[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 149 (Thursday, December 1, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: December 1, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                    UNITED STATES POLICY TOWARD CUBA

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, this past summer the Clinton 
administration chose to tighten the economic embargo and accept more 
Cuban immigrants in response to thousands of Cuban rafters who set sail 
to Florida. I question its goals in tightening the embargo against 
Cuba. Tightening the embargo, which is already tighter than the one we 
have against Iraq, could lead to a major crisis in Cuba. The embargo 
against Cuba only makes the situation there worse by restricting the 
supply of food and medicine to people who desperately need it, without 
lessening Castro's grip on the Cuban political machinery. Our recent 
experience in Eastern Europe has shown us that sealing Communist 
countries from contact with democratic societies is not the answer. 
Progress can be obtained by encouraging a steady flow of information 
and goods between Cubans who seek change and Americans.
  During the 104th Congress, the administration and Congress should 
take a close look at our current policy toward Cuba. It is in the 
interest of the United States to encourage democracy and the rule of 
law in Cuba, but it is not in our interest to continue a policy that 
causes needless suffering and that has proven unsuccessful. I urge my 
colleagues to read the following article from the National Journal, 
``The Cuban Conundrum,'' by Bruce Stokes. It provides a good outline of 
current U.S. policy toward Cuba and what it could lead to.
  I ask that the article be printed in the Congressional Record.
  The article follows:

              [From the National Journal, Sept. 17, 1994]

                          The Cuban Conundrum

                           (By Bruce Stokes)

       In recent weeks, the searing television images of women and 
     children in inner tubes and flimsy rafts braving the shark-
     invested waters of the Straits of Florida to flee Cuba have 
     momentarily overshadowed the more complex, underlying story 
     of the economic collapse that sparked the exodus.
       While the Clinton Administration has, for the time being, 
     apparently resolved the crisis by agreeing to take in more 
     Cubans as legal immigrants, the long-term challenge that 
     faces Havana--and Washington--is the reconstruction of the 
     Cuban economy through its transformation, in one form or 
     another, from a socialist to a market economy.
       The stakes in such a transformation are high.
       ``An early restructuring to a market-oriented economy could 
     produce a very quick and robust recovery from Cuba's present 
     crisis situation.'' said Ernest H. Preeg, an economist at the 
     Washington-based Center for Strategic and International 
     Studies.
       But failure could unleash a new torrent of Cuban 
     migration--legal or illegal--to the United States. Already, 
     more people have tried to flee Cuba this year than in the 
     previous decade. And with Cuba's geographic proximity to 
     Florida, a large Cuban-American population to welcome 
     refugees and the wide disparity between the standard of 
     living in Havana and what's available in Key West, just 90 
     miles away, experts say it's possible that as many as a 
     million Cubans may want to emigrate to the United States 
     rather than wait for better times in Cuba.
       The experts seem to agree that the transformation of Cuba's 
     economy has already begun. But there's no agreement on how 
     far it has gone or how much further Cuban President Fidel 
     Castro is willing to go.
       ``Castro is gradually losing power to market forces, and 
     the reform process appears irresistible,'' Carmelo Mesa-Lago, 
     a professor of Cuban studies at the University of Miami, 
     said. But unfortunately, he added, ``I don't really think 
     they understand how the market works.''
       And lulled by 35 years of false hopes of Castro's imminent 
     demise, few American economists or U.S. government officials 
     have begun to prepare for the day when a new, transitional 
     Cuban government will have to make the market work or risk 
     backsliding into deeper economic and political chaos.
       ``This thing is going to catch them with their pants down, 
     and they are unprepared,'' said Armando M. Lago, the 
     president of Ecosometrics Inc., a Bethesda (Md.)-based 
     consulting company and the current president of the 
     Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy.
       The Clinton Administration's instinctive reaction to the 
     new flood of Cuban boat people was to tighten the current 
     U.S. trade embargo on Cuba. It was decision driven more by 
     domestic political considerations--chief among them the 
     desire to placate the conservative Cuban-American community--
     rather than with any forethought of its debilitating impact 
     on emerging market forces inside Cuba.
       It's been up to Congress and some Cuban-American economists 
     to begin to lay out a new economic strategy for dealing with 
     Cuba. Their plans include a lifting of the embargo calibrated 
     to political and economic reforms inside the island nation, 
     detailed blueprints for the macro-economic stabilization of a 
     transitional Cuban economy and guidelines for foreign 
     investment and trade expansion.
       When and whether these plans are tested, of course, depends 
     on how long Castro remains in power.


