CUBA | America's Collapsing Enemy?

Did you ever hear the Tragedy of Tony Montana the Wise?

Thanks for the in-depth analysis. 👍

@SpecialMuppetOperation Thanks so much. This really was a video I had wanted to do for ages.

Haha! It was everything I could do not to sneak in a Scarface reference. :-)

Ultimately, a perspective I often see is that it's the duty of the United States to ease the suffering of the Cuban people. However when I hear this, I often wonder why these same folks ignore Cuban military interventions in Latin America and Africa on behalf of Communist parties which sought to overthrow numerous national governments. Some major examples of this include...
The Panama coup 1959
Invasion of the Dominican Republic 1959
War in Algeria, 1963
The Machurucuto raid 1967
The Congo Crisis 1964
Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
Yemenite War of 1972 (provided air support to Yemeni rebels)
Support to Syrian forces during the Yom Kippur War
The history of armed rebel groups in Chile that caused 20 years of conflict against communist rebels backed by the Cubans.
The Angolan War
The Ogaden War
Nicaraguan Revolution
And in 1992 they attempted a coup against the then president of Venezuela.
For sources I used Wikipedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_interventions_by_Cuba#:~:text=Cuba's%20largest%20foreign%20interventions%20were,during%20the%20October%201973%20War.
I know it's not the best in terms of scholarly rigor, but still it gets the point across.
The Cubans took part in military interventions globally and routinely. It was only with the defeat of the communist party in Russia that these conflicts finally started to calm. As an American I am not fond of American intervention in Latin America. I am also not fond of this revisionist line of thinking. Cuban intervention in Latin America was every bit as violent, bloody, and horrid as American intervention. We are still dealing with the consequences of that to this day. I am terrified that if we were to ease up on these folks it would just create another Iran, only this time it would be one targeting places closer to home. As an American I'm largely glad that they've been beaten, and I'm uncertain if the correct thing to do is to aid a wobbling and decrepit regime for the humanitarian aspects, knowing that it could lead to the reimplementation of their activities which allowed for massive regional destabilization as had taken place in past decades.

That’s actually a pretty good one.

Worse for who?

Write it in Spanish

Más se perdió en Cuba.

We have the same saying in Portugal "mais se perdeu em..." Nah! Just kidding! We don't.
We just say "calm down! Portugal is still ours!" When someone is freaking out.

Thank you so much!

Media does not seem concerned about much today other than Gaza. How often does the almost finished full genocide in Darfur make major news? How much news attention does Azerbaijan's expanding new Armenian Genocide get media time.
The world media is obsessed with the Gaza situation, seeking stories during quite times and ignoring the massive set of catastrophes killing 100,000s of people in real time going on all over the world. Cuba's situation, compared to Haiti or Sudan seems to not even get a minutes attention a year.

@@JamesKerLindsay Your video & analysis is obtuse. The reason Cuba has declined over the years comes down to one thing & that thing is communism & its utter failure everywhere its been tried. It's time to give your head a shake.

@@autodidact537 strange comment. When did I say that it was solely down to the US? I’ve been there. I’ve seen the problems at first hand. I know full well how the political system stifles discussion and free speech. But, equally, the embargo has had a major effect. And let’s not forget that the entire world stands against the embargo, which many see as cruel and vindictive.

Quite a hogmatic view with zero nuance ​@@autodidact537

Thank you so much. I really appreciate the kind words of support. I agree. I had the good fortune to visit Cuba a few years ago. The people were incredibly friendly and kind. And education and healthcare was excellent. But you could also see the darker side of the system they lived under. Their interactions with foreigners were limited and news and information was clearly restricted, even though things had opened up a lot. It really is a case where one can see a balance between the arguments of the two competing sides. It is possible to see the damage done by the United States historically and because of the embargo. But equally one can also appreciate the argument that Cubans face a highly restrictive system that has stopped a lot of economic development.

Travelling in Cuba (between 1995 and 2000) I noticed people are writing, don't lose their teeth and are well informed of the european affairs.

" I have always found Cubans friendly, generous, and fun, and the level of education is high. " I can agree from my limited touristic contacts. So why is it that the leadership and their hangers on are dogmatic, repressive and backward?

bad? better who do not agree leave, which is in part comprehensible, youngest generations do not live the sacrifice and problems of the past to save the country from US, and in top of that are fully well brain washed.

