Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel (R) speaks to Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro at the Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba April 21, 2018. Ernesto Mastrascusa/Pool via Reuters
US News and World Report: If Venezuela Falls, So Does Cuba, Experts Say
With Venezuela dealing with one of the worst economic crises in its history, economists warn that Cuba’s dependency on its Latin American ally will have dire consequences.
The economic crisis in Venezuela has turned millions of its citizens into refugees who are fleeing the country's hyperinflation and shortages in food and medicine. Now, it is having other spillover effects by dragging down an already ailing Cuban economy, two regional economists say.
A plunge in aid from Venezuela, along with a hardened trade embargo by the United States, has brought Cuba to its worst economic crisis since the post-Soviet depression in the 1990s, Carmelo Mesa-Lago, professor emeritus of economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, and Pavel Vidal Alejandro, associate professor economics at the Pontifical Xavierian University in Cali, Colombia, write in their report.
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WNU Editor: The Cuban government will not fall. There are still too many people in Cuba who believe in the system, and coupled with their pride will not be open for change. The Cuban security apparatus is also something to be feared. They are brutal and extremely effective, and will crush dissent and opposition when it appears. Venezuela is a different story. The economy has collapsed, and it is now a failed state. And while there is still strong support for Chavismo and all of its wretched policies, with each passing month of misery and suffering that support rots away. Venezuela also has a history and culture of political change, and calls for change are now deafening.
1 comment:
I don't know about that last bit; I think the most dangerous moment for Venezuela has already come and gone. People are running away from it rather than fight the government; likewise, the traitors in the security apparatus are defecting rather than trying to start a coup. And America's attention has wandered. I think Maduro can probably hold out, at least until the next big crisis.
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