Mexico’s 67-year-old president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador called the U.S. embargo against Cuba “cruel,” announcing today he was shipping 126,000 barrels or 5,292,000 gallons of diesel fuel to the economically embattled island. Mexico’s state run oil company Peroleos Mexicanos shipped the diesel fuel from its port of Coatzecoalcos in the Yucatan, Peninsula destined for the port of Havana. Havana has grown more dependent on diesel-fired electric power generators as natural gas supplies dwindled. Lopez Obrador just finished commemorating the 238 birthday of Simon Bolivar, the heroic liberators of Spanish colonial rule in Latin America. Lopez Obrador praised Cuba’s 61-year-old President Miguel Diaz-Canel for his “resistance” to capitalistic influence over the last 62-years since the 1959 Cuban Revolution. Whether admitted to or not, there’s little to celebrate in Cuba.
Cuba lives as a testament to the failure of Marxist-Leninsim in the Western hemisphere, having failed in Central and South America and all over the nations of the Caribbean. Left-leaning Lopez Obrador called the U.S. embargo “inhumane,” saying that Mexico was under no obligation as and independent state to follow U.S. foreign policy. Lopez Obrador encouraged 78-year-old President Joe Biden to end the embargo, despite opposition from Miami’s large Cuban exile community. “We are an independent nation,” Lopez Obrador said at a press conference, concerned whether or not the diesel fuel shipment violated the U.S. embargo. Former President Barack Obama tried to normalize U.S.-Cuban relations, only to see dangerous microwave weapons attacks on U.S. diplomatic personnel at the U.S. Cuban embassy. Since State Department officials fell ill, normalizing relations stalled.
Lopez Obrador mentioned nothing about the street demonstrating in Havana protesting communist rule. With food and medicine shortages, Cuba meets the definition of a failed state, never really prospering in the 63-year-old since the Cuban Revolution. Like most communist dictatorships, they’re good at the propaganda needed sell the public on revolution. What revolutionary dictatorship are bad about is encouraging the kind of economic development that can improve the lives of ordinary citizens. Fidel Castro and his brother Raul were good at implementing a paranoid police state, cracking down on dissent but not establishing a thriving economy necessary to give Cuban citizens a future. Lopez Obrador’s decision to ship diesel fuel to Cuba mirrors the desperation seen in Cuba due to colossal economic mismanagement and political failure. Diaz-Canel shows no sign of changing Castro’s policy.
U.S. officials most recently under Obama tried to work toward normalizing relations but wound up getting U.S. diplomatic personnel hit with mysterious microwave attacks in 2018. Since Covid-19 decimated Cuba for much of 2020, Cuba’s tourism industry has fallen off a cliff. Without any real export industry with the exception of Cuban cigars, Cuba finds itself economically depressed, unable to provide for its own citizens. Lopez Obrador’s decision to supply Cuba with diesel fuel was welcomed relief for the economically deprived island. “The U.S. embargo on Cuba is not focused on Cuba’s imports but on U.S. exports to Cuba,” said John S. Kavulich, president of New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, noting that Biden, so far, has showed little interest in normalizing U.S. relations. Cuban exiles want their property and wealth restored by the Cuban government.
Cuba’s economic woes started to intensify in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, leading the Russian Federation to spend less money on foreign aid, including Cuba. When you compound that with the 2010 economic collapse in oil-rich Venezuela, it all took a toll on Cuba. Since Venezuela Dictator Hugo Chavez’s death March 5, 2013, Cuba has lacked a reliable trading partner, especially when it came to petroleum sales. Lopez Obrador called on Biden to change U.S. foreign policy on the embargo, helping Cuba with economic development. Cuba’s government has reached out to other trading partners but find itself in the worst recession since the 2008 financial collapse, rippling to many developing nations. Under former President Donald Trump, the U.S. Treasury applied black-listed Venezuelan tanker companies delivering petroleum products from Venezuela.
Whatever the reasons for Cuba’s economic collapse, you’d think that President Miguel Diaz-Canel would do everything possible to restore diplomatic relations with the U.S. at the earliest possible time. Cuba’s refusal to open up markets for the benefit of the Cuban people mirrors the kind of paranoia seen in communist dictatorships, like Cuba and North Korea, where any outside influence is seen as a conspiracy to overthrow the ruling government. Biden wants to improve relations with Cuba but not at the expense of State Department employees subjected to microwave attacks. Cuba’s communist dictatorship needs to step up protecting U.S. diplomatic personnel if it wants to join the modern, technological world. Instead of blocking the Internet, the Cuban government should figure out what it takes to improve Havana’s business climate to create jobs and provide Cubans with a future.
