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If the American embargo of Cuba ended, what do you think would happen to the USA and Cuba? (thelemmy.club)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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This isn't meant to be a discussion on the morality of the embargo, but the affects of the embargo ending for both countries. These affects can be political, economic, or social.

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[โ€“] 12 points 2 years ago (1 child)

You don't think trade with the world's biggest economy and closest physical neighbor would have much of anmeffect?

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  • [โ€“] 7 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    not saying trade wont have an effect, its just definitely on one side, it would be minimal, and Cuba for sure would benefit (heavily) from not having import restrictions. Relationships between the twp countries at least immediately, would not change.

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  • [โ€“] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Right.

    That said, Cuba doesn't really have import restriction, it's the US has export restrictions.

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  • [โ€“] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    yeah effectively the same if its in context of just the two countries i guess. Regardless, Cuba has a lot to gain on being able to trade for cheap produce made in the U.S, and at least, have another large country to compete for sales outside of Brazil (whose fast tracked into being virtually the largest agrarian society these days)

    the end result is basically Cuban Tourism goes up, U.S exports to Cuba drives food prices down.

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The food prices falling might actually result in a net negative impact on their economy.
    If local producers can't viably compete with aggressively low priced American crops, they'll lose out heavily.

    On the whole, the tourism will probably bring in a lot of money, but a good chunk of it would leave the island immediately, and they'd have to wrangle a flood of goods they didn't have to compete with before.
    (A lot of Caribbean islands end up in situations where the major tourist hubs are owned by American companies that pay locals as little as possible and then ship the profits back to the US. So the island just sees the benefit of 40 jobs, not 200 high paying tourists a month)

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    the type of crops cuba grows arent the main exports that the U.S typically goes through. iirc theyre big on sugarcane and rice, neither of which are major US exports reletive to the global scale of exports.

    at worst, the citrus market in cuba crumbles, but thats less significant than the above two.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    You are comparing apples to apples but I think there is an issue of scale. It's like the apples that are produced by the tree out back (Cuba) vs the apples that are produced by the little stand the vineyard keeps for their fall cider (US). I don't have a lot of fruit trees out back so the couple basket fulls that apple tree produces is a huge portion of my fruit production but the vineyard's couple ton of apples is only a small portion of their fruit production.

    For rice, the largest rice crop Cuba has ever produced in a single season is estimated to be 465k tons in 03/04. The US produced 11m tons and exported 3m tons of rice last year.

    Edit: overstated US rice production do to not noticing a unit difference.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    We actually export a huge amount of rice. https://fas.usda.gov/data/commodities/rice (3 million tons exported, to Cuba's 200k total production). We're actually the fifth largest exporter.
    We also produce more sugar cane, but Brazil is the real power player there.

    Cuba wouldn't be alone in being injured by US agricultural exports. Our volume and low cost can, for example, make people prefer imported American grains over domestic production, even if they're different types.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    im not saying that we dont export more than cuba (i mean given population size, thats to be expected), its just that what yhey can supply for theirselves internally is enough to sustain their own use, at worst, their exports are worse, but they arent just competing against thr U. S in terms of exports so thats more or less moot point, given Brazil on its own is larger and a reasonable distance.

    the U.S would have to shift a significant portion of its rice specifically to Cuba if it wanted to disrupt prices there, and that considers that rice is the main carb they intake, which theres a bunch of other carbs they grow in country for their own consumption to move over to if necessary.

    their economy if not able to compete would switch from being less export of produce to a heavier focus on tourism similar to other carribean nations.

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  • [โ€“] 1 point 2 years ago

    Oh, it's definitely not a definite thing that it would disrupt their farming, but cheap US agricultural products being introduced into a market has had negative impacts on other locations before, so it's not just a hypothetical.

    It's not so much about deliberately trying to disrupt prices, more that the US doesn't send rice places, people bid on it. If a food distributor in Cuba finds that they can get rice cheaper from the US, they might opt to make that switch, or if they just bring in corn people might increase the corn in their diet since it's cheaper.

    Tourism might not be the best choice for them, at least if offshore ownership is allowed. It often ends up providing jobs, but little of the money actually stays in the locale beyond wages and some minor commodities.

    How Cuba having a more planned economy impacts all this is also an interesting thing to consider, since they could just dictate "no offshore resort owners, and minimum rice prices".

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago*

    Not exactly.

    Any ship that docks in Cuba is barred entry to US ports in the next 180 days.

    The US can also sanction foriegn companies that trade with Cuba.

    It's not a blockade but it has a chilling effect on trade.

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