After the dismembering of the Soviet Union and the bankruptcy of Venezuela, comrade Obama made this generous offer to Castro: from now on, the American taxpayers will be the sugar daddy that will keep afloat the Cuban Stalinist regime.
Does it make sense to sell someone whose record shows that his/her debts are never paid back?
Cuba is an economic black hole not because of the U.S. trade embargo, but thanks to Castro’s adoption of a brutal Stalinist regime that does not allow any kind of freedom, personal or economic, and for 56 years he has maintained a “Socialism or Death” attitude without any room for compromises or changes. In fact, after Obama’s generous offer, Raul Castro demanded the unconditional surrender of the U.S., - the Communist regime will not soften a bit their tyrannical subjugation of the Cuban people.
In a country investment risk survey made by the magazine “Euromoney”, Cuba was ranked 183rd place among 187 countries, even below Somalia. (a onerous position that Cuba still enjoys) “The Financial Times” reported in June 30, 1995, “Why then, investors may ask, should they bother with Cuba in a world replete with opportunities and more welcoming governments?” Cuba is a country where there is not a rule of law, where the executive, legislative, judicial and the press, are solely on Castro's hands. Foreign investors are, as everybody else in Cuba, at the mercy of the whims of a tyrant whose laws frequently change overnight.
Canada, Spain, Mexico, France, England, Italy, Japan and 150 other nations have maintained wide open commercial relations with Castro for 56 years, and after the demise of the Soviet Union they tried to prop up the regime with additional investments under the pretense that by the interaction of commerce and tourism from western democracies the Cuban dictator would modify and liberalize the regime resulting in the return of democracy to Cuba. Reality couldn’t be father from their assumptions. Those foolish enough to get into Castro’s bandwagon followed the same path to bankruptcy, as did the Soviet Union.
Castro is a compulsory buyer who not only has defaulted on all his international debts, but he also encourages all the Third World nations to also repudiate their debts. Now, those countries are desperately trying to embark the U.S. in the Cuban Titanic and the American taxpayers to rescue their ill-advised investments.
The powerful Spanish financial group, Endesa, with projects in Cuba of over $100 million dollars, discontinued its association with Castro and sued the regime at the Chamber of Commerce of Paris for $12 million for breaking contractual agreements. The Spanish Guitar Hotels group also liquidated its investments in Cuba.
There is a long list of foreign business failures due to Cuba’s centralized Stalinist economy. You cannot throw good money after bad in Cuba’s economic wastebasket. Cubans problems are not derived from the U.S. embargo; it is the lack of freedom!
Cuba’s international credit is nil after Castro stopped payments on his 12 billion dollars debt to the Paris Club of European Banks. He also owes over 3 billion dollars to Japan, about $1.5 billion to Argentina, and several billions to Spain, and to all the other business partners.
Canadians, Spanish, Mexican, English, French, and investors from other countries went to Cuba attracted by Castro’s offer of cheap slave labor, a country without labor problems where workers do not even have the right to strike. In fact, whoever invests in Cuba cannot hire a single worker. They have to pay up on front to Castro $300 dollars per worker every month, and the Cuban regime pays the worker 300 Cuban pesos, the equivalent of $15 dollars a month. That means that in order to be able to hire a worker, a foreign investor has to give Castro a bribe of 2,000% up front, income which finances the repressive apparatus that keeps the Cuban people under feudal bondage conditions.
Those foreign investors caught in Castro’s scam want that the U.S. and the American taxpayers to assume the Soviet Union’s role of maintaining Castro’s regime to the tune of 6 billion dollars annually, hoping that they will be able to recoup some of their ill advised investments. The Cuban people repudiate all those investors and tourists that have exploited them in partnership with the Cuban tyrant.
Cubans are discriminated in their own country. They resent the apartheid system forced upon them that do not allow Cubans to enter the beaches, restaurants and hotels that are reserved for the tourist and the government elite. The ill feeling is not against the Americans but against those foreigners that invest and are involved in the slave and prostitution trade in Cuba. Open Western trade and credits to Castro was proven a total failure. All that infusion of people and money did not result in an iota of freedom, democracy or economic development to Cuba and its people. Their approach of helping Castro through commerce and investments was the one that failed not the U.S. embargo. After all, these nations also deal with dollars and they produce and provide Castro with anything we produce.
The ignored Cuban political prisoners and the Cuban political dissidents are the main victims of Obama/Castro pact.
Obama wants to add 12 millions Cubans living on Castro's prison island to the American welfare rolls. Should the American taxpayers finance a terrorist country whose leader has pledged repeatedly to destroy us?
This is the time to strength the Embargo to enforce a democratic change in Cuba. American tourists and investors should be patient. At the end, they will receive the good will and the rewards for being one of the very few countries that remain in solidarity with the Cuban people’s plight for freedom and democracy during the most tragic period of Cuba’s history.
Since the U.S. commercial embargo and the open trade policies adopted by the Western democracies have failed miserably in bringing any favorable results for Cuba’s return to freedom, democracy and a regime that respects the human and civil rights of the Cuban people:
Shouldn’t our question rather be, isn’t about time to consider a worldwide blockade against Castro’s (as the one against the South African apartheid regime) since 56 years of free trade with over 150 nations failed miserably to restore freedom and democracy to Cuba.?