More Chicken ...

[Meklown]

8 hours ago, nino said:

Good - I am all for your idea and would love to see it happen as much as I would love as many people call for an end of the "internal embargo" by the Cuban gvmt. that is not as well known but so much more damaging to the Cuban people.

My opinion is that assuming the corrupt dictatorship doesn't go away, and assuming they will continue to take ... ~90% of the pie. If the embargo goes, the pie becomes bigger, and the 10% "remainders" become more. The people would have a slightly better life. 

[Nino]

My apologies - but there is more chicken to report 🙂

US chicken again shipped from Mobile AL to HAV and Santiago de Cuba - this time from Pilgrims Farms.

No problem, it is legal and there is no embargo on food and/or medicines to Cuba as long as it is paid in cash.

But why would Cuban tv never mention that the chicken off-loaded is from the US ?

Yep, perpetuate the myth of the "evil embargo" by the Yumas.

Love me some well done "Agit-Prop" features to show how bad y'all is.

 

[El Presidente]

28 minutes ago, nino said:

 

No problem, it is legal and there is no embargo on food and/or medicines to Cuba as long as it is paid in cash.

 

flip side 

the extorion continues. 

• You restrict the rest of the western world from trading in chicken with the Cubans by threatening their US trade market should they do so. 
• You remove cuba from the internatinal banking system
• You make yourself the only logical seller. 
• You then set the price. 
• You insist on cash. 

 

mafia 101

 

[Nino]

12 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

flip side 

the extorion continues. 

• You restrict the rest of the western world from trading in chicken with the Cubans by threatening their US trade market should they do so. 
• You remove cuba from the internatinal banking system
• You make yourself the only logical seller. 
• You then set the price. 
• You insist on cash. 

 

mafia 101

 

OK, fair point.

Can you prove the points ?

Specifically  restricting "rest of the world" trading in chicken
Remove Cuba from the banking system
Make yourself the only "logical" seller
Setting the price
No need for last point as only cash payment is allowed due to Cuba's poor credit rating.

Thanks

PS : If Mafia 101 then congrats to Cuba for their implementation of Mafia 101 to screw their population  and keep them ignorant of the facts.

 

[El Presidente]

18 minutes ago, nino said:

OK, fair point.

Can you prove the points ?

Specifically  restricting "rest of the world" trading in chicken
Remove Cuba from the banking system
Make yourself the only "logical" seller
Setting the price
No need for last point as only cash payment is allowed due to Cuba's poor credit rating.

Thanks

PS : If Mafia 101 then congrats to Cuba for their implementation of Mafia 101 to screw their population  and keep them ignorant of the facts.

 

I would love to Nino. Off to the warehouse now but will progress tomorrow if needed. 

Keep in mind that I now know of four cases in the past six months where international Habanos  distributors banks have asked them to leave and closed their accounts because they are dealing in cuban product.  This occured in Asia/Spain/UK. 

This article is a little dated but it has only gotten worse:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-sanctions-investment-analysis/tougher-u-s-sanctions-make-cuba-ever-more-difficult-for-western-firms-idUSKBN1WO2LP

this probably sums it up best.  

"The U.S. system of economic sanctions on Cuba is still in force in 2020 and includes every major method available to a sanctioning state: trade control, suspension of aid and technical assistance, freezing of the target’s financial assets, and the blacklisting of foreign companies involved in trade with Cuba.⁷ These restrictions are particularly damaging in light of the global pandemic.

Since June 2017, the Trump administration has taken economic sanctions to unprecedented levels in terms of their “extraterritoriality,” that is, the interference in Cuba’s trade with third countries. The tightening of economic sanctions on Cuba by the Trump administration is explicitly geared toward both bankrupting the Cuban state by targeting the Cuban economy’s areas of strengths, such as tourism and the export of professional services, and exploiting its vulnerabilities, such as the need to attract foreign direct investment and its energy dependence"

 

 

[Jimmy_jack]

It amazes me that my government won’t budge on Cuba...but deals with China, the Saudis and so on. I’m dumbfounded. 

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, Jimmy_jack said:

It amazes me that my government won’t budge on Cuba...but deals with China, the Saudis and so on. I’m dumbfounded. 

Similar situation with Iran. Same methods actually regarding banking and third party trade.

Both due to slights in the past which are unforgivable, not due to the purported reasons which as you say would apply to China and the Saudis too. In Cuba's case revolution in America's backyard and the missile crisis. In Iran's case the hostages at the embassy, the non stop evil empire rhetoric (I guess that one goes both ways), amongst other things.

[Ken Gargett]

49 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Similar situation with Iran. Same methods actually regarding banking and third party trade.

