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<p>USA’s track record is a bit different especially in Latin America. I wish Cuba the best.</p>
<p>Why does the US normalize relationship with China and Vietnam, the two strongest ennemies that died hard for communism but not with Cuba? Should Cuba be left to the hands of the Russian again? What harm could the normalization with Cuba bring to the US?</p>
<p>Russians stopped subsidizing Cuba a long time back and Cubans are in no way a fan of Russia these days. Cuba was the country that got the highest foreign aid of all countries in the world during the cold war. Even Israel got less aid from USA than what Cuba got from USSR. That bankrupted the USSR.</p>
<p>Cuba has had normalized relations with many countries for years. People are still poor, and the government is still abusive and repressive. Why should we think that normalized relations with the US are magically going to make everything (or anything) different?</p>
<p>I agree with Lergnom that there probably wasn’t much leverage for the U.S. to unilaterally demand much of anything, besides the release of Mr. Gross. The Cubanos have been ignoring bold statements and glorious sounding demands from the U.S. for fifty-some years. All that did was harden the rank and file’s resolve to defend their nation against Uncle Sam.</p>
<p>That said, the new initiative is not a magic wand that will bestow paradise upon the majority of Cubanos. Some structural economic changes are in order before Cuba begins to resemble Monte Carlo. And no, those of us whom are pleased about this situation don’t care a whit about beaches or cigars. My cigar chomping friends who have a taste for cohibas have already done so in smoke shops in Montreal and Toronto. No problema.</p>
<p>“Why does the US normalize relationship with China and Vietnam, the two strongest ennemies that died hard for communism but not with Cuba?”</p>
<p>Because the Cuban Americans are a very big voting block in Florida - a big state in electoral politics. But with the dying off of the oldest refugees the younger generations are much more open to normalizing relations. </p>
<p>We also have very different rules for immigrating to the US for Cubans than anyone else. </p>
<p>Of greatest importance, how is this going to change major league baseball???</p>
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<p>Really? That doesn’t sound likely. Are you saying that the USSR fell because it was subsidizing Cuba?</p>
<p>Article in the NY Times today about major league baseball:
Opening of Relations Could Bring Cuban Stars to Major League Baseball
<a href=“Opening of Relations Could Bring Cuban Stars to Major League Baseball - The New York Times”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/18/sports/baseball/for-baseball-cuba-is-front-and-center.html</a></p>
<p>I tried to research the amount of aid from the USSR to Cuba and ran into a blunt howling mistake on the wiki page: “From 1976 to 1980, the Soviets invested $1.7 billion (USD) on the construction and remodeling of Cuban factories and industry. Additionally, between 1981 and 1984 Cuba received approximately $750 billion (USD) a year in Soviet military assistance.” Hilarious. That’s more each year than the entire US defense budget, which works out to - using current population numbers - over $68k per person (more back then) each year! I’d bet that amount is more than the entire USSR military budget. How do people believe such nonsense? The cited source, btw, cuts off after “$750” so there’s no way to know if it actually says million, which is still relatively hard to believe because we have no way of knowing the number. Orders of magnitude mistake.</p>
<p>I assume the Cubans are using the Chinese as a model: change to a market system with broad international relations while retaining control. That requires delivering greater prosperity. I know nothing about Miguel Díaz-Canel, who may be the heir apparent, but this could be a way to deliver power to the next generation through change blessed by the Castros themselves. Or at least by Raul because Fidel is no longer public. </p>
<p>I know that Cuba received more economic and humanitarian aid than we’ve sent to Israel - if the numbers are to be believed - but aid in general is a complicated topic. I assume the USSR’s “aid” was similar to US “aid”, meaning it was essentially a subsidy to the country’s defense industry. Almost all US aid to Israel (and in general but not exclusively to Egypt, etc.) consists of credits held by Treasury that are paid to US contractors. I assume the USSR operated on a similar system. In that kind of system, it’s hard to know the real number; it includes spreading production and R&D costs over a larger base to reduce the unit costs to the home country (i.e., our armed forces pay less for weapons because the unit costs are spread out over more units). Our payments include profits that the USSR didn’t need to pay so our form of guessing could inflate their numbers. In truth, one could just as well stick nearly all our “aid” into the defense budget because it directly affects our forces spending per unit and projects our power, creates chains of reliance for parts and service, etc. (To be fair and complete, that Israel receives some money each year for its own use and in exchange we get access to military technology - which they often develop working with our contractors. That’s hard to value: our use of drones, etc. has been enhanced by Israeli work and our relationship keeps them from working with someone else, like Russia or China. This arrangement is, I believe, unique for the US.)</p>
