No U.S. Dollars to Castro

Years ago I concluded that the constant sending of dollars and traveling by exiles to Cuba, far from helping their families, is helping the regime that is the cause of their problems.

Believe it or not, in spite of the hostile U.S. media that have maligned them, Cuban-Americans are very nice and family-oriented. They have not forgotten their country or their relatives stranded on the island-prison and for the last 43 years have been sending their families things for all their needs.

Cuban exiles started helping their families in the very early '60s, even before the much-touted U.S. embargo, imposed by the late President Kennedy and used so well by Castro and his apologists.

Very soon after Castro took over, the scarcity of the most-needed items began. From the very early '60s, Cuban exiles sent medicines, eyeglasses, shoes, clothing, food, toiletries, pens, paper, etc., although the Cuban authorities confiscated half of it.

Planned scarcity is a generalized technique used by totalitarian communist regimes as a way to control and coerce where the most obedient and loyal to the party or ruler get benefits denied the rest.

In the late '70s, when Castro started allowing Cuban exiles to visit their relatives, thousands of Cubans abroad began their trips. They went with their suitcases filled with the items their relatives requested. And their pockets were filled with U.S. dollars to buy much-needed appliances and food in the government stores reserved for the exclusive use of the diplomats, Castro's privileged loyal elite and visitors with U.S. dollars.

But Castro saw the opportunity to extract even more of the Cuban exiles' U.S. dollars, and opened those exclusive stores to them, too.

After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, Castro allowed the use of the U.S. dollar along with the Cuban peso, which had become worthless. But Cuban workers are still paid in pesos!

Increasingly more daily necessity items became available in U.S. dollars only. So the Cuban families in need were encouraged by Castro's regime to write to their relatives requesting U.S. dollars to survive.

And Cuban exiles responded once again and flooded the Cuban economy, in shambles and on the brink of collapse with threats of popular uprising, with the U.S. dollars Castro needed to stay in power.

So the flow of U.S. dollars served two purposes: It provided for the most urgent needs of the citizens at no cost to Castro and, since he collected the dollars in his stores, it also served to support his costly efforts to remain in power.

It became and remains a vicious circle that many Cuban exiles have fallen into. They are helping their relatives, but at the same time they are giving millions of dollars to Castro. In the end, all that money ends up in Castro's hands, since he and his regime are the owners of all the stores where the dispossessed Cubans have to shop using their relatives-sent U.S. dollars.

So, in the end, the Cuban exiles are contributing economically to maintain Castro's tyranny, thereby prolonging the suffering of their own relatives on the island.

The more money the exiles send, the more items Castro puts up for sale in U.S. dollars. He is doing such a great business manipulating the exile community abroad that as of late he has increased the prices in his stores.

What the exiles apparently do not realize is that if they all stop sending money, Castro will have to sell the same items in Cuban pesos. If not, about 60 percent of the population will starve to death or rise above their complacency and defend themselves.

If the Cuban exiles want to put an end to the way Castro is manipulating them and end his tyranny, they should not contribute economically in any way, shape or form to his regime.

Perhaps no other exiles in the world have been so loyal and dedicated to bringing freedom and democracy back to their homeland as the Cubans, and no others have attained the enormous economic success that the Cuban-Americans have in the U.S.

But in relation to their goal to bring freedom and democracy to their homeland, they are acting with their hearts instead of with their heads.

They must finally realize the terrible mistake they are making by sending money to Castro and visiting there and spending even more U.S. dollars during their stay.

Between 1959 and 1978, Castro did not allow exiles to return to Cuba to visit their relatives. Now that they are allowed to visit, they need to make the sacrifice for a while in order to help bring freedom back to Cuba and their relatives.

As a matter of principle, I have never sent a penny to any of my relatives or friends in Cuba, nor do I plan to visit there until there is real freedom and democracy. I'd rather die in exile than set a foot in and thereby support a country where tyranny, repression, apartheid and slavery reign. That is not the Cuba I want to see.

The best gift we can give to our relatives and friends trapped under Castro's boot is their liberation, their total freedom and the restoration of all their human rights denied for 43 long and dark years. Sending U.S. dollars to Castro's pockets won't bring the freedom and democracy we all want.