How is it bad that folks choose to immigrate to the U.S.?

@@EasilyCringed it’s not the fact that people are coming to America that’s bad; it is the fact that people hate their own country enough to leave it.
It has gotten so bad that people (including my parents) have went to extreme lengths to leave that hellhole of a country.

@@ManyWaysMA
Totul se datorează politicii americane care a sufocat această țară. Cuba a trebuit să trăiască sub un embargou criminal al americanilor. Nu Cuba a agresat America.

@@EasilyCringed 4% of the country leaving in a few years is a VERY bad sign, regardless of where they're going

Thanks. You are right. I briefly mentioned this, but didn’t go into a lot of detail about it. But the Cuban diaspora is indeed a very important factor.

Well the whole reason many American politicans has taken such a tough stance on the Cuba Is because Florida. In American elections Florida has historically been a key swing state There has a high electoral vote count. So if you win the State of Florida you have much higher odds of witting the general election. In an order to win Florida you have to win the Cubans of Miami Dade County. And the best way to win them over is having a tough stance on the Cuban government

Good point that you have made. One of the ironies in a liberal democracy is that some pressure groups can have a disproportionate influence on the mainstream agenda.
Sometimes, the elites made use of these groups to push the agenda of the ruling network.
Therefore this resulted in some Western nations apparently being more interested in the situation of other countries than the situation at home.
These pressure groups sometimes had the unfortunate effect of convincing Western governments that people in non-Western countries would gladly welcome some form of Western takeover when the reality could be quite different.
While I can see there has been sympathy for 3 generations of Cuban exiles for the past 60 years, it seems the average US citizen and Florida local regular resident holds the view that so long Cuba does not pose a significant threat, there is no need for regime change.
Not so for the exiles. Some of these youngsters still want to fulfil the wishes of their great-granduncles.

@@VMan29397 Well, maybe that, and how about the Cuban missile crisis look in history we have plenty of reasons to be a little hesitant on trust

All this shows is that Cubans know how to prosper given personal, political, religious and economic freedom. We Cubans stagnate without personal, political, religious and economic freedom. We have produced nearly nothing in the 6 decades since the communist dictatorship toppled our government. We now do not even produce enough bread nor sugar for our own domestic consumption. Something that we use to export in the billions of dollars' worth of exports along with all kinds of fruits, vegetables, and other agricultural and non-agricultural product. For 6 decades we have produced nothing. Only 2 countries enforce the embargo. Cuba's dictatorship has borrowed and bought billions from the rest of the world that does not adhere to the embargo. Our dictatorship does not pay its bills, it steals what little wealth that does get produced and the other 200 or so countries that do not adhere to the embargo are any longer willing to sell to a government that regularly defaults on its financial obligations. Even China will not sell to the Cuban dictatorship what it cannot pay for upfront because they know they will not get paid, ever.

Cuba isn't the problem. Communism is.

You good, I good, and everybody is good!?

"Cuban people have always been welcome in the US"
Of course, the US welcomed all those fleeing the Cuban totalitarian dictatorship! 😂

We all want to see everyone doing well. The problem is THE SPECIFIC IDEOLOGY, in both social and economic terms. History cannot be undone. THEY DID FAIL, world wide.

The Cuban government is Communist, but the Cuban people aren't. That's been my observation on my visits there. Sometimes careful in how they disparage the government to an American, but it is there nonetheless. If you have any knowledge of Cuba's history, especially the wars of independence and the Platt amendment, they will open up and tell you how they really feel.

Ignores decades of deliberate and existential interference by the most powerful empire in global history

@@Niksg9424 those efforts didn't really have much effect, including direct assassination efforts. So it doesn't count.
The analysis in this video, and my comments relate to the present, that's very much relevant.

That's the essential weakness of the system then, isn't it? If you have to rely on the revolutionary zeal of a few charismatic individuals, and not a political and social culture, then it always was doomed to failure. That's the problem with all authoritarian, and totalitarian systems, they appear strong, but are weak because they lack depth, no strong institutions develop, it's just "whatever the big guy says".

@@cthoadmin7458 that's the nature of all such regimes.
I was speaking about the merits or the demerits, I was merely commenting on the present situation.
Since you've raised the point, the only truly natural system where long term stability is built-in is in a mature democracy, not just democracy, but a mature democracy.
All other systems have strong weaknesses, in the long term.

