https://www.wfpusa.org/countries/cuba/#:~:text=Cuba%20import....
Even before Castro came to power, Che Guevara planned in enacting extreme tariffs to keep American money out. He used 19th century American tariffs to justify this.
Cubas government is far more interested in maintaining control than opening up to trade.
They are willing to advertise to tourists, which brings in cash without shaking things up.
But they aren’t willing to make the adaptations international trade requires.
Which is enough, as the US controls the emission of dollars, have monopolies over several technologies and, as it extends the sanctions even to the ships that trade in Cuba, disallowing them to enter in US, on practice it difficult trades between Cuba and any other country.
> It doesn't explain why Cuba needs to import 70-80% of their food despite being a fertile tropical paradise.
Modern agriculture depends on machines and fertilizers. And if you go without modern technology, climate change and shortages of water can be an even greater blow to your production. You will produce food, but will be susceptible to famine crisis, as were all countries before sufficient technological development.
Moreover, Cuba is also not an agrarian country. The urban population is greater than the rural, like in any modern country. Remember that societies without much technology had to have a much greater part of population in rural areas instead of cities to be self-sufficient in food.
I don't know as much about this next part, but seeds are also harder to import. I'd hazard a guess at there not being much capacity in that market unless you're buying from Monsanto or the like, which seems not to be an option in Cuba as those (American) companies are not exempt from the embargo, unlike exporters of food and medical supplies.
[*] According to many people, I’m not talking about the parent comment.
A decent intro to Monsanto (now Bayer, really) that covers some elements of their monopolistic behaviour: https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/home-garden/monsanto
tl;dr, there is a monopoly, and america decides if that monopoly can do business with Cuba
As they have fewer baskets to place their eggs, they are much more succetible to crisis: a blow in one economical activity generates crisis that affects a lot all other areas. For example, one of the causes for the current crisis is the pandemics that dropped their tourism to zero for 2 years. Now they have much less to invest, affecting all economical activities.
Bad news for citizens of these countries that would have visited Cuba if they also want to visit USA and don’t want to bother with US visas:
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/us-visas/tourism-...
It's had an embargo against Cuba since 1962.
There have been famine and starvation before the communists took power. I don't think Cuba has ever been fully food self-sufficient. Not many countries are.
Not to mention agriculture needs access to fertilizers which the sanctions make harder to get.
The more important part from your source:
> The largest island in the Caribbean, Cuba is one of the most successful in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Food-based social safety nets include a monthly food basket for the entire population, school feeding programs, and mother-and-child health care programs.
This is a big achievement.
Also it doesn't make sense to compare Cuba with the richest Western Countries. Communist revolutions tend to happen in the poorest countries of the world. Saying they are poor because of communism is confusing cause and effect.
If we compare Cuba to her peers in Latin America, especially Haiti, then Cuba is doing vastly, vastly better. Cuba is doing really well on the human development index, providing free health care and decent education for all.
Cuba better than Haiti??? You are reading to many fake news. Cubans are travelling to Haiti to buy food and medicine.
Cuban healthcare good? You are joking right? If you need surgery have to bring your own equipment, including chirurgical globes and syringes. You have to either buy it in the black market or have a relative in a capitalist country to send it to you.
Dont even get me started on education.
Happy to provide you more details and break the bubble you are leaving in.
I have visited schools and the education level of the vastly higher. The knowledge of the children greatly impressed me. In fact you could talk the average person on the street about complicated issues regarding history, philosophy and economy. Many where even multi-lingual.
It is true that Cuba has trouble getting some medical equipment due to the sanctions but she also has a for a small island impressive pharmaceutical industry. There is a great medication for diabetics that would save many lives if it were allowed to be exported in the US. Not to mention having developed their own covid vaccine.
You are probably living in a exile-Cuban bubble.
People were not afraid to talk critically about their government with me and did so often.
Ever heard of something called propaganda? Are you still searching for the weapons of mass destruction that Saddam Hussein had?
These people are literally paid by the government to spread anti-cuban propaganda. It is even on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Herald#21st_century
> On September 8, 2006, the Miami Herald's president Jesús Díaz Jr. fired three journalists because they had allegedly been paid by the United States government to work for anti-Cuba propaganda TV and radio channels.
> Less than a month later, responding to pressure from the Cuban community in Miami, Díaz resigned after reinstating the fired journalists, saying that "policies prohibiting such behavior were ambiguously communicated, inconsistently applied and widely misunderstood over many years".
Why are you lying?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68434845
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/18/cuba-protests-...
There is shortages of certain goods, yes. Starvation? No.
Haiti has a complicating factor. After winning independence from France, France told Haiti to pay 'debt' back to France. In the end, it had to pay 112 million Francs, which is an amazing sum for a newly independent country, and I think that it's unique in history, a government demanding that exorbitant of a payment from a newly independent country. It took until 1947 for Haiti to finish paying, 122 years of payment. You can't get over that sort of thing easily.
Wikipedia has a good article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_Independence_Debt. In another article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/External_debt_of_Haiti) it's said that Haiti's debt is mostly from that demand.
That said, Cuba's life expectancy (Cuban GDP per capita: $7,486 or so, as of 2021) is equal to or greater than much wealthier countries, like Lithuania ($30,577), Oman ($46,574), Seychelles ($30,126), or Russia ($26,120). In 2020, its life expectancy surpassed the US! Cuba has consistently outperformed countries like Lithuania, Russia, and even the world in life expectancy (counting since 2000), all of which have much greater GDP per capita. See https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy and https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-vs-gdp-pe....