Now, more than ever, when Castro wants to "constitutionally" legalize communist tyranny forever in Cuba, the exile community must cut off his pipeline of U.S. dollars.

THERE ARE POWERFUL REASONS FOR NOT TRADING WITH CASTRO

When Castro sees American Congressman, Jeff Flake, he keeps “laughing day and night” at this valuable and useful idiot who works diligently for him, perhaps without pay, instead of representing the best interest of the American taxpayers and the security of his own country.

Flake maintains that Castro “is not a man who has missed too many meals because the embargo.” Certainly no, Castro is among the richest chief of state in the world with over 1.5 billion personal fortune. Cuba can freely trade with the rest of the world, but he starves his people as Stalin did with the Ukrainian peasants. The big problem is that whoever trades with Castro is never paid back. Flake, wants you, American taxpayers, to feed and maintain Castro’s repressive apparatus.

THERE ARE POWERFUL REASONS FOR NOT TRADING WITH CASTRO.

1st. Cuba is, and has been a terrorist state for 43 years, and counts with advanced chemical, biological and cyber warfare capabilities aimed against our country. The cooperation between the Cuban regime with Iraq and Iran in the chemical and biological research is well documented.

Just a few days ago the Bush administration made public their deep concern about Castro’s menace to our security.
A few months before the September 11 attack Castro affirmed at the University of Tehran that their cooperation would put the U.S. down to its knees. That was an ominous threat that materialized on the 9/11 attacks to our country.

Castro plays a central role in the international terrorist network as recognized by the U.S. State Department, with strong nexus with the Islamic terrorism. Right after the attack without even counting with Fidel Castro, Prime Minister Putin dismantled their most important Russian spy and electronic base, which was located in the outskirts of Havana. Castro went berserk when he found out about it by the media. Did Castro’s partners in the Islamic terrorism gather the necessary intelligence for the success of the attack through Castro’s access to the Russian spy base?

Castro once tried to nuke our cities and he has the means and the will to fulfill his dream of destroying our country. If we are involved in a worldwide war against terrorism, Cuba at 90 miles from our coast should be a prime target in that war; so, those involved in appeasement policies towards Castro and in the promotion of the lifting of the commercial embargo against Cuba are in fact aiding and abetting our worst enemy.

2nd. Cuba has defaulted in all its international financial deals and Castro encourages other Third World nations to follow his example. Why are we going to sell to someone without the expectation to ever be repaid. The American taxpayers should be aware that they are the targets of the scam by which the multinationals sell to Castro whatever he needs and we, the taxpayers, end footing the bill. Castro for 42 years has been with commercial ties with over 150 nations. Now when he has exhausted the patience of nations foolish enough to have given him credit.

Castro’s puppets in the media, and the congress in cahoots with some greedy commercial circles are wanting for the American taxpayers to shoulder the heavy burden of subsidizing his regime to the tune of 9 billion dollars annually. Is not enough the billions of dollars in pork just approved by the Congress for the benefit of ADM and the powerful agriculture lobby? How much blood does Rep. Flake and Castro’s lobbyists want to extract from the overburdened American taxpayers.

3rd. The American companies can not legally conduct business with Cuba without violating several American laws.

A.- Trading with the Enemy Act.
B.- U.S. Commercial Embargo Against Cuba.
C.- Helms- Burton Law.
D.- Involvement in bribes in commercial dealings with another nation. Foreign companies must hire the worker through Castro who keeps 96% of their salary for himself and the repressive apparatus.
E.- Involvement in slave labor of foreign workers in connivance with the local authorities. This is another factor necessary to reconcile with.

Every deal; every investment in Cuba is a “joint venture” in partnership with the Cuban tyrant, and that includes being part of slave labor practices, for which those entrepreneurs and multinationals, sooner or later, will pay dearly just as it happened with the companies involved in slave labor during the Nazi era. The scam consists that for each worker they employ, the foreign companies must pay Castro $300 to $500 monthly in dollars and the Cuban dictator pays them 500 to 600 worthless Cuban pesos, which is the equivalent of $12 to $20 dollars or 96% bribe, an outrageous bribe without parallel in the world.

