This isn’t meant to be a discussion on the morality of the embargo, but the affects of the embargo ending for both countries. These affects can be political, economic, or social.
Same thing that would happen if sanctions on Afghanistan were lifted. Regular people’s lives would improve as the country could import what they need. Cuba is really lacking in cement and medical supplies for example iirc (though their medical system and education is world-class), and they can’t import them cuz of the embargo.
Obviously not much would change in the US, aside from some people realizing socialism isn’t too bad when you’re not a tiny country sanctioned and blockaded by the most war-mongering nation in the world.
It’s a small economic quirk, but I imagine many Cubans would be selling their old American cars to collectors State-side for a quick cash influx.
And Americans would be eager to travel to Cuba for tropical tourism. That feels like a longer lasting economic change.
Of course there’d be a bubble market on Cuban cigars that would arise, climb, then settle as the demand declines as the idea of a Cuban cigar becomes more normalized.
I’ve heard Cuba has some novel treatments for lung cancer. I imagine there’d be a market for medical tourism that would emerge from that, as I sincerely doubt the FDA would evaluate and approve a foreign treatment created under a Communist government with any haste.
I was curious about that lung cancer treatment and found this Snopes article. Sounds like in Cuba it’s demonstrated that it can add several months to some people’s lives after they’re diagnosed with lung cancer. Phase II clinical trials are underway in the US as of last year, and preliminary results show particular success in combination with other existing treatments. They’ve expanded the trial to cover some other forms of cancer too
Whoa! Thanks for the info, that’s really cool
Aren’t cubans still banned from using the real money?
I think Cuba uses the Cuban peso, the real hasn’t been in use for centuries.
There was a cuban peso and convertible peso, but apparently they’ve been merged 3 years ago. So the sanctions probably are the main barrier to free trade now.
Do you think medical tourism would become big?
I think that largely depends on how easy it becomes for Americans to travel to Cuba. I imagine there’d be a bubble for most economic exchanges in the get go, but after it would normalize more.
I’m not really sure what constitutes “big” or how large the medical tourism industry is, say, between Mexico and the US, but I know it exists.
I’ve heard that Cuban healthcare is very good, but I’m unsure how accessible it would be to Americans. Being an American, I really don’t know much about Cuba… but I’ve heard a few general things.
realisticly, i dont think much outside of trade restrictions to cuba would help them. politically on the states side whichever party removes it loses a lot of Cuban voters who migrated to Florida who are in the camp of not liking Cuba. can potentially turn the state the other parties color goven how swingstatey Florida is on its own.
Florida has already gone pretty Republican, so I don’t imagine that changing.
You don’t think trade with the world’s biggest economy and closest physical neighbor would have much of anmeffect?
not saying trade wont have an effect, its just definitely on one side, it would be minimal, and Cuba for sure would benefit (heavily) from not having import restrictions. Relationships between the twp countries at least immediately, would not change.
Right.
That said, Cuba doesn’t really have import restriction, it’s the US has export restrictions.
Vietnam was embargoed until the 90s, and dropping it basically allowed the soft power of the US to do it’s thing. 'Nam isn’t really an ally of the US, they consider themselves neutral, but they’re undeniably very friendly. I suspect that a generation of trade and tourism could do the same to our relationship with Cuba and might result in softening attitudes among Cuban-Americans as they reestablish contact with their families and reconcile lingering animosity from the revolution.
I think this would also work for the DPRK, Iran, and others. Trade is really nice and children are rarely willing to carry the grudges of their parents.
The US economy is so gigantic compared to Cuba’s that I don’t see it changing much at all for the US—maybe some medical advancements. For Cuba it would mean being able to acquire goods at more reasonable rates and probably a much bigger tourist trade if they’re not careful. Edit and better internet, I hear that’s important.
Mass medical tourism and the collapse of the corporativist medical industry in the US.
Who do you think will build resort hotels?
Significant improvement in the quality of life of Cubans. Probably also increase US tourism to Cuba. Not sure if it would have any real impact on the average US citizen.
Some have mentioned medical tourism. Could an industry grow around that? Would American insurance programs start covering work done in Cuba?
100% TAS Key West - Varadero swimming speedrun NO COSMIC RAYS
How many sporting events might take advantage of the Key West-Havana corridor?
Just to shine light on something positive for the US, it could be a good thing for American rice growers as Cuba could possibly become large buyer of USA rice
I would also expect American pork to be big in Cuba as well.
Does Desi Arnaz (a Cuban) and Lucille Ball (an American) have to do with this subject?
If not, then I probably brought it up out of nowhere because I watched I Love Lucy before.
No. It is due to the Cuban protests.
Heheheh, right. I missed the subject. :P
It would be interesting if they had an “I Love Lucy” experience in Havana as a tourist trap.
A TON of political mudslinging in the US that would die down after a few news cycles and a great deal of improvement to Cuba’s economy due to the dropping of the embargoes due to increased trade and tourism from the U.S.
Substantially? Not much (other than improving Cuba’s economy). This isn’t the 1960s, and “Ooo! Scary Cooommmunism!” thing isn’t the political bulwark it once was. Aside from a bunch of old bags in congress full of pace makers and life-extending pharmaceuticals, the vast majority of Americans couldn’t give a shit.
As a not-Cuban person, I can’t opine on how they’d feel about it. If I were to guess, I’d imagine they’d be in favor of it, but I can’t be sure.
They’d both suddenly benefit… the impact on America would be pretty minimal economically simply due to scale but it probably would improve health by moving us partially off corn syrup. And for Cuba it’d end decades of arbitrary economic kneecapping by the US. Tourism would probably explode since it’d be a shorter flight than cancun from the east coast and, y’know, not fucking Florida.
I don’t think it would have any significant impact on corn syrup usage.
The US already produces about nine times more sugar cane than Cuba does. We also import it from countries like Brazil and the other Caribbean islands.Our usage of corn syrup is because it’s very cheap to begin with, and for various reasons it’s desirable to keep food production, including corn, higher than demand would normally require.
That has one effect of further lowering the price of corn syrup.The only thing that’ll get us to cut back the amount of corn syrup in foods is the (slow) growing trend of consumers preferring foods that don’t have added sugar, which would also preclude cane sugar.
A lot more tourism to Cuba from the US.
The US would start importing Havana Club
For the US, the change would be minimal. The economy of Cuba is so small by comparison and they don’t have a heavy industry or tech sector to offer much to the US economy. Most outflows of money would likely be in tourism by US citizens to Cuba. And maybe some businesses would find ways to offshore some work. But again, I think the overall impact would be small.
As for Cuba, it really depends on the Cuban Government. Trade with the US and tourism are likely to have a much larger impact (as a percentage of GDP) on Cuba. The country could well see a sizeable influx of foreign cash. Managed well, this could create a lot of opportunity for the Cuban people. Managed by a corrupt regime, intent on enriching itself and it’s friends, this could lead to the same type of misery which usually results from corrupt government.
For the US, the change would be minimal.
If you ignore the fact that it’d probably be cheaper to fly to Cuba to receive medical treatment than to pay for a hospital in the US, sure.