                            desmerengamiento

       Like a giant, tempting meringue, the Cuban economy is 
     collapsing in on itself, its frothy exterior no longer 
     supported by the hot air that first gave it form. This 
     process--what the Spanish call desmerengamiento--is well-
     known to pastry chefs the world over, but economists have 
     never seen such a dramatic economic contraction.
       From 1989-93, the Cuban economy shrank by nearly half, 
     according to most reliable estimates. This contraction 
     exceeds that experienced by Cuba during the Great 
     Depression in the 1930s, Mesa-Lago said, and is much worse 
     than the economic deterioration suffered in recent years 
     in Eastern Europe.
       The Cuban economy is rapidly disengaging from the global 
     marketplace. In 1993, the value of Cuba's exports and imports 
     was less than a third of what it was in 1989. (See table) 
     Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, once Castro's 
     main trading partners, will no longer sell him machinery and 
     oil at cut-rate prices, and they refuse to buy Cuban sugar at 
     prices far in excess of the world market price.
       Reflecting this economic breakdown, the value of the Cuban 
     peso has plummeted. While a Cuban peso is still officially 
     worth $1, the black market exchange rate in August was 130 to 
     $1.
       ``Cuba has become an undeveloping country,'' Preeg said. 
     Nothing works.
       In Havana, power blackouts are a daily occurrence. With 
     gasoline and spare parts in short supply, automobiles, trucks 
     and buses are disappearing in favor of bicycles and ox carts. 
     Unemployment is soaring because at any given time more than 
     two-thirds of Cuba's industrial plants are closed, owning to 
     a lack of power or raw materials.
       Government rationing provides only about half of the food 
     that average families need to survive, forcing them to turn 
     to the underground economy. And while state-set prices for 
     many basic goods and services have changed little in the past 
     three decades, no such constraints exist on the black market, 
     where inflation is rampant. In May, Cuba's monthly minimum 
     wage would buy only a two-pound chicken or a pound of pork or 
     four liters of milk in unofficial markets.
       In a society that once prided itself on meeting basic human 
     needs, the human toll of food shortages in mounting. 
     Infectious diseases that were once thought to have been 
     eradicated, such as tuberculosis and malaria, are returning. 
     In early 1993, the U.N. Children's Fund reported that half of 
     all Cuban infants in their first year of life showed symptoms 
     of anemia.
       To reflate the collapsing Cuban economic meringue, the 
     Castro government has introduced some elements of a market 
     economy into what was once an autarkic socialist state. Some 
     foreign investment is now allowed. To encourage farmers to 
     grow more food, many state farms have been turned into 
     cooperatives, and the prices of agricultural products have 
     been increased somewhat to stimulate production. Taxi 
     drivers, hairdressers and workers in more than 130 other 
     categories can now sell their services on the open market. 
     And the widespread use of the dollar as the preferred medium 
     of exchange has been legalized.
       But the economic reform process is a halting one, raising 
     uncertainty about the evolution of Cuban capitalism. In the 
     past few months. For example, the government has arrested 
     people for making ``too much'' money in the flourishing 
     dollar economy. The scope of permitted ``family business'' 
     has been scaled back. And tax rates have been raised on self-
     employment income.
       ``The adopted measures and reforms are incoherent, 
     inconsistent and ill-conceived in design; incomplete in 
     scope; incorrect and delayed in execution; and, consequently, 
     inadequate in impact,'' George Plinio Montalvan, a former 
     chief economist of the Organization of American States, said.
       The problem, Mesa-Lago said, is that ``Castro listens to 
     different ideas and implements only those that appeal to him 
     most--he lacks a blueprint.''