That outrageous business practice is in violation of international and American labor laws and will expose those companies to huge law suites for the slave labor exploitation of the Cuban worker in cahoots with the corrupt communist regime.

We have to wonder why there are so many American politicians promoting the violations of our trading laws, and in the process, they are endangering the security of the U.S. Why is the Treasure Department authorizing all those business trips and all kind of conventions in Cuban soil by which American citizens circumvent and break the U.S. laws? Why is Rep. Flake betraying President Bush’s war against terrorism and stabbing the American taxpayers in the back?

As senator Jesse Helms rightly stated: "Unfortunately, some in Washington are all too willing to give Castro what he wants. At the least they should stop pretending that they are doing this to promote Cuban democracy and American values.

HOW TO PRESERVE COMMUNISM IN CUBA - LIFT THE TRAVEL BAN.

The prime beneficiaries of easing restrictions are the Castro brothers--Fidel and Raúl--and the regime itself.

By Stephen Johnson*
July 23, 2002
Capitalist Magazine
La Nueva Cuba
28 Julio 2002

Some members of Congress seem desperate to ease the ban on United States tourist travel to Cuba because they think flooding the island with American vacationers will hasten dictator Fidel Castro's downfall or produce windfall profits for U.S. businesses.

Unfortunately, the prime beneficiaries of easing restrictions are the Castro brothers--Fidel and Raúl-and the regime itself. Cuba's Armed Forces Ministry (MINFAR) runs state-owned or joint-venture tourist resorts. Profits from these enterprises partly sustain the private fortunes of the Castros and provide revenues to run the government that Cuba's decrepit sugar mills and Soviet-style state enterprises never could support.

In fact, expanding tourism was the key to Castro's survival after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union and the loss of subsidies of up to $5.6 billion per year. Since Sept. 11, however, travel to Cuba has fallen off and island hotels have experienced vacancy rates as high as 30 percent.

The recent decline in tourism only adds to Castro's financial worries. Last year, Cuba defaulted on $500 million in loans, and France and the Netherlands froze Cuban credit for nonpayment of arrears. Even Castro-friendly Venezuela cut oil shipments in April after Cuba repeatedly missed payments totaling up to $63 million for petroleum purchased at below-market prices. Lifting the tourist ban would give the regime a much-needed shot in the arm.

However, Castro is not likely to permit the "flood" of American tourists that some in Washington expect, particularly the kind apt to challenge his personal rule. His regime arbitrarily controls who may enter and what requirements may be enforced. Tourists with dollars to spend at isolated resorts are more likely to get a visa than those wanting to talk to local dissidents. Current exchanges with academics, journalists and American relatives intended to pave the way for future political reforms may suffer as a result.

Even absent that, tourism won't necessarily encourage political reforms anyway. A close look at Cuba's existing travel industry shows why. Most of the Canadian and European tourists who have visited over the last decade came to enjoy low-budget vacations, or set foot in a political Jurassic Park, or to seek inexpensive sex with growing numbers of prostitutes unable to survive on rations and meager state salaries of $10-$30 per month. Such tourism has not helped release political prisoners, nor has it forced the regime to change any of its totalitarian policies.

Instead, it has fueled a government moneymaking scam. Joint-venture tourism enterprises must hire all workers from the state which in turn pays them less than 10 percent of the fees it collects for supplying them. Sadly, these same Cuban employees may not use the services of or buy products sold by these enterprises under a state policy designed to limit contact between Cuban citizens and foreign visitors.

Claims of potential windfall profits of doing business in Cuba also are exaggerated. Cuba must compete with better-developed and more family-oriented tourist destinations in the Caribbean and southeastern United States. Nor will the island's 11 million inhabitants do any traveling of their own thanks to Castro's own embargo on Cuban travel. More important, the rule of law-not particularly strong in Latin America-has no footprint in Cuba. European, Mexican and Canadian firms that have attempted to do business there have lost investments because of arbitrary changes in policy, sudden demand for hidden fees or unexplained cancellations of projects already in development.