<p>“I agree with Lergnom that there probably wasn’t much leverage for the U.S. to unilaterally demand much of anything, besides the release of Mr. Gross.”</p>
<p>We also got them to release a US intelligent agent who had been held in a Cuban prison for the last 20 years. </p>
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<p>That assumption is wrong. Soviet aid was truly aid (food, medicines, gasoline, manufactured goods) as the Soviets wanted communist countries to thrive throughout the globe. That’s what bankrupted the Soviets.</p>
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<p>Not just because of Cuba as the Soviets were also subsidizing East Europe. Howver Cuba got far more than any country in East Europe which had better infrastructure and moderately stable domestic economies.</p>
<p>What will happen in Cuba after the Castros are gone? They won’t last forever. Raúl is 83.</p>
<p>“What will happen in Cuba after the Castros are gone? They won’t last forever. Raúl is 83.”</p>
<p>One keeps thinking they are going to have to die eventually, but no, they keep hanging on endlessly. Maybe sucking the lifeblood out of the Cuban people keeps them young.</p>
<p>One of greatest sources of aid the former USSR provided to Cuba was the purchase of Cuban sugar at prices that far exceeded the world market price. When communism fell in the USSR, one of the economic consequences for Cuba was a precipitous drop in price they could charge for cane sugar exports. And their market wasn’t all that profitable to begin with as beet sugar is preferred in much of Western Europe and of course the American market was unavailable to them.</p>
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<p>we gave them more people than we got… as is typical for the U.S.</p>
<p>^ <a href=“Cuban Policy: Havana To Release 53 Political Prisoners, Result Of 'Historic' US-Cuba Talks”>http://www.ibtimes.com/cuban-policy-havana-release-53-political-prisoners-result-historic-us-cuba-talks-1761549</a></p>
<p>I hope that article is accurate, garland, that would be awesome for the innocent prisoners and their families. I wonder how many political prisoners they have in Cuba, if this is a tiny fraction.</p>
<p>And I thought Castro said that nothing was going to change?</p>
<p>I find it kind of funny that this is generating so much controversy, I am hearing about the oppression, the bullying tactics of the government, etc…when we have normalized relations with old enemies like China and Vietnam. More importantly, China is one of the world’s largest human rights abusers, everything from political oppression to executions to slavery, yet they are ‘okay’ while Cuba is ‘evil’. Course. the fact that China is the world’s biggest source of cheap labor and also owns a lot of US debt has nothing to do with it…not to mention that the US has done business with regimes as oppressive, Mubarek’s Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc…</p>
<p>It also is interesting reading the posts and people saying “We need to get them out of Russia’s Sphere”, as if the cold war is returning. Russia is a regional threat, there is no doubt, but this isn’t the cold war, and quite frankly, right now Russia has a lot of problems given the plummeting of oil prices, I doubt Putin is looking at Cuba and saying “Da, I will put new missiles there, nuke US”.</p>
<p>MLB is gonna love this, source of players to fill their farm systems and clubs just in time as interest in baseball in the US has dropped among potential players. The pharmeceutical industry might be wary, as will doctors, as one of the few things Cuba did well was they have a lot of doctors, and with Cuba 90 miles from Florida, could be a potential destination for affordable health care, the AMA isn’t going to be happy about that. </p>
<p>" I doubt Putin is looking at Cuba and saying “Da, I will put new missiles there, nuke US”."</p>
<p><a href=“http://m.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30028371”>http://m.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30028371</a></p>
<p>Don’t underestimate Putin’s craziness and bloated ego. He is sitting on a pile of gold amassed while oil was trading at its peak prices. </p>