Both due to slights in the past which are unforgivable, not due to the purported reasons which as you say would apply to China and the Saudis too. In Cuba's case revolution in America's backyard and the missile crisis. In Iran's case the hostages at the embassy, the non stop evil empire rhetoric (I guess that one goes both ways), amongst other things.

bijan, your argument re cuba might hold more water if the missile crisis had preceded the embargo. it didn't.

as for a revolution in america's backyard, seriously? the US was propping up a corrupt dictator (not suggesting what they ended up with was/is any better). a sovereign nation is not allowed to decide its own leadership, however it gets there, without the blessing of the US? that is a bit rich. 

as has been discussed so many times on this forum, it comes down to whether people think that maintaining the embargo is more likely to lead to the downfall of the cuban govt or whether lifting it will benefit the people and lead to the govt's downfall. i firmly believe the latter. given that we have had sixty years where the alternative, namely maintaining the embargo, has been an abysmal failure, surely time to try something else. hell, if removing it does prove a disaster, reinstate it (yes, probably easier said...). it is mindless to maintain it. 

[Bijan]

Just now, Ken Gargett said:

bijan, your argument re cuba might hold more water if the missile crisis had preceded the embargo. it didn't.

The question is not only what caused the embargo, but why did it continue for so long. In both cases it is a hatred of the regime which transcends the rational (will the embargo result in an outcome which is beneficial to the US, Cuba or both, or not). It also helps that in this case the Americans are mainly cutting off someone else's nose to spite their face.

[Ken Gargett]

2 minutes ago, Bijan said:

The question is not only what caused the embargo, but why did it continue for so long. In both cases it is a hatred of the regime which transcends the rational (will the embargo result in an outcome which is beneficial to the US, Cuba or both, or not). It also helps that in this case the Americans are mainly cutting off someone else's nose to spite their face.

your last line is absolutely bang on target. could not agree more. 

but after 60 years, surely it is time for them to grow up. it is rank hypocrisy of the highest order. 

[mprach024]

12 minutes ago, Bijan said:

The question is not only what caused the embargo

Communism - end of story, everything else is revisionist history.  Had they been any other form of government (even a straight up dictatorship), Cuba wouldn’t have been an ant on a picnic blanket.  Was all about the ongoing conflict with Russia.  Cuba decided to overthrow a lunatic dictator, but their replacement and his brother were communists.  Any nonsense that the Americans drove them to communism is 100% incorrect.

[Bijan]

2 minutes ago, mprach024 said:

Communism - end of story

Don't disagree, but the US never treated any other communist country in the same way or to the same level. Even the ones it went to war with. So I think my point about it being personal in the case of Cuba due to proximity and missile crisis, stand.

[mprach024]

7 minutes ago, Bijan said:

Don't disagree, but the US never treated any other communist country in the same way or to the same level. Even the ones it went to war with. So I think my point about it being personal in the case of Cuba due to proximity and missile crisis, stand.

You are comparing apples and oranges my friend, and you are completely missing huge pieces of history and the geopolitical landscape for most of the 20th century.  We didn’t give 2 squats about Cuba, or a hatred of Cuba.  It was about Russia.  The other superpower.  If you think Vietnam is in the same boat as Cuba as a government you don’t understand that country’s highly capitalistic markets.  Russia Russia Russia.  

Other Communist Dictatorships -

North Korea, Venezuela - no further comment is required

[Bijan]

2 minutes ago, mprach024 said:

You are comparing apples and oranges my friend, and you are completely missing huge pieces of history and the geopolitical landscape for most of the 20th century.  We didn’t give 2 squats about Cuba, or a hatred of Cuba.  It was about Russia.  The other superpower.

And yet nothing changed when the soviet union collapsed. I guess Russia is still a superpower but not really relevant to Cuba anymore.

2 minutes ago, mprach024 said:

North Korea, Venezuela - no further comment is required

This is a fair point. I'd still say the sanctions against Cuba are worse than those against those two (perhaps not by that much). Only country similar or worse I think is Iran.

[GolfT3]

We can all speculate on the motives or logic on imposing the embargo at the outset, however, the only reason for the embargo in modern day is 29 electoral college votes in Florida. A very small population of voters holds a very large sway over what policies can be realistically pursued by anyone wanting to carry Florida. No one should be surprised that the brief overtures between the US and Cuba under Obama came during his second term and not the first.

[mprach024]

3 minutes ago, Bijan said:

And yet nothing changed when the soviet union collapsed. I guess Russia is still a superpower but not really relevant to Cuba anymore.

This is the fairest argument.  Remember though, we tried to cool the relationship under Obama.  To @Elpresidente point above, it’s actually gone backwards last 4-5 years which is a shame.  I think that was a middle finger to the Castros after how they handled when we did try to bring it an end, instead of welcoming our change, they basically turned their backs and demanded we pay them money.  At the same time politically in the USA the dems got chastised by the Cuban Americans in Florida who actually are against us doing dropping the embargo.  A year later the Dems lost Florida, Trump doubled down, and Biden won’t touch it.  It’s a lose lose politically.  