If expanding opportunities for international commerce truly is important to Congress, it should provide trade promotion authority to President Bush to conclude free trade agreements with America's democratic allies. But if opening tourism with a dictatorship sworn to bring down western freedom somehow trumps business with friendly neighbors, then the only ethical thing to do is condition changes in U.S. law with reciprocal reforms by the Castro regime.

In keeping with President Bush's new policy of encouraging step-by-step reforms on the island, the United States should offer to ease restrictions on U.S. tourist travel to Cuba when the regime establishes fair labor practices--that is, allow Cubans to work for whomever they wish, receive fair-market compensation, organize independent labor unions and buy products and use services in facilities currently off-limits to all except foreigners.

Such conditions, written into U.S. legislation, would not directly threaten Castro's dictatorship. But they would lay the foundation for further reforms and allow American tourists to visit Cuba knowing those who wait on them are no longer receiving prison wages or being segregated like second-class citizens.

-- *Stephen Johnson is a policy analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based public policy research institute. Distributed nationally on the Knight-Ridder Tribune wire

Threshing Out a Deal Between the Farmers and Fidel
September 20, 2002

By MARY ANASTASIA O'GRADY

If recent opinion polls are to be believed, a slim majority of Americans have come around to the view that the U.S. embargo of Cuba should be relegated to the circular file of history.

What is less clear is how many Americans know that since 2000 Cuba has been able to buy as much food and medicine as it wants from the U.S. as long as it pays for it in cash. In other words, what the media broadly refers to as "lifting" the trade embargo is not about granting the U.S. farm lobby the right to sell its products to Cuba. It is about the right to provide credit to Fidel Castro.

The effort to allow credit to Fidel was advanced in July when the House attached an amendment to the general appropriations bill prohibiting funding to enforce any sanction on private commercial sales of agricultural commodities or medicines. The bill has two other amendments designed to withhold the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) budget for enforcing the ban on travel by U.S. citizens to Cuba and limits on monthly dollar remittances to the island. None of this changes the embargo law. It merely restricts the availability of funds to enforce certain parts of it.

Regardless of whether you are for or against the embargo, there are two huge problems with this approach. The first is that a conscious decision by the legislative body to simply end enforcement of U.S. law, rather than legitimately change it, undermines the rule of law. If Congress wishes to alter the embargo it should do so through the proper process.

Second, given Castro's inability to pay these days and the farm industry's addiction to federal subsidies and guarantees, it is logical to wonder whether U.S. agricultural interests aren't just teaming up with Fidel to stiff the U.S. taxpayer. That would explain why so many Republican politicians from farm states, who pay lip service to free markets even while funneling federal money to constituents, are so gung-ho about allowing "private" credit to one of the world's most notorious deadbeats.

For libertarians, the goal of ending embargo prohibitions is second nature. They say that U.S. citizens should be free to move about where they want and trade with whomever they like, even if it is distasteful to human rights activists. Many libertarians believe too that more engagement with Cubans would accelerate the fall of Fidel by removing his favorite excuse for the pathetic mess he has made of the country. Liberalizing remittances would mean that Cuban-Americans could legally send their imprisoned relatives the amount of money they need. The overriding effect of all of this would be less isolation of the Cuban people.

Such are the legitimate arguments against the embargo, which in no way can be construed as sympathy for the regime. The only question left is what the U.S. farm lobby, famous for its dependence on government guarantees, subsidies and protections, is suddenly doing on the side of free markets?

The farm industry's gargantuan push for the right to finance Fidel is especially strange because it comes at a time when other lenders are shutting him off. Indeed, this seems to be the reason why there is now an "opportunity" to sell to him on credit.

Earlier this month, a Reuters report said "France has frozen $175 million in short-term trade cover to Cuba after the island's government failed to pay back money owed from a similar 2000 agreement," according to a European diplomat. Cuba has also fallen into arrears with South Africa, Panama and Spain.

On March 10, Miami's El Nuevo Herald reported on an impounded Cuban ship sitting in Sheveningen Bay, outside The Hague. The Dutch had seized the ship for non-payment from the Cuban government. The story cited the Belgian newspaper Tijd which said that Cuban "cargo ships are poorly ventilated and poorly maintained, are environmentally contaminated, and leave behind them a trail of unpaid creditors at every port they visit."

