Yesterday, the New York Times dropped a bombshell on its readers. Unfortunately, they decided to this on Thanksgiving Day when no one is paying much attention. And to play it on the safe side, they also buried the revelation in an article with a headline that downplays this most incredible announcement.
The article is titled Cuba-Texas Trade Is Languishing in Poor Economy, and any person skimming the paper would surmise that the article discusses the worldwide economic crisis along with some liberal doses of “US Embargo” talking points, and how it has affected trade between Texas and Cuba’s dictatorship. In reality, however, the article exposes the real reason why trade with Cuba has declined, and it has nothing to do with the economic crisis or the embargo.
Countries like Venezuela, China, Brazil and Vietnam offer more trade incentives to the Cuban government than the private sector in the United States does, said John S. Kavulich, a senior policy adviser with the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council Inc., a nonprofit based in Washington that deals directly with the Cuban government. Cuba is “focusing on countries that will give them substantial government credits that they know they won’t have to pay back,” Mr. Kavulich said.
According to the economic council’s latest report, those countries provide more “favorable payment terms and less publicity when those payment terms are not honored,” which is expected given the lack of foreign investment.
“There is absolutely no incentive for the government of Raúl Castro to seek any re-engagement with the United States,” Mr. Kavulich said, “because any re-engagement with the United States has one guarantee, and that is uncertainty.”
Interesting how this is what we crazy, hardline intransigent exiles have been saying all along. And it is even more interesting that all those “Cuba Experts” out there who are lobbying hard to lift sanctions against the dictatorship are quite aware of this too. But you will never hear them utter a word about this reality.
I wonder why?