From our Bureau of Imaginary Blockades with some assistance from our Bureau of Lies the World Loves to Believe
Good morning! Cheer up! The “blockade” ostensibly responsible for every awful aspect of life in Castrogonia has just been proven to be a mere illusion. As it turns out, Castro, Inc. has purchased so many tons of food from the U.S. that it could declare itself totally dependent on it for the survival of the Cuban people. See statistics below. And on top of all this American food, Castro, Inc. also received $36,563,551 in humanitarian donations from the U.S. in 2023.
Oh, but don’t expect Castro, Inc. to stop blaming all of its failures on the “blockade” and those mean exiles in Miami who force American presidents to keep it going. That ain’t never, ever gonna happen. The “blockade” is its chief deity, the false god who must be invoked every day. Why? Because billions of people on earth are dumb enough or vile enough to believe that lie, even when they know it’s a lie.
Loosely translated from Diario de Cuba
Exports of food and agricultural products from the US to Cuba in 2023 grew compared to 2022, totaling 342,607,027 dollars, an increase, despite the embargo and the “liquidity problems” that Havana claims to have, compared to 328,536. $988 from the previous year.
With the data at the end of last December, 2023 ended in tenth place among the years of greatest acquisitions since Washington authorized the island’s regime to acquire food products in its market.
Now, counting from the time that, in December 2001, Havana began to take advantage of these benefits, purchases in its northern neighbor are greater than 7,246,333,393 dollars, indicated the Cuba-US Economic and Commercial Council.
In chicken meat alone, the product that accounts for 90% of purchases, Cuba imported $282,625,745 in the 12 months of 2023. This, despite the fact that this food, one of the meats most consumed by Cubans, has been expensive and scarce in the island’s markets.
According to figures from the US Department of Agriculture, poultry meat purchases are broken down as follows:
Frozen chicken leg quarters: $136,866,359, 43.6% of the total.
Frozen chicken meat: $93,942,602 (29.9%).
Frozen chicken thighs: $38,928,985 (12.4%).
Canned chicken meat: $9,841,876 (3.1%).
Frozen chicken meat and edible offal: $3,045,932 (1.0%).The above is followed by a traditional product of the Island, for decades an export item of which the Cuban market can no longer even be self-sufficient: coffee. Of that infusion, Havana bought $5,467,101 from its northern neighbor, including roasted, non-roasted, organic and non-organic varieties, 1.7% of its total purchases.
Added to the above are $4,573,013 (1.5% of the total) in calcium phosphates, allegedly used in the manufacture of agricultural fertilizers; frozen pork ($4,031,078, 1.3%); milk in different varieties, such as condensed and unsweetened ($2,914,674, 1.0%), and processed pork ($2,116,222, 0.70%).
Apart from the above, during 2023 the humanitarian donations recorded by US agencies amounted to 36,563,551 dollars, an increase compared to 30,083,306 dollars in 2022, 11,074,090 in 2021 and 4,605,055 in 2020.
continue reading HERE in Spanish