The University of Miami's Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies has compiled a list of Cuba's bad debts. It says that Fidel owes the European Union at least $10.9 billion and hasn't paid principal or interest on its Paris Club debt since 1986. The former Soviet Union lent some $25 billion. Cuba is in arrears to its single largest creditor, Japan, to the tune of $1.7 billion. Argentina is its next biggest creditor and is owed $1.58 billion. Cuba has debts to Chile of $20 million for unpaid fish imports, a "typical case of default on a foreign government's short-term food export credit program," according to the report. The United Kingdom's Export Credits Guarantee Program, it says, "has refused to underwrite any further British exports to Cuba due to the island's poor payment history." According to Juan O. Tamayo, in an April edition of the Miami Herald's Business Monday, Cuba "defaulted on $500 million in loans" last year.

We're supposed to believe that into this morass of defaults the U.S. agriculture industry wants to jump, taking on "private" risk and boldly going where so many have gone before and lost their shirts.

This is a little hard to swallow and even more so because the effort is being led by such heroes of government largess for farmers as Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel. Throw in the plethora of farm export credits and guarantees in the federal system and even casual observers of Washington politics would know enough to be suspicious.

Critics of the amendment are concerned about the potential for abuse of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, Export/Import Bank and various agriculture subsidy programs.

Virginia Democrat Jerry Moran who introduced the agricultural amendment says not to worry, that he has been "advised" that its language "sufficiently prohibits public entity financing." And Arizona Republican Jeff Flake, who introduced the other amendments, insists that if there is any effort to provide public financing he will fight it.

Mr. Flake might be believable if he were operating on his own in a land of limited government such as James Madison once envisioned. But he's in 2002 Washington and has teamed up with the farm lobby. He needs to do more than simply express his own pure intentions.

Updated September 20, 2002

CONSERVATISM AND OUR POLICY ON CASTRO

Por Hugo J. Byrne*
Columnista
La Nueva Cuba
Septiembre 18, 2002

Time and again the case has been properly and eloquently made that American conservatism springs from an attitude of ethical respect and protection of individual freedoms, as established by our Constitution. This cerebral and pragmatic stand, centers on a healthy regard towards the past, rather than a utopian hope about the future.

A true conservative always envisions the government in Washington as an entity whose basic function is to maintain American society on a civilized level. Thus, to a conservative, the federal government should concentrate its efforts on defense, foreign affairs, and very little else.

To a conservative, federal government meddling in labor disputes, beyond those negatively affecting vital services rendered by federal employees, should be the unfortunate exception, rather than the rule. Government aid of private businesses to the detriment of free competition should be anathema to a true conservative. The same criteria should be applied to the so-called “foreign aid.”

Conservative thinking asserts that very few federal programs of foreign aid have ever been successful. The Marshall Plan helped devastated Europe at the end of World War II, but more than 80% of our tax dollars earmarked for foreign aid during the past 50 years, have come to miserable waste at best. Some even helped our enemies.

We have listed a few very basic elements in the agenda of the American conservative philosophy. Those principles stand in sharp contrast with the “liberal” approach used by some contemporary politicians and their cohorts. The liberal media labels as “conservatives” many whose obvious political interests lay at the very opposite end of conservatism.

Such is the case of archliberal Curt Schaeffer in a piece he wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in August. His subject is the American “trade embargo” on Castro, how it is loosing ground, and why that is a good thing for us.

In the process, Schaeffer calls attention to the collusion of some 73 Republican congressmen with 189 Democrats, who last July lifted travel restrictions on U.S. citizens wanting to visit Castro’s Cuba. Schaeffer, who had the dubious honor of socializing with Castro earlier the same month, found the dictator “hospitable, curious and in the end, verbose.” Really? Could Castro be verbose?

“Why is there so much bipartisan support for normalizing relations with Cuba”, questions Schaeffer, “led by a conservative Republican from Arizona, Jeff Flake?” In another paragraph, Schaeffer states that there are “both liberal and conservative advocates for normalizing U.S.-Cuba relations.” That, of course, is presently an oxymoron. Let’s discuss why.