@@youknow6968 There's nothing natural about democracy, it's advantage in my view is that it provides an error correcting mechanism: no system can be right all the time, so there needs to be a way to hold those in power accountable, and scrutinise decisions made. It's a dialogue between the government and the governed. That's Cuba's problem now, there's no immediate, viable alternative. All opposing ideas have been purged. Mothers can scream in desperation all they like about malnourished children, but no one in the regime will pay the price, and even if they did what's the alternative?

Communismis weak.
Religion is strong.

@@bruceli9094 oil is king

​@@bruceli9094Vietnam and China are Communist. Saudi Arabia theocratic monarchy.

KSA is just one.

Cuba isnt North Korea. Once Cubans lose fear of the regime, it will collapse. Cuba isnt as isolated as North Korea.

The DPRK has an elaborate system for making money outside of the nation to keep the Kim dynasty afloat. Cuba doesn’t have that

Eh, very different countries. For one North Korea has backers like the CCP that doesn't want to see a collapse and flood of refugee. North Korea's totalitarian control is far far stronger over its populace.

North Korea didn't collapse thanks to South Korean aids in hopes of peaceful coexistence. Didn't happen and South Korea has stopped any further aids. North Korea is in their last leg. Cuba doesn't have such backers.

North Korea also has help from PRChina and Russia who wants a buffer state against the US-allied countries. And North Korea is physically connected to their "allies". Cuba has none of those benefits...

The next year might be brutal things look like they're only getting worse.

@@bilic8094 we haven't even finished this year.....

Thanks as always, Andrew. It’s always great to hear your thoughts. The diaspora is certainly a very powerful factor in this story. But what I found really curious when I went to Cuba about six years ago was how Cuban Americans who were visiting seemed to have a thing for wearing US flag swimsuits. It was bizarre. There weren’t a lot of them where I was, but you knew where they came from. I think it probably irritated the local Cubans, not because of a hatred of America, but because they were also so brash. No other nationalists did this. Interestingly, there were lots of Italian holidaymakers where we were (and a few Brits). But the nationalist that really stood out were the Canadians. The Cubans really love the Canadians. (Who doesn’t, to be fair.) Celine Dion is a national star. Old videos - remember them! - of her singing were all over the place. :-)

@@JamesKerLindsay I went to Cuba last year. The Cubans seemed very proud of their healthcare and other public services and didn’t really want remove socialism. Plus, most Cubans who travel don’t just go to Miami, but also travel back to Cuba often to work. Cuba in reality doesn’t feel or fit the description of a dictatorship at all, it has a president, prime minister, term limits, and democratic elections. The only police I saw were the traffic police randomly checking for drivers licenses.

As the internet joke goes on about in reference Cuba & Canada, "Justin Castro" as the Prime Minister in Canada will of course make put Candians in a positive light in the eyes of Cubans.. (LOL).
But on a serious note it would make sense that Cuban-Americans would be brash in their display of being American because it could be seen as a chauvinistic display of their choice to display to Cubans in Cuba the economic success the expats have experienced by showing they have returned, they have enjoyed success in a capitalist nation, while the remaining people of Cuba focused on the doctire of socialism & the cult of personality surrounding Castro over the decades have left Cuba a poor nation.
As a component of the Cold War Cuba could be seen to be like the DDR, when in the war of savagery brutality both sides inflicted upon each other in the 1940s, communism was imposed upon the people in eastern Germany. So in the American body politic people subconsciously see that communism was imposed upon the Cuban people by a charismatic revolutionary leader, not by choice of the Cubans.
As a somewhat frozen component of the Cold War, the US has, as a matter of law, place economy sanctions on Cuba, and until that chages we can forcast that Cuba will be locked out of economic growth and the political realities of the political power Cuban-Americans hold in the state of Florida, as well as the critical political power the state of Florida has in national electorical politics, Cuban will be kept out of world economic activities.
As your observations in Cuba there has been a deep cultural change and socialism is the political culture in Cuba, they will not throw off their form of government/economic system they have and will not like the former Soviet bloc nations in the Warsaw Pact have done since 1991, because the Soviets imposed communism upon eastern Europe, but Cuba did by a popular revolution embrased socialism. So Cuba, like north Korea will move forward as it chooses without the external influences of foreign nations. Thanks again for the topic.

