

Cuba is hoping to replace Venezuelan oil with American tourists - ipince
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/cuba-is-hoping-to-replace-venezuelan-oil-with-american-tourists/

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guard-of-terra
They seem to have a bright future ahead now that Russia let them forget $50B
debt, and USA suddently became friendly after that.

~~~
Someone1234
To be honest I definitely think that visit to Cuba by Putin cannot be ignored,
but I think the money isn't the main reason for the US's change in stance.

Between 1991 ish and now the cold war ended, but nothing much really changed
since then. It was like the entire world was just letting the status quo sit
for a while so see how things settled after such a large political change
(e.g. would Russia turn into a western-style democracy?).

And I think the Ukraine incident gave everyone (mostly europe and the US) a
wake up call that not only has Russia not changed, but it is likely not going
to change. So now you have Russia buddying up to Cuba again, and you also have
a Russia which is a legitimate threat to world peace (which isn't to say I
think Russia will attack the US, I mean world peace in the sense of Russia
picking fights with its direct neighbours).

So the US had a choice to make, they could either keep ignoring Cuba while
keeping its evidently ineffective embargo going, or they could try to buddy up
with Cuba. Given Russia's current financial position (read: bad) and the US's
position (read: good) it makes a lot of sense for Cuba to pick the US right
now over Russia.

The money forgiveness is just the "cherry on top." The fact that Cuba is now
largely out of Russia's pocket financially just makes it even easier for the
US to influence Cuba, which they've already started doing.

But ultimately with or without the forgiveness Cuba needs trade and tourism
from the US. Russia cannot offer that logistically. I'd describe it with this
analogy: "Russia and the US are both employers, but you owe Russia money,
Russia says that if you work for them they'll reduce your dept but pay you
nothing, the US says that if you work for them they'll just pay you normally
and if you wish to pay off the Russia debt so be it (but can keep it after)."

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guard-of-terra
"Given Russia's current financial position (read: bad) and the US's position
(read: good) it makes a lot of sense for Cuba to pick the US right now over
Russia.

The money forgiveness is just the "cherry on top.""

You can roughly translate as "Russia gave Cuba over to the US for free, plus
the extra blaming". No wonder one will be in bad financial position when they
have to forgive debts owned to them over and over.