For starters, any American conservative foreign policy initiative vis-à-vis Castro or anybody else should take into consideration only the enlightened vital interest of the U.S. The trade embargo, initiated by the Eisenhower administration in the early sixties was meant as a meaningless political scheme to appear as a punishment for Castro’s alignment with the Soviets. The embargo was a domestic gambit to appease political conservatives.

The outcome of the 1962 missile crisis, far from the overwhelming victory the liberal media cheered, was a strategic stalemate. In the end, it was the U.S., not the U.S.S.R. that blinked. The sad historical truth is that the Soviets never agreed to the removal of their offensive mid-range missiles until President Kennedy promised to dismantle our own bases in Italy and Turkey, giving Moscow assurances of Castro’s impunity. The Soviet blackmail was a brilliant success. After our government abjectly promised protection of the communist dictatorship in Cuba from “any invasion from the U.S. or anywhere else in the Western Hemisphere” and proceeded to enforce that agreement, the “trade embargo”, started since 1960 became the one and only way of pretending to oppose Castro’s totalitarian rule in Cuba. At the time of its inception and for the next three decades the embargo was largely upset by the Soviet subsidy to Castro of over $4 billion a year.

The “embargo” alas, was kept in place just for political perception. The hidden reality was the consolidation of Castro’s regime in 1962. The liberal blessed Kennedy-Khrushchev agreement has been the cornerstone in the Cuban policy of every U.S. government ever since. That included the governments of Johnson, Nixon, Ford and, most specially, Carter. But even the Reagan administration, in spite of its courageous proactive defense of the Hemisphere in Grenada, El Salvador and Nicaragua, tried unsuccessfully at first to come to terms with Castro. The late Ret. General Vernon Walters discussed U.S.-Castro differences with the Cuban dictator as an envoy of the newly elected Reagan in 1981. According to the old general, their meeting lasted six hours: “Castro spoke during five hours and I spoke only one. Generally I do better than that.” That of course is the “verbosity” Schaeffer writes about.

That meeting illustrated the reality surrounding our long and hard differences with the communist regime in Cuba. It is always the U.S. advancing the olive branch, and Castro in the end refusing it, while embracing every anti-American agenda in the process. Castro’s undeniable open or covert participation in terrorist activities –past or present-- underlines that process.

From a conservative standpoint, the choice of whether or not to maintain the trade embargo on Castro cannot be decided upon without consideration of that historical record. We have learned recently that Castro had a greater role in the 1962 crisis than he was credited with at the time. According to former Soviet leaders the dictator went as far as demanding a Russian preemptive nuclear strike against us in 1962.

According to the proponents of the American reconciliation with Castro on the dictators terms, such as Curt Schaeffer’s, or the Arizona “conservative” republican Jeff Flake, a political change in Cuba could be more dangerous than keeping in power an old totalitarian anti-American zealot who forty years ago wanted the Soviets to nuke American soil into oblivion. Is this a blatant ignorance of recent history, or just plain bad faith?

Yet, as conservatives, we should consider mostly the present circumstances. The center of the well-oiled campaign to dismantle the embargo rests on the notion that the “cold war is over, Castro does not pose a danger to our national security any more, and our businesses are losing great opportunities in the thriving Cuban market.”

To be sure, a conservative would oppose in theory the very notion of a commercial embargo for political reasons, whether directed against former racist South Africa or present communist Cuba. Conservative thinking however, demands a reasonable and rational approach, as opposed to the utopist fanaticism of the “liberals”, or the corrupting political opportunism of those phony “conservatives” equating free trade with government subsidies.

We conservatives cannot regard the U.S. embargo on Castro as something happening in a vacuum or accept its abrogation by virtue of political expediency. Such drastic change in foreign policy, departing from past bipartisan consensus could be very deleterious to our interests in times of economic retreat.

