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Comment by sergiotapia | Hacker News Reader

Cuba is in shambles because of communism and communist ideals.

Right, with a capitalist system they’d laugh in the face of the economic blockades.

It's not a 'Blockade', which would normally mean someone trying to stop anyone/anything from entering or leaving.

US Embargo against Cuba would surely be a drag on even a 'regular capitalist economy' - but at they same time they'd do just fine with it. They can trade anything with any of the other 180 nations of the world. Most prosperous nations don't trade that-that much with the US.

And if they were open and fair, there'd be no embargo.

Stop defending this murderous regime there are no excuses for them.

Not really. Other countries with "regular capitalist economies" if there is such a thing have been scared shitless of an embargo and every single one has seen economic disaster.

The key to the embargo are two measures, the exclusion of Cuba from the global financial system, and the restriction on ships that docked in Cuba. Because of these, trade with Cuba from other countries is severely restricted.

It's the same situation as the Iranian embargo, just even worse. As you can see in Iran even in capitalist countries it causes untold economic disruption.

There would 1000% be a blockade even if Cuba became capitalist as long as it was opposed to US geopolitical interests. The US trades with endless murderous dictators and even traded with the USSR, the determining factor of the embargo is the Monroe doctrine, not anything else. Ever since 1776 Cuba has been struggling with escaping the American sphere of influence.

The problem is that a country the U.S. embargoes isn't free to trade with all other countries since the U.S. prohibits any company that does business with the embargoed country from doing business in the U.S. The size of the U.S. economy being as large as it is makes a U.S. embargo effectively a global embargo.

> since the U.S. prohibits any company that does business with the embargoed country from doing business in the U.S.

That is not true in this case, or even in general.

Canada trades with Cuba, but is not restricted from trading with the United States.

For example, you can freely purchase Cuban cigars in Canada.

Another example: the U.S. had an embargo against Iran for many years, but that didn't stop Siemens in Germany from selling them uranium centrifuges, nor did it result in a U.S. embargo against Germany.

Edit: here's a Canadian government site encouraging Canadian companies to do business with Cuba.

https://www.tradecommissioner.gc.ca/cuba/index.aspx?lang=eng

Reality is more complicated. Generally in order to trade with Cuba or Iran you do have to use financial instruments to insulate yourself.

Siemens did not sell centrifuges to Iran when it was during the full embargo. It did so earlier. Even then, sales of this equipment to Iran are done with coordination with the EU that does the footwork to insure the companies and avoid sanctions.

Can you show me on the Canadian Trade Commissioner site where it suggests that businesses need to "insulate themselves"?

Why do I need to? It's well documented that the US has secondary sanctions on Cuba : https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/global/en/what/articles...

The Canadian government will in effect compensate you for these secondary sanctions though.

> Why do I need to?

Because you're the one making the claim. You claimed that you need "financial instruments" to "insulate" yourself. Do you have an example of this or not?

> It's well documented that the US has secondary sanctions on Cuba

1) That's about private lawsuits, not government sanctions, "secondary" or otherwise. 2) It only applies to people who directly traffic in confiscated U.S. property, not to generic trade with Cuba. 3) No one has ever successfully pressed a claim or collected any compensation under that statute.

I’m mistaken. The best I could find in support of my claim was this in Wikipedia:

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. In the House of Commons of Canada, Helms-Burton was mocked by the introduction of the Godfrey-Milliken Bill, which called for the return of property of United Empire Loyalists seized by the American government as a result of the American Revolution (the bill never became law).

I don’t know the exact mechanism but I believe our sanctions cause more than just a pain for American companies doing business with Cuba.

Here is a better source, but you were right, the US allows for the lawsuit of anyone that deals with Cuba effectively. The Canadian government as well as the EU do have programs to counterbalance the effects of these sanctions though.

https://www.eversheds-sutherland.com/global/en/what/articles...

Brazil, Mexico, China, and Russia are also among Cuba's top trade partners.

Perhaps. I've lived in capitalist developing countries that were even poorer - hence people stuffing water bottles in their shirt - so I can't honestly conclude that it is the reason.

You're taking way too much of a good faith reading that comment. There's way more nuance than "communism bad," though it is very true that sanctions and the Castros and their cronies have both done great harm to Cuba.

Cuba has been in shambles since, at the very least, Batista came to power in a CIA-backed coup with monetary help from organized crime. After his government was overthrown all of that money dried up and the sanctions imposed (with no attempt at diplomacy) have choked the country out until this day. Yes, what little money comes in is siphoned off by the crooked Castro government, but there's a lot more to the history of Cuba and Latin America than "communism bad."

The trade embargo has much to do with this. Is there a prosperous country that the U.S. has embargoed for an extensive period of time. I suppose at one point Iran might have qualified but that would be because of oil. Nations that are largely excluded from the world market won't be prosperous is the main takeaway.

Is (nominal) communism to blame for the rise of China?

Cuba trades with Venezuela, China, Spain, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and the Netherlands.

The rise of China is due to the economic reforms [0] launched in the late 70s by Deng Xiaoping and continued by his successors:

The Communist Party authorities carried out the market reforms in two stages. The first stage, in the late 1970s and early 1980s, involved the de-collectivization of agriculture, the opening up of the country to foreign investment, and permission for entrepreneurs to start businesses. However, a large percentage of industries remained state-owned. The second stage of reform, in the late 1980s and 1990s, involved the privatization and contracting out of much state-owned industry. The 1985 lifting of price controls[11] was a major reform, and the lifting of protectionist policies and regulations soon followed, although state monopolies in sectors such as banking and petroleum remained. In 2001, China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO). The private sector grew remarkably, accounting for as much as 70 percent of China's gross domestic product by 2005.[12] From 1978 until 2013, unprecedented growth occurred, with the economy increasing by 9.5% a year.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform

Yes, I know this. I was employing the same logic as the person I responded to. Namely, that since Cuba is a failure then it must be communism's fault. I just reversed things a bit. I was pointing out that simplistic reasoning is not sufficient to explain complex geopolitical situations.

That is certainly true, yet at the same time setting up free markets to get investment from capitalist nations is a Communist technique since 1922. Deng Xiaoping himself admitted that his reforms were inspired by Lenin setting up the same system in the USSR.

So in the end I think neither of you are really wrong.

You're referring to the New Economic Policy [0].

For both, the purpose was not only to get foreign investment, but to improve internal economic efficiency, since collectivization and central planning were lethally inefficient [1][2].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

Certainly, internal economic efficiency was also an important factor. Lenin rapidly realized that central planning is an incredibly difficult task and that allowing markets allows for more efficiency. However, Stalin disagreed as he wanted faster heavy industry development than markets would allow.

Indeed. Stalin effectively ended the NEP in 1929, eliminating private ownership of farmland and collectivizing agriculture under state control. By 1931, he had reimposed state control over all industry and commerce [0][1]. And thus came the Soviet famines of 1932-1933 [2][3][4].

[0] https://www.britannica.com/event/New-Economic-Policy-Soviet-...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_famine_of_1932%E2%80%93...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_famine_of_1931%E2%80%93...

Yes, this is made worse by the fact that Lenin previously tried to do what Stalin did and found that access to reliable data was a major issue, but Stalin still went through with it, partly because he expected war and partly because he thought he could do it better. This wasn't something we should give the benefit to Stalin for but in retrospect WW2 may have taken a turn for the worse in the opposite case.

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