@@andrewsarantakes639 Communism has never been implemented, only socialism has. The Cuban Government is currently focused on getting foreign investment to grow the economy, but the Embargo and SSOT list is making that a nightmare. The Cuban government actually seem to care about their citizens, which is more than can be said about western governments. Yet they are called a dictatorship when they clearly don’t fit the definition of one. Cuba is a democracy by all accounts, more so than the US.

The basis of the centuries old argument between socialism and free trade systems of economics is the free trade part. Communism and socialism cannot be untangled from each other no matter how much people try because the entire idea (ideology is a set of unproven ideas) is based on the core idea of controlling the economy. Everything else is what it takes to control the economy when most of the population is unhappy with the economy and government.

Cuba used to be one of the wealthiest countries in the Americas pre-Revolution.

Don't worry about the dictatorship, they have been preparing for this for decades & the island has been squeezed dry & all the money sent to Swiss ban accounts.

I have been in Cuba many times in the last few years and people tend to speak quietly about the government. Some said to me they were content, but many felt they were imprisoned on the island wondering what life was like for people who live in Canada or USA or Europe. The government has signs blaming the conditions on USA they can be seen in many place's in Cuba.

@@dwaynemcallister7231 There's a possibility that those who said they were content felt that you might be in strong sympathy and have contacts in the government. It's happened before and people are reluctant to say what they feel.

@@dwaynemcallister7231it’s practically illegal to speak ill of the head of state in Cuba, which is the same blind allegiance of cubans that are on American soil.

Thank you so much. This really was a topic I had wanted to explore for ages.

Did "THE" dictator Batista give you a bag of the billions he stole from the treasury on his way to the other dictatorship in the Dominican Republic when you left? Haha!

Most Cubans in miami do.

@@bilic8094I confirm, I live in Miami

@@Joey-dj4cd I never knew before that little Havana was right next to marlins baseball stadium it's a cool place I love it.

I hope you are honest and not one the brings ur dishonest and scammer ways to the usa

Thanks. Indeed. I did mention the Cuban American community, albeit only in passing. But it is of course another crucial underlying factor.

So it's Florida's fault that the communist system has created an economic disaster in the island?...Or the fact that they don't pay ANY of their trading partners? You do know they have 12 multi-lateral trading agreements with other countries & the EU, right?

The end of the USSR and Chavez meant no more cheap oil and Cuba uses oil to generate electricity there are long periods of blackout every day and this makes it impossible for industry to function and discourages any foreign investments. There are a lot of other problems historically not least of which is that Castro prevented any relationship with the IMF making it impossible for the country to get any help from this source. You say there is the problem put simply - anyone with a mediocre understanding of this matter knows it is far from simple and does not boil down to 27 electoral votes in Florida. I did a Ph D on this topic and I can assure you many things appear simple when you don't know what you are talking about.

@@rapier1954 Maduro still sends them oil, but not as much as before. What industry? The fact they have ripped off everyone that ever extended credit to them doesn't help either!

Cuban Americans are not a problem. They are the only people out side of Cuba who care about the human rights on that island.

Yeah, that's what EVERY country has ever done, including all countries in this hemisphere. And I have no problem with it. Our Interests are ours. Just because we WIN and flourish doesn't mean we're supposed to feel guilty about winning. Had Cuba not fallen for the Marxist Curse, they could've chartered a very different course vis a vis America and themselves. The USSR alliance sealed the deal. And we are historically more generous to defeated foes than any country has ever been. But Cuban leadership has the same attitude today as it did in 1950.
Furthermore, no foreign country can really "support" local populations without actual intervention. That's a nice way of saying armed intervention. We've spent trillions and wasted so many lives doing that since Vietnam that I think we've learned a lot.

And I would add when this is the case it seldom makes the lives of the people in those countries better.

2 billion people have come out of poverty since WW2 when their governments joined every capitalist institution America set up, and fought for, after WW2.
The greatest poverty alleviation there will ever be.

