policy allowed Cuban banks to finance entrepreneurs and individuals wishing to make major purchases to do home improvements in addition to farmers. "Cuban banks have long provided loans to farm cooperatives, they have offered credit to new recipients of farmland in usufruct since 2008, and in 2011 they began making loans to individuals for business and other purposes", (Peters 2012, 21).[51]

Raul Castro signed law 313 in September 2013 in order to create a Special Economic Zone in the port city of Mariel, the first in the country. While this was also criticised in the general direction of criticism SEZ's have received, it was also a different economic model for the country.[52]

On 22 October 2013 as part of Raul Castro's latest reform they plan to unify the currencies, thereby ending the dual currency system.[53]

 

[Ford]

Actually this is one of those rare occasions that I was inclined to support Obama's change in policy, that is until he and his policy supporters (right and left) started emoting their laundry list of reasons to support a non-reformist communist regime.

So you support the change in policy, but then imagine a reason to withdraw support.


Normalizing relations with Cuba does not mean we support a "non-reformist communist regime." All we're doing here is reestablishing diplomatic relations and opening up an embassy that has been closed. We had full diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union right up until they collapsed, and they were pointing nuclear missiles at us for decades. We have (and have had) full diplomatic relations with China...even sent our trickiest President there to make nice with them, and have even made nice with a nation where 58,000 Americans lost their lives in order to stop largely imaginary dominoes from falling.

The idea that we can't have relations with Cuba because it would indicate "support" for their government is absurd...more especially so since the Cold War which destroyed that relationship has been over for a generation.


On the left we have the tear gushing and burbbling about how much this will free the Cuban people from the cruelty of the American embargo, and on the right we have to suffer the Pavlovian salvia dripping profit enthusiasms of Chamber capitalists waxing on about the huge amount of money their Miami members will make in this "huge" new market.

There probably is a reason to support the normalization of relations with Cuba, but its difficult to find it in the bogus economic and sentimental propaganda.

Yes, there is. And it is quite simple. The Cold War is long over. The long struggle against international communism was "won" decisively back when today's college seniors were still in diapers. The suspension of diplomatic relations and the subsequent embargo were meant to stop the spread of communism and perhaps even bring down the Castro regime.

Well the Iron Curtain is a distant memory, the Soviet Bloc is long gone, and the threat posed to the US by Cuba is on par with the threat posed by Denmark. The only reason the diplomatic freeze and embargo has lasted this long is because of the outsized political influence of some very pissed off Cuban ex-pats in the greater Miami area, and it is about damned time we stop letting them lead our policy in the region around by the nose.

"the right thing to do" is to use Cuba's nearly unprecedented difficulties to demand substantive human rights and economic changes in Cuba in return for "normalization" -

Again, that has been the policy of the United States since just after Elvis Presley got out of the Army. Well Elvis has left the building, and so should our hopelessly outdated stance towards Cuba. There's no hard and fast rule over how long a nation should wait before a policy is determined to have utterly failed, but I think maybe 50 years is a good starting point.

 

[dismal]

In 2010, Fidel Castro, in agreement with Raúl Castro's reformist sentiment, admitted that the Cuban model based on the old Soviet model of centralized planning was no longer sustainable for the Cuban economy.

Specifically, it became unsustainable when the Soviets stopped giving them the money to sustain it.

Sadly this is not even true. These socialist economies can suck donkey balls and be sustained forever since there are no free elections.

One of the odd features of the Cuban state is that when things really start to blow they issue these statements that suggest there is some glimmer of understanding that free markets are the answer but I think they can't just adopt them because it would require them to acknowledge how badly they have fucked their country over these last 60 years. Plus people who have fucked over a country as bad as the Castro's usually end up hanging from a lamp post at some point.

 

[maxparrish]

In 2010, Fidel Castro, in agreement with Raúl Castro's reformist sentiment, admitted that the Cuban model based on the old Soviet model of centralized planning was no longer sustainable for the Cuban economy.

Specifically, it became unsustainable when the Soviets stopped giving them the money to sustain it.

Sadly this is not even true. These socialist economies can suck donkey balls and be sustained forever since there are no free elections.

One of the odd features of the Cuban state is that when things really start to blow they issue these statements that suggest there is some glimmer of understanding that free markets are the answer but I think they can't just adopt them because it would require them to acknowledge how badly they have fucked their country over these last 60 years. Plus people who have fucked over a country as bad as the Castro's usually end up hanging from a lamp post at some point.

"can suck donkey balls"...LOL...

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Just remember that if there are any problems with Cuba's economy, it's because they weren't using real communism.

 

[dismal]

Just remember that if there are any problems with Cuba's economy, it's because they weren't using real communism.

The were using the tasty I can't believe it's not Communism! spread.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Yep. The trap that all millennial ideologies fall into. Only when the "one true communism steps" forward will workers throw off their chains.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yep. The trap that all millennial ideologies fall into. Only when the "one true communism steps" forward will workers throw off their chains.

And we'll know when that happens because the leader of the movement will descend from Heaven riding a chariot of fire and brandishing the severed head of Ayn Rand on his spear. That's basic political science.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Yep. The trap that all millennial ideologies fall into. Only when the "one true communism steps" forward will workers throw off their chains.

And we'll know when that happens because the leader of the movement will descend from Heaven riding a chariot of fire and brandishing the severed head of Ayn Rand on his spear. That's basic political science.

Works for me.

 

[Hickdive]

Hanoi 2014;



Havana 2014



If you genuinely want to undermine, and ultimately replace, hard-line communism then nothing works better and faster than trade.

Whether creating a modern consumer society is a good thing or not is another matter but the US embargoes against Cuba have plainly not achieved their stated goals. When something doesn't work for over fifty years simply insisting that you keep doing it isn't suddenly going to improve things.

 

[funinspace]

If you genuinely want to undermine, and ultimately replace, hard-line communism then nothing works better and faster than trade.

Whether creating a modern consumer society is a good thing or not is another matter but the US embargoes against Cuba have plainly not achieved their stated goals. When something doesn't work for over fifty years simply insisting that you keep doing it isn't suddenly going to improve things.

I completely agree with you point that the old policies haven't worked, and your point about allowing trade. But those US policies long ago stopped being about "changing" Cuba, and became about all about internal US politics.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

Agreed. And the Cuban exile community is no longer a group that MUST be appeased each election. Also with Obama being a lame duck, other DEMs can blame him for the decision.

 

[NobleSavage]

I like having a country that doesn't get along with the US close by.

 

[Derec]

Hanoi 2014;

View attachment 1802

There is even an actual Hanoi Hilton.

 

[Jolly_Penguin]

Cuba has been a fairly decent discount tourist destination for Canadians for decades. I wonder if opening it up to the US will change that for better or worse.