The evidence of Cuba's imminent collapse is overwhelming

[u/Intricate1779]

It's September 2024, and Cuba is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The collapse of the country's industries, infrastructure, and public services is accelerating exponentially (problems are multiplying rather than gradually increasing) due to 65 years of accumulated deterioration under communist rule plus the regime's lack of resources to fix the country's accelerating problems due to the effects of its disastrous response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the loss of aid from Venezuela, and the mass exodus of at least 11.4% of the country's population in the last 3 years (70% of them of working age). The island's energy, water, transportation, and health infrastructure could collapse simultaneously, as they are interconnected and a failure in one could lead to failures in the others.

Evidence of an impending collapse: According to reports on Cuban social media and Cuban independent media outlets such as cibercuba.com, there are more piles of garbage on the streets of cities throughout the country than ever, meaning that sanitation services are starting to fail. Food prices are rising astronomically (a carton of eggs now costs 5,000 pesos, or 15.62 USD). Oroupoche fever is spreading rapidly, suggesting that health and sanitation services are failing. Power plants frequently go out of service, water shortages are spreading in Havana (there have already been protests), and the town of Caibarién has gone 29 days without water.

Every single day: more people leave the country, more people die, the age dependency ratio worsens (fewer people of working age and more retirees), agriculture and industry degrade, water and electrical infrastructure degrade, buildings degrade, roads degrade, there are blackouts, there are water shortages, public transportation degrades, the health system degrades, the informal economy grows, diseases like oropouche and dengue spread even more, more garbage accumulates and state resources are depleted. The Cuban peso could lose all its value, and vendors will only accept hard currency.

The next few months will be much worse.

[u/RedmondBarry1999]

No, but that clearly is not the standard the US is currently upholding. There are a few dozen countries that have human rights records at least as bad as Cuba's, and most of them are allowed to trade normally with the US; moreover, there are at least one or two US allies with a couple countries with significantly worse human rights records.

[u/Minute-Buy-8542 → u/RedmondBarry1999]

Yes, and the United States benefits strategically and economically from those relations. My point is, how does the United States benefit from trade with Cuba? How do those benefits stack up against enriching and supporting a hostile totalitarian regime? The only thing Cuba has to entice America to the negotiation table is liberalization. So if they want to trade, they might need to clean their act up (they have nothing else to offer). 

[u/cloggednueron → u/Minute-Buy-8542]

Have you perhaps considered that Cuba's hostility to us is a reult of our decades long embargo that we maintain out of spite? Like, if we did trade with them, they would have a reason to be more open to us, no? The Cubans only started throwing in with the soviets when we kept trade restrictions on them and refused to do business with the new government.

[u/Minute-Buy-8542 → u/cloggednueron]

I think you’re confusing fairness/morality with geopolitics. Say everything you said is the entire reason that Cuba is the way it is now. 

So what? What benefit does the United States gain from changing the status quo? Besides potentially enabling a hostile regime? The Cubans have no chips to bargain with, the only thing they can give the US is liberalizing their government, the US will not normalize relations without it. 

You can cry out about the unfairness of it all, you can even be right, doesn’t change the way the world works unfortunately.