Granted, in 1962 the embargo was nothing else than a smoke screen hiding our tacit acceptance –and protection- of a communist outpost ninety miles from our shores. However, at that time our government did not impose on the taxpayers the plunder of agro subsidies, some of which fall in the budgetary category of “entitlements.” Now Uncle Sam does, and relating to the embargo it makes all the difference in the world.

No conservative could be in favor of such system of unconstitutional wealth redistribution as we suffer now, whether supposedly “helping” poor families or corporate executives. Ironically, given the intricacies of the present legislation covering so-called agricultural subsidies, the Cuban embargo is probably the only barrier preventing U.S. taxpayers from forcibly underwriting the Cuban regime.

That is the reason why so many Republican “conservative” congressmen --of the “Flaky” type-- are finding common ground in that issue with their socialist peers in the Democratic Party. That coalition is in part a product of the recent record breaking agricultural subsidy program signed into law by President Bush.

Is Castro’s Cuba truly an attractive market today for U.S. trade? Not if you take a conservative stand on the predicament of the U.S. taxpayers. Let’s see why.

At the time of the demise of the former Soviet Union in the early nineties, Castro was already a dubious credit risk. His regime stopped most payments on its multi-billion dollar foreign debt by 1986. Ever since, the Cuban dictatorship has tried to attract foreign investment under rigid constraints with mostly marginal success. The opening of the Cuban market to the U.S. dollar -–and other currencies more recently-- marked the peak of that effort. However, bad habits die hard, and a society accustomed to surviving on foreign subsidies for more than thirty years did not adapt fast enough to the new reality.

The events of September 11 had also a devastating impact in the Cuban economy, both in terms of a drastic reduction of new foreign investment and in the amount of goods and cash sent to the island by Cubans living in the U.S. The inability and unwillingness of the regime to pay its foreign debt however remained the biggest obstacle for Spanish, Mexican and Canadian entrepreneurs.

Foreign investment in Castro’s fiefdom was reduced from $448 million in 2000 to less than $40 million in 2001. The ever-present scarcity of basic items is worse than ever, and the regime’s ability to deal in practical terms with such disaster diminishes by leaps and bounds. The energy crisis is getting much worse now when even Castro’s friends like Venezuela’s Chavez requests payments of crude oil in cash and in advance of deliveries.

As it was during the early nineties, long blackouts are again plaguing Cuba. The recent government decision to make “socialism untouchable” assured permanent scarcity thru totalitarian control in the foreseeable future of the island.

In the middle of all the fanfare generated by the sale of U.S. grain to Castro on a cash basis, very little publicity was given to the complaint of two foreign governments to our State Department, of their dues from Castro being suspended on account of that sale. Obviously the smaller sheet cannot cover head and toes at the same time any more. That would not deter merchants aspiring to plunder the U.S. taxpayers, or the politicians they control.

The lack of hard currency coupled with Castro’s poor credit history has set the stage for the latter’s bid to obtain credit from the U.S. However, most American lending institutions are ready to advance payments only under certain provisions. Those provisions of course include U.S. guarantees of payment, and the current legislation on farm subsidies assures those guarantees. That is why the “conservative Republicans” Curt Schaeffer writes about, are grabbing with gusto the anti-embargo banner. They are enthusiastically going to bed with the likes of “Charlie” Rangel, José Serrano and Maxine Watters, extreme radical left-wing Democrats and Castro’s old staunch supporters in the U.S. This strange bed-fellowship does not spring from those “conservative” politicians respect (as they claim) for the free market system, or their defense of our constitutional right to free travel. We know what their real purpose is.

What they are really after is the advancement of businesses among their constituents or political contributors, regardless of the negative consequences to every U.S. taxpayer. These consequences could be similar to the addition of nearly $80 billion of unpaid loans to our national debt, incurred at the inglorious demise of the Soviet Union. In the name of freedom of commerce we were swindled into underwriting the Soviet tyranny. Later, we were forced to pick up the tab. Does that seem like a policy true conservatives could sponsor?

*Hugo J. Byrne es colaborador de la “Revista Guaracabuya” y del magazine “Contacto”, tanto en la Red como en su versión impresa. Al propio tiempo tiene una columna en el semanario “20 de Mayo”, de Los Angeles, California.

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