@@thedailygreatness Opinion from a Canadian here. Nations are perfectly entitled to resist American (or any other nation) economic domination via corporations. Small nations need to protect themselves from exploitation through fair restrictions, like shared ownership and shared profits.
BTW I trust you are supporting Ukraine's fight for freedom from authoritarian Putin, and you are opposing House Republicans' blockage of funding for Ukraine. The world does not need Ukraine to become a new Cuba, and USA should not waste more lives doing more Afghanistans.

Local soda brands must be encouraged more. Coca Cola having a near monopoly of the soda markets should end.

@@ianhomerpura8937 Jajaja....A government official opened a juice factory & is now in jail!! WTF is going to invest in that dictatorship?!

@@evaristmilian7826 I don't get why Cuba still insists on that model when even other communist countries have changed and restructured their economies back in the 90s

@@ianhomerpura8937 Is a family dynasty that controls all the resources of the country and don't want to let it go. Along with a privilege few that get some of the crumbs, a population that has been indoctrinated over 6 decades & a repression apparatus that people are extremely afraid of.

Better to go back to ex president Obama's approach.

Thank you so much, Peter. As always, I really and truly appreciate your wonderful support. 👍🙏🏻🙂🇦🇺

Venezuelan oil is very high in organometallics, especially vanadium compounds. These are poisons to refinery catalysts, and thus special refineries are needed to economically process it.

@@randacnam7321 Thanks.

Simple. Venezuela is socialist and socialism/communism do not work. Eventually you run out of other people's money as Thatcher said.

I hope your house is ready to house all the Cuban refugees.

Seven decades to be exact.

@@jamesmitch9792 They're already here. 500,000 Cuban refugees have entered the US in the past 2 years

You can take them in James. I am sure they are ready for you @@jamesmitch9792

Including decades of lobbying by former hacienderos now living in Florida

Can you link me this source? I’m interested to study this more profoundly

Cuba will soon follow Venenzula and join BRICS. This will enable free trade with other BRICS nation and effectively nullify US sanctions/ embargo. Russia was sanctioned yet continues to trade within the BRICS block with its economy prospering and the Russian people able to live without suffering shortages as the Cuban do because of US embargo/sanctions..

@@israelmejia5598 You think so or do you know so? The B, I & S of BRICS has some of the most stringent currency controls. Which means the exchange rate for the Havana Govt. would be a nightmare because of enforced limitations. The C, has an entire bureaucracy called SAFE (State Administration on Foreign Exchange) Any trade deals with China, Havana would have to use their limited US Dollar Reserves in exchange for RMBs. Now China is an EXPORT base economy and that means Cuba would have to buy goods like electronics and EVs with those exchanged RMBs. Where Havana is having an ongoing and consistent problems keeping the LIGHTS on. Another problem with the PRC's SAFE policies, Cuba will not be getting US Dollars back for unused RMBs. Now the R, no one wants Rubles, especially Havana. They had the same problem during the end of the Cold War and that was when the Soviet Union was 1/3rd of the World Economy. Russia is now 1/18th of the World Economy. So there will not be any BRICS saving Cuba from the embargo, because Havana's political elite BENEFITS from the embargo and their ready access to US Dollars just like Maduro in Venezuela. 😆😆😆

Russia had well thought-out strategies to weather NATO sanctions, which included assistance from China and selling Russian oil overseas. Like Russia, China is hardening itself against sanctions with lessons learned from Russia. China is hoarding large stockpiles of precious metals and oil and food, which is a strategy that Russia is using to weather sanctions. A lot of Russian technologies used in Russian weapons and aircraft used overseas parts and foreign microchips. This forced Russia to dump some weapons programs and focus on artillery and strategies that are very expensive in human life and put valuable assets closer to the front and in more danger from NATO weapon systems. Russia is currently conscripting ethnic minorities away from Moscow to limit popular discontent and quashing dissent in Moscow quickly. Moscow is where the majority of Russians live and the Soviet Union intentionally created many villages surrounding Moscow to control the population. Russia economically is weathering sanctions, but they can't replace high tech aircraft and weapons as easily. What Russia can do is mass produce many lower tech weapon systems and the ammunition for them. Russia is also importing weapons and drones and ammo from their allies.

