From our Bureau of Very Porous Embargoes with some assistance from our Bureau of Exiles Without Consciences
Is this the grand opening of Obamapalooza 2.0 ? Does it signal the end of the “blockade”?
It certainly looks like it. Thanks to Jar-Jar Biden and his accomplices, vehicles from a U.S. dealership can now be purchased by Cubans. And one so-called exile, Hugo Cancio, is already cashing in, with 30 of his vehicles on their way to Castrogonia.
Cancio has been doing business with Castro, Inc. for quite a while. He’s the owner of various enterprises, including an online food store and the propaganda website OnCuba.
A very large loophole allows him to sell vehicles to Castro, Inc.: He is ostensibly doing business only with MIPYMES, that is, so-calle private enterprises not connected to the dictatorship’s total monopoly on commerce.
Anyone who knows how Castro, Inc. operates is aware of the fact that most –or all — MIPYMES engaged in imports and exports are nothing but thinly-disguised entities of Castro, Inc.’s monopoly. In sum, Cancio will be enriching himself along with the dictatorship.
So, get ready for more such shenanigans, and for an end to the “blockade.”
Abridged and loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
The company Fuego Enterprises Inc., owned by Cuban-American businessman Hugo Cancio, who is close to the island’s regime, announced that it will start importing cars for sale in Cuba.
According to a statement from the company, which already has various businesses in Cuba, including the online food sales platform Katapulk, which also has its own fleet for home delivery of purchases paid for by emigrants, that business was authorized by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of the US Department of the Treasury.
The official note, quoted by the OnCuba website, also owned by Cancio and based in Havana, specifies that the Fuego Enterprises cars will be new and used, manufactured between 2018 and 2023, hybrid or combustion, as well as different brands and models.
The range of the offer includes microcars; subcompact and compact cars, midsize and large; deluxe; sports; convertibles; compact minivans; Mini, compact, midsize and large SUVs and pickup trucks.
The brands on offer are Ford, Mercedes Benz, Chevrolet, Toyota, BMW, Land Rover, Tesla, Cadillac and Nissan.
According to OnCuba, in just days Cancio’s company already has some 30 import applications being processed. It indicates that deliveries in Havana are made between ten and 20 days after the purchase is made.
Cancio stated that the imports would benefit the so-called non-state sector; that is, the MIPYMES authorized by the Government, and that would allow “improving and scaling the management of their businesses by having this type of means of transport.”
The OnCuba post claims that the approval of the so-called special licenses for these purchases in the US coincides with the will expressed by the Government of Joe Biden to support the island’s private sector.
However, it does not specify whether the vehicle purchases will benefit state-owned companies converted into MSMEs precisely to circumvent the US embargo, as numerous experts have denounced.
whole story HERE in Spanish
This guy may be a lot of things, but I certainly don’t see him as an exile.