[Ken Gargett]

45 minutes ago, GolfT3 said:

We can all speculate on the motives or logic on imposing the embargo at the outset, however, the only reason for the embargo in modern day is 29 electoral college votes in Florida. A very small population of voters holds a very large sway over what policies can be realistically pursued by anyone wanting to carry Florida. No one should be surprised that the brief overtures between the US and Cuba under Obama came during his second term and not the first.

absolutely. 

[El Presidente]

Back to chicken 

Good article on Cuba, OFAC, Fines and Extraterritoriality

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/26/cuba-ofac-fines-and-extraterritoriality/

 

This is perhaps the key takeaway. 

 

Presently US law establishes that: “any “person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States “may not do business in Cuba or with Cuban nationals or businesses. “Persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” includes:

+ U.S. residents,

+ U.S. corporations and their U.S. or foreign subsidiaries,

+ any person or corporation, including foreign ones – operating within the United States and its territories.

The highlighted sections act as a  "catch all" .

If you are a European/Asian/Middle Eastern bank with US business banking interests (and which of them hasn't?), then you cannot do business with Cuba without runing the risk of OFAC fines and exclusion from key US banking functions including funds transfers. 

But back to chicken. 

Let's say a Canadian/Mexican/Chilean agricultural co-op has absolutely no US ties (unlikely) and is prepared to take Cuban cash to supply chicken.

How do they transport it?  What freight company in the world doesn't have a US afiliation/arm?

99% of normal options are automatically ruled out. The remaining options are clandestine and hense expensive.  International cargo freight right now is already a gigantic mess. 

The issue of extraterritoriality is the tool used to tighten the international screws and it is working beautifully. 

While internationally every bank/shipper/supplier would love to tell the US to go take a running leap on this issue, the tiny market of Cuba isn't worth the trouble. 

 

 

 

[Vitola Corleone]

It is hard to get a sense of how well Cuba would be doing without the embargo, for which I have no love or defense. For what it is worth the World Bank estimates cuban GDP per capita at about $8800 in 2018, close to the median of Latin American countries, just below Argentina, similar to Mexico and DR, and far above Nicaragua and Honduras. To stay on topic, that's a decent amount of chickens per person. 

Would that be greater without the embargo? Possibly, but the fundamental constraint is that it is a resource poor country. Regardless, how they distribute that $8800 per person (if the WB can be believed) is up to the Cuban government. 

[Ken Gargett]

36 minutes ago, Vitola Corleone said:

It is hard to get a sense of how well Cuba would be doing without the embargo, for which I have no love or defense. For what it is worth the World Bank estimates cuban GDP per capita at about $8800 in 2018, close to the median of Latin American countries, just below Argentina, similar to Mexico and DR, and far above Nicaragua and Honduras. To stay on topic, that's a decent amount of chickens per person. 

Would that be greater without the embargo? Possibly, but the fundamental constraint is that it is a resource poor country. Regardless, how they distribute that $8800 per person (if the WB can be believed) is up to the Cuban government. 

it is a good point. worth noting that when the embargo was first imposed, it had the desired effect of severely damaging the Cuban economy. and it has never really recovered. had there been no embargo, we'll never know what might have happened but it is very hard to believe that the economy would have been so bad and ditto, the suffering of the cuban people. 

a poor analogy might be to imagine an NFL team which had salary cap restrictions imposed on it for the last 60 years, allowing it to spend one tenth of the other teams. anyone thinking they'll challenge for anything? 

7 hours ago, mprach024 said:

Communism - end of story, everything else is revisionist history.  Had they been any other form of government (even a straight up dictatorship), Cuba wouldn’t have been an ant on a picnic blanket.  Was all about the ongoing conflict with Russia.  Cuba decided to overthrow a lunatic dictator, but their replacement and his brother were communists.  Any nonsense that the Americans drove them to communism is 100% incorrect.

i strongly suspect it was never quite as simple as that. i suspect fidel had che pushing him very hard and che was far further along that track than fidel was.

remember that fidel went to the States 3-4 months after the revolution to talk to the american govt. eisenhower basically gave him the finger and went and played golf to avoid him (some things never change). fidel said he would not beg for american aid but there is no doubt that had the americans provided some support or assistance that things would have been extremely different today and the russians may never have got a foothold shortly after. in that case, who knows if they would have gone full metal communism. like so much in history, we'll never know. 

nixon, as VP (and whatever one thinks of nixon and his crimes, he had a fairly good handle on foreign affairs) made certain to meet with castro before he left the States to try and ensure fidel did not stray. he came away believing that fidel was incredibly naive about communism. 

fidel may have simply been trying to play russia and the US off against each other or he may have genuinely thought he could be in an alliance with the States. who knows? but if the States had made an effort, you have to think that the Cuban people might have had a better time over the last six decades. and as we have seen elsewhere, that could easily have led to a more democratic country and the end of fidel. i suspect he would never have believed he'd lose an election. or he may have taken any support and plunged the country into communism. i have no doubt that che would have pushed very hard for that. 

