On 1 January 2020, Cuba celebrated the 61st anniversary of the revolution. But 2019 was no bed of roses. Throughout, Cuba faced mounting political hostility, propaganda and a punitive intensification of the US imperialist blockade. Despite these attacks, socialist Cuba has made steady progress increasing the social gains of the working class, maintained its commitment to internationalism and was once again recognised as the world’s leading nation on sustainable development. WILL HARNEY reports.
Under siege
In 2019, US President Donald Trump launched a dramatic escalation of sanctions against Cuba with the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act (see FRFI 270). This US law allows lawsuits to be heard in US courts against companies that trade with Cuban state enterprises. The Trump administration also imposed severe travel restrictions to prevent people flying from the US to Cuba. In June the US Treasury Department banned educational and recreational ‘people to people’ trips. A travel ban was imposed on private and corporate aircraft and ships to Cuba. British bank Standard Chartered paid a $657 million fine to the US Treasury in April for violating sanctions against blacklisted countries including Cuba.
The blockade has cost Cuba $4.3 billion in losses from April 2018-March 2019, the latest period reported on by Cuba’s Foreign Ministry (Granma International 4 October 2019). $1.4 billion of these losses are to the tourist industry which employs 618,000 people. Other damages include loss of trade by the Cuban biomedical industry, for example lost sales of Herberprot-p, a unique ulcer medication that cannot be exported to the US market where it could earn more than $100m for Cuba. Cuban patients with treatable diseases have died because the blockade prevents the purchase of medical devices from US companies, even though Cuba has money to buy them.
Fuel supply pressure
The US also attempted to instigate a fuel crisis in Cuba. Until 2015, Cuba imported around 90,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude and fuel oil from Venezuela as part of the Petrocaribe alliance in exchange for development aid including medical services. Around 20,000 Cuban staff work in Venezuela, nearly all medics, 64% of whom are women. According to 2017 figures Cuba consumes around 145,000 bpd of crude oil but produces 51,000 bpd (35%), so imports are vital.1 But since the US began imposing sanctions on Venezuela in March 2015, oil imports have dropped sharply. In April 2019 the Trump administration sanctioned 34 tankers owned or operated by Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and began sanctioning private companies and vessels contracted to deliver oil to Cuba. Under threat of punishment, private tanker operators started pulling out. In July the US sanctioned Cuban state enterprise Cubametales which receives oil barrels from Venezuela. In the first ten months of 2019, Venezuelan oil imports fell by 38% to 55,300 bpd.
The result was a fuel shortage. Cuba adapted to the situation by reducing consumption and increasing efficiency with 37 energy saving measures. Air conditioning in state institutions, street lighting and public transport services were temporarily reduced. Energy prices have not increased. From the end of September, Venezuela increased fuel exports to Cuba to 119,000 bpd and devoted the majority of the PDVSA’s own fleet of tankers to trade with Cuba. While this has relieved pressure on supplies of crude oil, diesel and petrol, in November the US announced sanctions against Cuban state energy company Corporación Panamericana, which forced the cancellation of purchases of cooking gas cylinders.
Surviving against the odds
Despite these imperialist efforts, the US has failed to halt Cuba’s democratic development or its achievements in sustainability. Cuba’s economy grew 0.5% in 2019 according to Economy Minister Alejandro Gil (in Latin America and the Caribbean, the average GDP growth was 0.1%). While this is well short of the 1.5% target, it is a sign that Cuba is weathering the storm brewed up by Trump. The ‘special period’ of the 1990s – in which Cuba’s GDP contracted 30% after the collapse of the Soviet bloc – has not returned as some feared, and in the face of adversity Cuba reveals the priorities of a socialist state:
- Basic services in education, health, culture and sports are guaranteed. Not one hospital has closed. For 2020, 52% of the state budget is dedicated to education, health and social care.
- In April 2019, the Cuban people voted overwhelmingly to approve a new Constitution, drawn up democratically in debates throughout the country in 2018 (see FRFI 269). In accordance with the updated Constitution, Cuba’s first Prime Minister since 1976, Manuel Marrero Cruz, was elected in December 2019. Provincial governors were elected in January 2020.
- 4 million state sector employees received a pay rise averaging 41%, while pensions were also increased, in July (see FRFI 271). In 2020, total income of employees in the budgeted sector is projected to reach 66 billion pesos, an increase of 11.5%.
- 43,700 new houses were built in 2019. 40,800 houses are planned for 2020.
- Cuba sent doctors to Mozambique after Cyclone Idai in March, and brigades of doctors and teachers to the Bahamas after Hurricane Dorian in September.
- In December, Cuba experimented with giving change in retail stores only in Cuban National Pesos (CUP), a move towards currency unification which is vital to reduce pay inequality between the state and non-state sectors.
As environmental activism surged in the imperialist nations in 2019, Cuba’s example of sustainability became more relevant than ever. The Sustainable Development Index published in November 2019 ranks countries higher if they have a high level of human development while remaining within the carrying capacity of Earth’s ecosystem.2 Cuba ranks at number one on the index, ahead of the advanced capitalist countries. Socialists in Britain need to point to Cuba’s leadership in this area.
A new decade
There is no room for complacency; the US will never let up on Cuba. Speaking at an international seminar on ‘Anti-neoliberal Rebellion in Our America’, in Caracas, Venezuela on 19 December, Cuban author Enrique Ubieta Gomez illustrated the US’s twisted imperialist perspective by quoting Michael Kozak, the US acting assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs.3 Parodying Karl Marx in a 5 December statement on the US Embassy in Cuba website, Kozak wrote: ‘A spectre is haunting the Western Hemisphere – the spectre of democracy.’ Latin Americans are indeed rising up for democracy and self-determination against imperialism. The US on the other hand uses all the legal and illegal tools at its disposal to crush any movement that threatens its parasitic rule over the ‘hemisphere’. What Kozak calls ‘democracy’ is the dictatorship of US imperialism.
Gomez gave Cuba’s vision of democracy: ‘Nothing replaces the unparalleled democratising experience of a triumphant Revolution … Let no one believe that we will stop shouting our embrace to those who give their souls and bodies in the struggle for social justice. We cannot put a stop to our solidarity and continue to be revolutionary.’
- In September 2019, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel stated that Cuba now produces 40% of its fuel domestically.
- sustainabledevelopmentindex.org
- 21 January 2020, en.granma.cu/2020-01-21/our-america-in-these-times
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! No 274, February/March 2020
