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[B]From truffles to fox furs, U.S. ships more than food to Cuba[/B]
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1220161.html
BY MARTHA BRANNIGAN
mbrannigan@MiamiHerald.com
September 5, 2009
When President Obama announced plans in April to ease the embargo by lifting family-travel restrictions to the island and allowing U.S. telecommunications firms wide latitude to do business there, many analysts said the policy changes could significantly expand ties between the estranged neighbors -- assuming Havana responds positively to the overture.
But fairly significant commerce has been going on since the Trade Sanctions Reform and Enhancement Act of 2000 opened the door to U.S. food and medicine exports to Cuba -- despite the tense relationship between Havana and Washington and a trade embargo that has spanned nearly 50 years.
U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba hit a record $711.5 million in 2008, as prices for commodities soared. That makes the United States Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner overall.
Its amazing that they have to import chickens. Is their an easier farm animal to rise than a chicken? And over there seems to be very little sea food. After all, it’s an island. Do fish not bite a hook in Cuba? Cuba has some of the most fertile fishing waters in the Caribbean. Chickens are “self sufficient" and reproduce like crazy, yet they are imported.Code:[B]From truffles to fox furs, U.S. ships more than food to Cuba[/B] http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/1220161.html BY MARTHA BRANNIGAN mbrannigan@MiamiHerald.com September 5, 2009 When President Obama announced plans in April to ease the embargo by lifting family-travel restrictions to the island and allowing U.S. telecommunications firms wide latitude to do business there, many analysts said the policy changes could significantly expand ties between the estranged neighbors -- assuming Havana responds positively to the overture. But fairly significant commerce has been going on since the Trade Sanctions Reform and Enhancement Act of 2000 opened the door to U.S. food and medicine exports to Cuba -- despite the tense relationship between Havana and Washington and a trade embargo that has spanned nearly 50 years. U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba hit a record $711.5 million in 2008, as prices for commodities soared. That makes the United States Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner overall.
Of course there is sea food in Cuba but only for tourist, .the Cubans doesn’t have access to sea food or beef. This has been going on for years, .they eat soy beef instead. The real embargo that the Cubans suffer has a name "Fidel & Raul". As soon as they are removed from power in Cuba, they will have access to everything they need.
You seem to have an axe to grind.
Cuban expatriate?
It's a perfectly valid question. All you seem to post is anti-Cuban garbage.Why don't you comment about the article? Your question is irrelevant, nothing to do with the Thread.
Ok, so if the embargo is basically non-existent, then why not lift it?Cuba imports ketchup, mostly from Spain (that is a long way to ship what are basically tomatoes with water and a little salt) and some from Mexico. Can’t these Socialist Genius figure out how to make ketchup? To me it sums it all up in a nutshell, and exposes the complete and utter failure of the Socialist system in even the most basic of industries, and their inability to feed their own population on a tropical island with more land mass than all other Caribbean islands combined.
It seems that you like garbage, since you keep coming back like the bee to the honey.It's a perfectly valid question. All you seem to post is anti-Cuban garbage.
What can I say, we all have our vicesIt seems that you like garbage, since you keep coming back like the bee to the honey.
So why not lift the embargo?In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?
Rabid anti-Communism aside, you still haven't answered my question; if the embargo isnt working, why keep it up?Communism is the social system which institutionalizes envy, which uses pressure and the organized violence of the State to expropriate wealth from those who produce. Everything is shared by everyone and control by the government, there are no incentives to work and compete. A large percent of the Cuban people fake that they work, and the farmers do the minimum, since the regime pay them the minimum.
It is often said that the trade and investment embargo on Cuba be lifted because it has “failed.” But what is meant by this?Rabid anti-Communism aside, you still haven't answered my question; if the embargo isnt working, why keep it up?
Measured by those parameters, U.S. sanctions have been successful in Cuba, and should be maintained. U.S. policy shouldn’t be used to bail out a failed dictatorship and help it survive.The effect of the embargo on Cuba has partially fulfilled its objectives. It prevented Castro from obtaining loans and lines of credit that would allow him to finance his permanence in power and avoiding the growth of the indebtedness of Cuba without benefit for the population. Presently the Cuban regime’s debt has risen to $22 billion with the countries of the old socialist campus, $29.7 billion with the European Union [5], plus other $8 billions to Japan, Venezuela, Argentina and other countries. This accounts for a staggering debt of $60 billions. Cuba: Lift the Cuba Embargo?
Cuba is a bankrupt inefficient country that doesn’t generate the wealth necessary to a healthy trade. The embargo was a self inflicted consequence of the treacherous confiscation of US owned property in Cuba, and nothing else. You don’t do business with those who steals from you.Visions of a post-embargo Cuba
Visions of a post-embargo Cuba | Babalú Blog: an island on the net without a bearded dictator
By Henry Louis Gomez, on February 25, 2010, at 10:38 am
It seems that the U.S. trade embargo on Cuba is the constant thread of the narrative here at Babalu Blog and wherever the issue of Cuba and its dictatorship is discussed. It feels like every day someone new comes along and says, “well it hasn’t worked in fifty years so isn’t time to try something new?” The purpose of this post is not to discuss the origins or intent of the embargo, we’ve discussed that ad nauseam, but rather to look into our crystal ball and see what a post-embargo Cuba would look like without the regime first making any significant changes to its economic and political systems. In other words, giving the castro brothers exactly what they have been asking for since the Soviet Union collapsed.
It seems that you like garbage, since you keep coming back like the bee to the honey.
In Cuba people earn about $18 dollars a month. They get a miserable government rations that lasts them about ten days. You can certainly buy food in communist Cuba, but you pay just about the same amount of money that a free person would pay in the USA. A hamburger in Cuba cost $3. How can a person making $18 a month at a government job afford a hamburger?
Correct answer. If travel restrictions are lifted, we can expect the communist regime in Cuba to do all it can to encourage immoral behavior. Spring breakers will be lured by the promise of unrestricted alcohol and drug sale to minors, the sex trade already a staple of tourism to Cuba will also increase, and all in all we can expect the communists to make a profit at the expense of our citizens, as Lenin said "the end justifies the means."I would imagine the answer to your question would be CORRUPTION.
It is necessary to impose financial, economic and material restrictions to dictatorships, so that they will not take roots for long years….Diplomatic and morals measures do not work against dictatorships, because these make fun of the Governments and the population”. Fidel Castro (Excerpt from the book “Fidel Castro and Human Rights”, Editora Política, Havana, Cuba, 1988)
The calls for lifting the embargo are coming from all angles and all sides, most of them with the standard syndicated filler language used by the regime in Cuba.
Lifting the embargo will most certainly lead to allowing Cuba credit for its purchases, specifically from agricultural states where farms and other agricultural businesses are heavily subsidized by the US tax payer. When the regime defaults on those credits, the responsibility for repayment will fall upon the American tax payer.
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