economic sanctions – COMMUNIST PARTY OF MAINE

_{^{People look at food prices at a private business in Havana on December 20, 2023. Cuba’s economy will shrink by up to 2 percent this year, Finance Minister Alejandro Gil estimated on Wednesday, after acknowledging that the country will not be able to achieve the projected economic growth of 3 percent by 2023 | Yamil Lage / AFP / Getty}}

_{Reposted from}_Counterpunch

“Our joy is immense … We don’t deceive ourselves thinking that everything ahead will be easy, when perhaps everything is going to be more difficult.” That was Fidel Castro, hours after the victory of Cuba’s Revolution.

Difficulties were center stage 65 years later, at a plenary session of the Central Committee of Cuba’s Communist Party on December 15 and 16 and at the National Assembly of People’s Power, meeting on December 20-22.

The views of Cuban leaders on problems now enveloping Cuba shed light on realities of a nation under siege and a revolution in trouble. The information is pertinent to the solidarity efforts of Cuba’s friends abroad. Addressing the Central Committee’s plenary session, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel noted that, “We have discussed efforts that have not
yielded solutions, measures that did not prosper, and goals that were not fulfilled …The scenario is that of a war economy … [We] are all here to reverse the present situation … with consensus as to decisions and with collective work, with passion and energy.”

Díaz-Canel called for “creative resistance” and “confidence in victory,” while insisting that dissatisfaction “is a motor that moves revolutionary energies. It provokes embarrassment that ends up activating people’s full participation, without which socialism is impossible.”

“We would be surrendering beforehand, if we see this war as an insuperable calamity. We must see it … as the opportunity to grow and to overcome our own selves, while the adversary is nakedly evil before the world … On the eve of the 65th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution … we are called to act together for a common objective: Save the
homeland, the Revolution, socialism, and overcome.”

The Assembly meets

Speaking to the National Assembly were: Alejandro Gil Fernández, minister of the economy and planning; Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz; and President Miguel Díaz-Canel. Gil Fernández regards the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba as the principal obstacle Cuba faces in restoring its economy.

He indicated that in 2023 Cuba’s GDP will have fallen almost two percent. Exports were $770,000 million below predictions. Food production was less than that of 2022. Tourism income increased by $400 million in 2023 but represented only 69% of the yield in 2019.
Overall production was down due mainly to state enterprises held back by shortages of supplies and fuels. Currency shortages and loss of workers to migration hampered the healthcare and education sectors. Electricity generation was up 32% in 2023, according to Gil Fernández. Cuba’s 30% inflation rate for 2023 was lower than the 77.3% rate in 2021.

State business entities showed “gradual recuperation.” They employ 1.3 million workers while accounting for 92% of goods and services produced in Cuba and 75% of exported products. He attributed price inflation to international price hikes, the government’s release of money to finance its budget deficit, fewer goods being produced, and an agriculture sector burdened by labor shortage, high costs, and low yields.

“What isn’t being produced cannot be imported,” Gil Fernández lamented. His message is that importing goods is almost impossible what with “the effect of high prices on the international market.” But, paradoxically, “a lack of production resources” forces Cuba to import over 70% of the food that is being consumed.

He proposed measures for increasing food production, including:

_{+ Creation of a financial mechanism for bolstering production based on farmers using Cuban currency derived from agricultural sales to buy supplies they need.
+ Build a farm labor force through moonlighting, employing students, and having young people do agricultural work as part of their military service.
+ Use food produced in Cuba, not imported food, to fill the “normal family food basket.”}

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz critiqued the government’s lack of control over production and distribution which “adversely affects production by state entities and lets currency exchanges on the illegal market determine the pricing of products from the non-state sector.” e reported that social inequalities are growing, and that the tendency exists while state subsidies continue to nourish less distressed sectors of the economy. Equally worrisome: “The former state monopoly in production is now consolidating in the private sector.”

He was referring to the recent appearance of 9000 or so mostly private small-and-medium-sized businesses and to independent farmers and cooperatives that took over land from the state under long-term usage arrangements. They now control 80% of Cuba’s agricultural land. Marrero Cruz called for “stimulation of government-operated small-and-
medium-size business entities.”

Both private businesses and the farming sector sell products at highly inflated prices with prices being set by black market operatives. The prime minister condemned the state subsidies such entities receive in the form of low prices assigned to the fuel, water, transportation and electricity they buy from the state. Similarly, the government pays high
prices to farmers for food that, under the rationing system, is sold inexpensively to the population.

Henceforth, according to Marrero Cruz, the government will be subsidizing people, not products. According to one report, “The Ministry of Work and Social Security will be charged with undertaking a survey of ‘vulnerable’ social sectors.” “Nobody will be abandoned,” Marrero Cruz insisted.

The government, he indicated, will increase sales taxes on final products such as water, gas, electricity, transport and reduce import tariffs by 50% on the “intermediate products” used in food production and manufacturing. More tourist dollars will be harvested. Municipal assemblies will present budgets and in the case of deficits will generate more income and reduce administrative expenses.