@@israelmejia5598BRICS is not a free-trade area and Cuba already trades with all BRICS members. It's hilarious how little you understand about the world.

exactly. he was talking about cuba like the UK doesnt still own part of ireland

@@andrewprindiville119 And Ireland isn't even openly hostile to the UK anymore. No major nation is tolerant of bordering or littoral hostile nations. At best there is political and economic antagonism, at worst there is an ongoing or recurring war.

well to be clear they took over ireland long before ireland was hostile to Britain, your first argument was better @@stanton7847

Not that it fundamentally changes your point, but depending on whether you include the US territories there are 4 to 10 nations closer to the US than Cuba. Everyone always forgets that Russia is the closest after Canada and Mexico. Also, your argument would justify Russia meddling with Ukraine, Georgia, Finland and the Baltics, which are closer to it than Cuba is to the US. The original beef the US had with Cuba was valid, but that was a long time ago. Continuing this now undermines American arguments for respecting sovereignty elsewhere.

​@@maninredhelmnot really. Cuba is in a position to threaten the most strategic part of the US, the Gulf Coast.

Thank you so much. It is a really fascinating country. I really loved it when I went. But seeing it as a tourist is one thing. There are also so many elements that are deeply worrying, such as the way the government controls information and contacts with outsiders.

Haha! Thanks so much. But I have to say that I fiercely reject the idea that anyone who watches my channel on a regular basis could ever be a “knucklehead”! :-) Thanks again and have a really great weekend!

True look at Isra -Hell with Billions of US dollars....

It was always difficult. No matter the era, revolution only works when the army joins mass mouvement.

In Cuba if you are against the regime you're called a counter revolutionary.

@@mat3714 But is it more difficult than it once was? Even if by just a bit, that’s significant

@@thomasjohnson2862 I don't think it is. No matter the means of repression, if the army joins the people it's usually over for the "government". That's why autocracies favors loyalty over competency. And it's also valid the other way around just like recent events provided new exemples, if the population joined prighozin or the military coup in turkey.....neither Putin nor erdogan would be in power.
I'm an history buff ( doesn't mean i have all the right answers ) and i could recommend a great podcast. It's called "revolutions" by Mike Duncan. Step by step narrative of 10 revolutions, from the English to the russian revolutions. I'm not mincing my words here, it's head and shoulders above the average podcast. He have a political formation and talks about history.

How? The US has treated them horribly in the past, which the US caused. And whilst yes, I do believe that Cuba should democratize, I feel that it would be a terrible idea fully aligning with a nation that has taken so much from them

@@joshuafrimpong244 Im aware of the troubled past but ultimately don’t see how it could’ve possibly worked out worse for the Cuban people,than how the actual timeline played out for them

No statehood for Cuba. And Puerto Rico needs to be a sovereign country.

@@gregorymalchuk272 The majority of Puerto Ricans want it to be a US state or maintain the status it currently has, compared to the minority that wants it completely independent from America. Keep on dreaming tho lmao

@@Cam-ye5qg Well I'm a US citizen of an actual state and we don't want to take on the immense problems of a dysfunctional, bankrupt, central American/Caribbean society.

Thanks. I went about five years ago and thought the same. There are heavy restrictions on access to information and obvious shortages. It was an amazing country and the people are incredibly welcoming. But you could see the very real problems.

And crime will most likely be rampant.

Thank you very much!

Thanks. I did actually mention it. But I didn’t go into detail about it. Unfortunately, in a short overview video like this it isn’t possible to focus on every element of the relationship. But I did certainly acknowledge this.

Thanks. You are right. It isn’t small. It was rather meant in relations to the size of the United States. But of course is absolute terms it is far from small. (I have in fact been.)

Thanks, Stephen. I can see your point. But I would really emphasise that I’m not an expert on each of the conflicts I cover. I couldn’t claim to be able to offer that sort of deep current affairs analysis. (I speak as someone who is an area studies specialist on SE Europe. Ask me about Cyprus or Kosovo and I can do a really detailed analysis of what is happening now. But I have been working on them for almost three decades.) What I try to do with the channel, is go deeper than the information one will find on news sites and provide a historical background to a news story and try to set it in a wider political or international relations context. I have always felt that this could provide viewers who are really interested in a topic with enough information to familiarise themselves with the issue to then go off and find out more.

Los misiles nunca se fueron

Thanks. That’s interesting, when I visited Cuba, they absolutely loved the Canadians. Flags all over the place. Seriously, Celine Dion is still a star over there. If Canadians aren’t visiting it will hit the economy even harder.

