132
‘There is no money’: Cuba fears total collapse amid grid failure and financial crisis
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 26 Oct 2024
132 points (99.3% liked)
World News
38978 readers
2840 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News [email protected]
Politics [email protected]
World Politics [email protected]
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Is that why Cuba's biggest trade partner is that notable enemy of America, Canada?
Yes but the amount of trade that happens is so miniscule that it doesn't do much for their economy.
It's like having someone pin you to the ground, tie up your hands and feet and rest their knee on your neck and then ask why you're having a hard time getting up on your own
Bruh, Cuban-Canadian trade is worth over a billion annually. They're one of Canada's largest trade partners.
I guess the Netherlands and Spain are also inconsequential, and China is, of course, holding back on TRULY trading with Cuba out of fear for US sanctions despite the fact that China is already trading with Cuba on a massive scale.
Cuba was the third richest country in Latin America before the fall of the SovUnion. Could it possibly be that their economy was built on a house of cards and they haven't meaningfully shifted since it fell?
At some point you have to accept that the embargo, while wrong, is just not even close to core to the problems Cuba faces.
Just to give a perspective on this: The Dutch are notorious traders, that is, much of their business involves being middlemen, lots of stuff made anywhere in the EU flows via the Netherlands, nominally or physically. Spain, well, is self-explanatory: They're speaking Spanish over there. The EU overall is Cuba's second largest import and third largest export partner, a third of tourists to Cuba come from the EU.
As to the EU itself: It's generally illegal to comply with US sanctions on Cuba and Iran. If you're affected you can contact the commission and ask for an exemption if it's really bad but generally speaking you're supposed to work with the commission to find a way around the sanctions. There's literally EU civil servants specialised in sanction-busting by finding ways to transfer money, ship stuff etc. that doesn't involve the US.
They used to enjoy preferential tariffs but have become too rich by now so standard tariffs apply.
True. Also it would be way worse if Cuba didn't have Canada and the EU to fall back on. Also, OTOH: The current trouble is specifically cause by US sanctions -- secondary ones regarding Venezuelan gas, though, not the primary ones on Cuba itself. Cuba doesn't really have money to import that stuff and the Venezuelians are basically giving it away for free when you happen to be Cuba so of course they're buying it.
Heck in a couple month's time we might be seeing news about a large-scale Namibia-style investment: Build lots of renewables with European money, gain a stable electricity network and pay the whole shebang back with hydrogen exports. Cuba is plenty stable (and sunny) enough for such a deal.