[Nino]

8 hours ago, mprach024 said:

This is the fairest argument.  Remember though, we tried to cool the relationship under Obama.  To @Elpresidente point above, it’s actually gone backwards last 4-5 years which is a shame.  I think that was a middle finger to the Castros after how they handled when we did try to bring it an end, instead of welcoming our change, they basically turned their backs and demanded we pay them money.  At the same time politically in the USA the dems got chastised by the Cuban Americans in Florida who actually are against us doing dropping the embargo.  A year later the Dems lost Florida, Trump doubled down, and Biden won’t touch it.  It’s a lose lose politically.  

Fully agree - the US won't repeat Obama's mistake. It can only lose.

7 hours ago, El Presidente said:

Back to chicken 

Good article on Cuba, OFAC, Fines and Extraterritoriality

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/09/26/cuba-ofac-fines-and-extraterritoriality/

 

This is perhaps the key takeaway. 

 

Presently US law establishes that: “any “person subject to the jurisdiction of the United States “may not do business in Cuba or with Cuban nationals or businesses. “Persons subject to the jurisdiction of the United States” includes:

+ U.S. residents,

+ U.S. corporations and their U.S. or foreign subsidiaries,

+ any person or corporation, including foreign ones – operating within the United States and its territories.

The highlighted sections act as a  "catch all" .

If you are a European/Asian/Middle Eastern bank with US business banking interests (and which of them hasn't?), then you cannot do business with Cuba without runing the risk of OFAC fines and exclusion from key US banking functions including funds transfers. 

But back to chicken. 

Let's say a Canadian/Mexican/Chilean agricultural co-op has absolutely no US ties (unlikely) and is prepared to take Cuban cash to supply chicken.

How do they transport it?  What freight company in the world doesn't have a US afiliation/arm?

99% of normal options are automatically ruled out. The remaining options are clandestine and hense expensive.  International cargo freight right now is already a gigantic mess. 

The issue of extraterritoriality is the tool used to tighten the international screws and it is working beautifully. 

While internationally every bank/shipper/supplier would love to tell the US to go take a running leap on this issue, the tiny market of Cuba isn't worth the trouble.

Thanks for the link and insight - but I still don't get how US companies sell chicken to Cuba, transport it and get their money with no problems.

Like HSA gets its money from all the countries it sells to.

A very confusing embargo.

[Ryan]

Here's a picture from a friend of a queue for chicken last Sunday morning.

A lot of people having a hard time in Cuba at the moment.

 

[porkchop]

Interesting thread. 

Cuba choose the wrong bedfellow and that reverberates today. There are no innocent parties in political power struggles - everyone has their reasons. Feel terrible for the Cuban people. Where and when we are born is the true lottery in life. 

[rckymtn22]

4 hours ago, nino said:

Fully agree - the US won't repeat Obama's mistake. It can only lose.

Thanks for the link and insight - but I still don't get how US companies sell chicken to Cuba, transport it and get their money with no problems.

Like HSA gets its money from all the countries it sells to.

A very confusing embargo.

I agree Nino, always wondered how Coca-Cola gets around the embargo with seemingly no issues. Not exactly a essential product. 

[Corylax18]

1 hour ago, rckymtn22 said:

I agree Nino, always wondered how Coca-Cola gets around the embargo with seemingly no issues. Not exactly a essential product. 

They don't. At least not directly.

The Coke in Cuba is what we call "Mexican Coke" in the US, its available here too. I actually prefer it because they use real sugar, instead of corn syrup. Coke is bottled, under license, in Mexico and the bottler/distributor (FEMSA) finds a way to get it to Cuba. 

FEMSA is actually one of the largest bottler's and distributors of Coke on the Planet, they also own a majority Share of Heineken, which is also usually available in Cuba.

They're traded on the NYSE. So another example of clear "embargo busting" without any consequence.

If you want to do business with Cuba, you can. Plain and Simple.

Quite honestly, its more trouble than its worth for many companies, which is why they don't. FEMSA's company structure is extremely complex and massive, Coca Cola Enterprises actually owns a minority stake, so they too are profiting from the sale of Coke and Heineken in Cuba.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FEMSA#:~:text=Fomento Económico Mexicano%2C S.A.B. de C.V.%2C doing business as FEMSA,convenience store chain in Mexico.