@JamesKerLindsay Some other agencies are bumping their customers who would like to go 🚶‍♀️ to Cuba 🇨🇺 to Dominican Republic 🇩🇴 or Mexico 🇲🇽 and Mexico 🇲🇽 is now the 7th most visited country in the world 🌎. The reason why Vacances Crystal 🔮 has stopped ✋️ selling Cuba 🇨🇺 is due the big amount of complaints from their customers who had traveled there.

Thank you so much! Very best regards from a Brit in the Mediterranean! :-)

@@JamesKerLindsay 🙏🙏💕

So F what? You want to impose ssnctions on Japan? What good would that do? Cuba is a dictatorship. That is what the cubans I know are telling me. The cost of overthrowing it is manageable. Thus it makes sense to do so. The US is not Father Christmas, they cannot be expected to solve all the worlds problems.

...by US sanctions to their lives.

@@stuartwray6175
No. By Cuban government economic repression.

Regimen of what 🤔

Thank you so much!

Thanks so much David.

Thanks. It really is a tough question. As I mentioned, there are obviously two very different views. Cuba sees this as a battle for self-determination against a history of US interference. But the US does appear to be taking an unnecessarily hard line that seems out of touch with the rest of the world. It is amazing that 187/193 UN members voted against the embargo, this includes practically every one of its major allies. Indeed, the only country voted against alongside the US was Israel. (Ukraine was the one abstention.) But you’re right. The president does seem to be getting rather close to Putin. Its own of these situations where one can see all sorts of points when things could have been done differently. Obama made the greatest leap. But Trump reversed it. But Biden doesn’t seem to have been in a mood to significantly swinging back. It really is a fascinating case study in US foreign policy.

Umm yes and it does not suit us to have a relationship with Cuba's communist regime. They can find other countries to be friends with because we don't want it. It's our choice. Cuba nationalized billions in US assets. BYE!!!!!

Obviously having good relations with a country that is friendly or useful is the norm, while having bad relations with those that favor your enemies, fight against you and oppose almost everything you do or stand for, is going to be a problem. This is the situation with Cuba.

Having a good professional working relationship with someone you do not like at work is not equivalent to supporting or condoning all the dirty stuff they do outside of work. Not all countries burn bridges. It is useful for nations to get along. Peace and stability depends on nations getting along with each other.

US puppet?! Not likely. He played the US state department like a fiddle. He told them whatever they wanted to hear, & then proceeded to do whatever he wanted.

Puerto Rico literally wants to be a US state. The only people who want independence are woke liberals from college campuses. Guam has the most US soldiers per capita

No one really anticipated things would go that far. The issue was the perceived attack on an American warship in Havana harbor while monitoring the treatment of civilians during a period of intense nationalist conflict on the island. Most people assumed that Spain would just roll over and give up cuba if the U.S. made it clear that the gloves were coming off.
The idea that the US would have time to invade Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines seemed pretty unlikely. Spain may not have had the military capacity to defend much of its colonies but it was still a proud empire and was not going to hand things over quickly or lightly. This led to the US to attack other areas to make it clear that if Spain didn’t come to the negotiating table now things would just get worse and worse and once they did it was kind of silly to expect the US to just give everything back.

@Mankorra_Gomorrah US annexation of Cuba was a long held ambition since before the Civil War. Southern politicians wanted to annex it as a slave state.

@@MrSaemischyou literally said, in your own original post, that the declaration of war had a clause that explicitly forbid the United States from annexing Cuba at the time when it was most possible. Yes some southern politicians had shitty ideas and yes, the confederate government had a lot of cracked out “plans”; but none of that is relevant because they weren’t a majority or in any position to do anything as evidenced by the fact they failed to shoot down a bill explicitly forbidding the annexation of Cuba. This is also entirely irrelevant to what you are actually discussing in your original comment, and what I discussed in my response, which was the conquest of other territories such as Guam and Puerto Rico.

@Mankorra_Gomorrah US imperial expansion was incredibly controversial at the time. So were the annexations after the war, especially the Phillipines. If there was zero chance of Cuba's annexation, why the Teller amendment? Why the annexations of the Phillipines, Puerto Rico, and Guam?

Yeah, let’s hope the embargo goes ;)

The United States would be wise to remember that it's days are limited