For the prime minister, “food production needs to be prioritized and by all sectors. Many countries are saying to us: ‘We’ll put up the money, you provide the land and then pay back the money with production.’” He pointed out that, despite the non-availability of imported fertilizer and pesticides, “there are many instances of countries producing food; an
agricultural country must produce its food.”

Marrero Cruz sees “speculative prices … and intermediaries earning a lot more than producers” and non-state entities now controlling imports rather than the government, the result being “abusive and speculative pricing.” He called for paying for imports with income from exports: “[W]e prefer importing supplies and products essential to the economy and
paying for them by offering other countries certain products and/or services.”

Responding to inflation, the government, collaborating with the Central Bank of Cuba, will change the official exchange rate for the peso. According to Marrero Cruz, the government will be restricting prices for goods and services with a system of “maximum prices.”

President Miguel Díaz-Canel, addressing the National Assembly on December 22, focused on Cuba’s “war economy … [It’s] a political scenario of maximum asphyxia, designed and applied against a small country by the most powerful empire in history.” He also attributed
economic problems to “the crisis in international economic relations and our own errors.”

Economic war takes the form of economic blockade aimed at “reduced supplies of goods used by the population, inflated prices, and low purchasing power for most Cubans.” “Together with constant acts of subversion and disinformation against Cuba, the goal is to break the country, provoke social decomposition, and make for ungovernability.”

Díaz-Canel spoke of errors as “part of the complexity of making decisions in a context of extreme tension … [and of] commitment to preserving social conquests.” He mentioned mistakes, particularly in the “design and implementation of currency unification” and in “approving new economic actors without performance norms having been established.”

The effectiveness of new measures will “depend on generating more wealth, more work incentives, and more distribution of resources.” The president promised there will be no “neoliberal package … no crusade against small businesses, no elimination of the basic food allocation.” The president highlighted: “food production, localities taking care of
more of their needs, the revival of tourism, rescue of the sugar industry, state control of currency and the exchange market, redesign of the financial system, and guarantees for self-financing, and managing currency so as to serve those whose production generates income.”

Díaz-Canel took note of Cubans’ high regard for healthcare workers and teachers, promising that “they will be the first to benefit from additional pay, which the prime minister announced in his intervention.” Testifying earlier before the Economics Commission of the National Assembly, Díaz-Canel emphasized “taking advantage of the facilities of the municipalities and articulating strategies of local development.” Recalling that the “[f]oundation of government is the municipal assembly of people’s power,” he insisted on “mapping out actors in the municipalities and integrating them with state and private businesses.”

In the end

The information and opinions provided by Cuban leaders and reviewed here clarify difficult realities, among them: adverse effects of diminished tourism, inflation, and emigration; social inequalities based on varying access to resources; production stymied by shortages of resources; inadequate food production; lack of buying-power for most Cubans, and
for importing necessary goods; and the near impossibility of securing foreign investment.

Cuba is fashioning responses. They are: decentralization of political and economic administration; cut backs on expenditure of central government funds, reduced subsidies for the purchase of water, fuel, transport, and electricity by business entities; adjustment of import tariffs to favor the availability of resources for production, capturing more tourist dollars, protecting state-operated production entities, fixing prices, and producing more food.

These will be palliative remedies unless basic causes are dealt with. A prime goal of U.S. policy has been to deprive Cuba of money, and that has come to pass. Revolutionary Cuba’s very survival depends on U.S. citizen activists forcing their government to shed its blockade of Cuba. There, the great need now is for Cuba to be removed from the U.S. list of terrorist-sponsoring nations. That designation causes most international financial institutions to refuse handle dollars on Cuba’s behalf.

There is a larger context. The U.S. use of economic sanctions everywhere rests on planet-wide dollar dependency. That emerged out of the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 and has coincided since with unrelenting U.S. assertion of worldwide power. That’s the basis for a global constituency on Cuba’s behalf. How it will be set in motion is the
big question.

_{W.T. Whitney Jr. is a political journalist whose focus is on Latin America, health care, and anti-racism. A Cuba solidarity activist, he formerly worked as a pediatrician, lives in rural Maine. W.T. Whitney Jr. es un periodista político cuyo enfoque está en América Latina, la atención médica y el antirracismo. Activista solidario con Cuba, anteriormente trabajó como pediatra, vive en la zona rural de Maine.}

_{^{Syrian Arab Red Crescent demanded Western countries to lift sanctions on Syria to help with rescue and relief work, 02.0.23 | Photo: SANA}}

Suffering in Syria and Turkey caused by a strong earthquake on February 6 has elicited an immense worldwide humanitarian response. The toll three days later was 21,000 people dead, with the number of recorded deaths steadily rising as rubble from collapsed buildings is removed. Unusually cold weather and snow add to the grief and difficulties in delivering aid material to survivors.

