by cthalupa | 2026-02-05 00:45:52+00:00
> They had near total subsidy from the USSR from about 1960 until 1990, and in that time they developed precisely no industry and no agricultural output. The Cuban government in the first few decades was primarily focused on exporting revolution, and not on economic development. Despite their ties to the USSR they never even produced anything that could be traded back to the Soviet block, unlike their Eastern European counterparts who also didn't trade with the west.

You mean a small island nation didn't develop a massive trade relationship with a country on the other side of the planet when their closest neighbor embargoed them? Color me shocked. What did Cuba have to trade with Russia and co that would make it worth the cost to ship to the other side of the globe? Cigars? Produce that would no longer be fresh by the time it arrived?

> Other communist countries outside of the Soviet orbit like Vietnam also developed local industry and the ability export some agricultural products despite also not trading with the West for a long time, but Cuba's government couldn't muster the focus or ideological flexibility to do so. When most of the communist regimes reformed agriculture and small scale industry int he 1980s, Cuba refused and continued on its ruinous course. They only slightly limited the size of state run farms in the mid 1990s, but it still didn't yield sufficient results to feed the island.

You mean countries geographically located near ideological partners traded more heavily with those ideological partners than a country that wasn't? Also, nice to leave out the fact that their farming during the subsidy period was made possible by the USSR providing them with fertilizer - something that they could not produce locally and obviously makes a huge impact on farming efficiency and crop yields. So no, it's not surprising that their post-USSR attempts to improve farming struggled when lacking something as basic as fertilizer, much less all of the high technology innovations that have been pouring into farming since the 70s.

> These failures are NOT BECAUSE OF THE EMBARGO.

You continue to act like all of these happen without the context of decades of embargo and being cut off from their closest potential trading partner - that also happens to be the wealthiest nation in the world.

> To be clear I'd end the embargo tomorrow if I could, but it's crazy to think that it's what held Cuba back. I won't be lectured by someone who doesn't know anything about this topic.

You're posting on a public forum. You can ignore me, but as long as I'm following the rules, I can reply to your messages. So, uh, enjoy continuing to get "lectured," whatever you seem to think that actually means in this context.

Cuba can both be a shitty place with it's own issues and also be severely impacted by being embargoed for half a century. The UN estimates over 100b in economic damages. The US State Department in 1960 explicitly said the purpose of the embargo is to 'make the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.

If you think that Cuba would not be significantly better off from an economic perspective today without the embargo you're nuts. They can still be in a subpar position because of their own corruption issues, the fact that communism doesn't seem to actually work particularly well, etc. etc. - yet also be getting completely fucked by the fact that they can't trade with the US, that ships docking in the country can't dock in the US for 6 months after, etc.