Compounding matters is longstanding internal conflict in both counties aggravated by foreign interventions. The Turkish government contends with a Kurdish insurgency formerly active within its own borders and now based across the southern border in Iraq and Syria. The Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad has confronted U.S. and European – supported rebel forces fighting in northern Syria since 2011.

The issue addressed here is of aggravation of humanitarian disaster through warlike interference in Syria’s affairs, particularly the role of economics sanctions employed by nations led by the U.S. government. Of concern is the U.S. government’s seeming disregard of human suffering and deaths as it wields the weapon of economic sanctions.

A civil war has raged in Syria for 11 years. The U.S. government in conjunction with allies supports elements of the anti-Assad resistance. They hold territory in northern Syria, where even U.S. troops are deployed. The civil war has led to displaced populations of refugees, some living in government-controlled Syria, 3.6 others living precariously in Turkey, and 4.1 million more living in conflict-ridden northern Syria; they were dependent on humanitarian aid prior to the earthquake. Kurdish rebels, anti-Assad rebels and radical Islamists control their own portions of that area.

The earthquake has caused more death and destruction in Turkey than in Syria. Turkey registered 17,674 deaths as of February 9 and Syria 3,377deaths, of which 2,030 occurred in rebel-held areas.

The delivery of humanitarian aid material characteristically is difficult in situations of natural disaster. The Turkish government reports offers of assistance from 71 countries. Search and rescue teams and shipments of materials have arrived there from dozens of them.

Conditions in Syria are different. Western countries are contributing relatively little. Shipments of aid material have entered Syria from Iraq, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Algeria, United Arab Emirates and India. Rescue teams and aid shipments have been promised or have arrived from China, Iran, Russia, Cuba, and Algeria. Venezuela sent teams to both affected countries and were the first foreign rescuers to arrive in Northern Syria.

Barriers complicate matters in Syria. Only the Bab al-Hawa crossing of the Turkish-Syrian border remains open; three others are closed due to Russian and Chinese pressure in the United Nations Security Council. Those countries regard U.S.-supported rebels active in the region as “terrorists.”

The Assad government is requiring that aid for areas under its control enter through Damascus. Air shipments to Damascus have been hobbled due to runway damage left-over from an Israeli attack in January.

Economic sanctions against the Assad government, in force since 2011, pose the main difficulty for countries that would provide assistance to Syria. Governments worldwide have joined the United States, leader of the pack, in sanctioning the Syrian government.

Speaking to the press on February 6, State Department spokesperson Ned Price insisted that, “We are determined to do what we can to address the humanitarian needs of the Syrian people.” He indicated that any U.S. humanitarian aid would be delivered exclusively to NGOs, the implication being that economic sanctions remain in effect.

The head of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent called upon the United States and its allies to “lift their siege and sanctions on Syria so that rescue and relief work can proceed unimpeded.” Speaking for China’s foreign ministry, Mao Ning likewise called for an end to sanctions, pointing out that U.S. “military strikes and harsh economic sanctions have caused huge civilian casualties,” while US troops have assured the “plunder …[of] more than 80% of Syria’s oil production.”

A UN Special Rapporteur had already urged in November, 2022 that sanctions against Syria be ended on grounds of “destruction and trauma suffered by the Syrian people since 2011.”

On February 9, the U.S. government blinked. The Treasury Department provided authorization lasting for 180 days for “all transactions related to earthquake relief.” Other nations may follow suit.

The difficulty remains: an aggressive U.S. government is prone to trivializing claims that economic sanctions threaten human lives. Sanctions against Syria’s government revives the spectacle of sanctions aggravating humanitarian catastrophe from another cause. That was Cuba’s situation in having to deal with both U.S. sanctions and the Covid pandemic.

The current situation in Syria calls for a critical look at the U.S. government’s frequent resort to economic sanctions as it wages what amounts to permanent war. Sanctions offer the advantage of impunity. An aggressor’s profile is lowered even as threats of ungovernability and human suffering mount.

A new multi-authored book titled “Sanctions: A Wrecking Ball in a Global Economy” offers reflections on these themes. A look at a review allows one to reflect further about waging war by means of economic sanctions. The book, produced by the International Action Center, is available here. It seems that:

· Those who suffer most from sanctions aimed a national economy are a society’s poorest citizens.

· Economic sanctions violate human rights, particularly the right of citizens to lead economically sustainable lives and their right to benefit from social programming that is determined collectively, notably healthcare, education, and social security for elders.

· Although legal experts have identified criminal aspects of U.S. sanctions, even crimes against humanity, the upshot has been impunity for the U.S. government, in part due to U.S. disregard for the International Criminal Court.

· Frequent use of economic sanctions represents one aspect of non-stop war-making on the part of the U.S. government and of nations following the U.S. lead. Sanctions are in the same category as the use of one’s own military forces, the use of proxy warriors and other agents, and internal subversion leading to destabilization and/or coups.