                         FIDELISMO WITOUT FIDEL

       Most experts see only two designs for the Cuban economy of 
     the future.
       Now that the emigration turmoil has subsided, the likeliest 
     scenario is that Cuba will renew its tentative reforms and 
     evolve toward a Nicaraguan-style economy, in which the state 
     continues to play a major role. Under such conditions, there 
     will be an increasing number of small and medium-sized 
     private companies. But the commanding heights of the economy 
     will be controlled by large, public enterprises. And while at 
     some point Castro will step down or die, his cadre of 
     bureaucratic apparatchiks will continue to drive economic 
     decision making.
       But this option holds little attraction to the outside 
     world because, at best, it would provide only modest economic 
     growth. And the paucity of serious research on such an 
     eventuality is primarily because many conservative Cuban-
     Americans, who provide much of the money for academic work on 
     Cuba, see a Nicaraguan-style Cuba--what they call ``Fidelismo 
     Without Fidel''--as their worst nightmare. It would delay 
     indefinitely the emergence of a truly free market economy in 
     Cuba. And, more important to some of them, it would postpone 
     their own return to power.
       ``There is distaste among many Cuban-Americans to consider 
     the unconsiderable,'' admitted Matias F. Travieso-Diaz, a 
     partner in the Washington law firm of Shaw, Pittman, Potts & 
     Trowbridge.
       The scenario preferred by most Cuban-Americans and 
     Administration officials is a fairly rapid transition to a 
     market-style economy. Most economists agree that only this 
     course will provide Cuba with the rate of sustained economic 
     growth needed to bring unemployment down to manageable 
     levels, while continuing to provide sufficient social 
     services to ensure political stability.
       The first obstacle on this path is the U.S. embargo against 
     trade with, and investment in, Cuba.
       The 1961 Foreign Assistance Act first imposed the trade 
     ban, both to pressure Cuba into compensating Americans for 
     property nationalized by the revolutionary regime and to 
     punish the Castro government for its embrace of Communism. 
     The 1992 Cuban Democracy Act extended the embargo by denying 
     foreign subsidiaries of U.S. firms the licenses they need to 
     trade with Cuba. And to signal its dissatisfaction with the 
     Cuban government's failure to curb the current exodus of boat 
     people, the Clinton Administration has banned all dollar 
     remittances to Cuba from relatives or friends living in the 
     United States. (Previously, remittances of as much as $500 
     per quarter were permitted.)
       It is an article of faith among older, more conservative 
     Cuban-Americans--and the politicians they have supported--
     that any loosening of these economic screws will only prop up 
     the Castro government and postpone the transition to a market 
     economy. To this end, hard-liners have supported escalation 
     of the embargo through imposition of an economic blockade on 
     Cuba.
       Younger, more moderate Cuban-Americans and critics of the 
     current U.S. policy toward Cuba question why trade with China 
     and Vietnam is viewed as a means of liberalizing their 
     socialist economies, while trade with Cuba is rejected as 
     counterproductive.
       ``If the goal is as peaceful and as productive a transition 
     as possible,'' said Andrew Zimbalist, a professor of 
     economics at Smith College, ``engagement rather than 
     isolation has proven to be a better policy.''
       But engagement is prohibited by the Cuban Democracy Act, 
     which requires democratic elections in Cuba before 
     the embargo can be lifted. Such sequencing flies in the 
     face of the experience in Eastern Europe, where democracy 
     came at the end of the transition from socialism, well 
     after the seeds of capitalism had been planted and 
     nurtured and had borne fruit. And, said Rep. Charles B. 
     Rangel, D-N.Y., ``we are losing billions of dollars in 
     business opportunities to invest and trade with Cuba.''
       There is growing sentiment on Capitol Hill to reverse the 
     policy of isolating Cuba. Rangle has proposed the Free Trade 
     With Cuba Act, which would repeal the Cuban Democracy Act and 
     the embargo; open up travel, mail and telecommunications 
     services; and launch new negotiations on U.S. economic claims 
     against Havana and on the human rights situation in Cuba. 
     Claiborne Pell, D-R.I., the chairman of the Senate Foreign 
     Relations Committee, and Lee H. Hamilton, D-Ind., the 
     chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, have 
     proposed a similar unilateral lifting of the ban on travel, 
     remittances and commercial sales of food. And Rep. Robert 
     Menendez, D-N.J., has introduced legislation that would offer 
     a transitional Cuban government humanitarian assistance and 
     help in downsizing its military.
       Rolando H. Casteneda, a senior operations officer at the 
     Inter-American Development Bank, and Montalvan have suggested 
     a step-by-step approach, linking the expansion of U.S. 
     economic ties with Cuba to Cuban political liberalization. 
     They suggest that the United States take the first step by 
     permitting commercial sales of U.S. food, medicine and 
     medical instruments to Cuba and rescinding the recent 
     prohibition on all remittances. If Cuba then agrees to free 
     political prisoners and adhere to international human rights 
     conventions, Castaneda and Montalvan say, the United States 
     should lift what's left of the trade embargo. If Havana 
     implements market-based economic reforms, Washington in 
     return wouldn't stand in the way of International Monetary 
     Fund (IMF) loans to Cuba. Finally, once Cuba adopts a new 
     constitution and has free and fair elections, they say, the 
     United States would lift its ban on travel and investment, 
     support a restructuring and some forgiveness of Cuban debt 
     and further open the U.S. market to Cuban goods.
       None of these proposals is likely to pass Congress this 
     session. And all face an uphill political fight.
       ``The idea that opening a McDonald's in Havana will make 
     Castro into a Thomas Jefferson blows my mind,'' said Jose S. 
     Sorzano, the chairman of Austin Group Inc., a consulting firm 
     in Arlington, Va. Once the embargo is cracked, conservatives 
     predict, the pressure from U.S. commercial interests to 
     quickly normalize economic relations without regard to 
     political concessions by Castro will prove inexorable and 
     Washington will end up trading something for nothing.
       Moreover, for most lawmakers, there is potential pain and 
     little gain for supporting an end to the embargo. The 
     business community is not pressing for liberalization. In the 
     past, lawmakers who have advocated an easing of tensions with 
     Cuba have been Red-baited. Finally, if the Administration 
     dares to change its stance and supports a calibrated 
     relaxation of the embargo, conservative Cuban-Americans have 
     threatened to pillory President Clinton for waffling on yet 
     another foreign policy issue.


                      RESTITUTION V. COMPENSATION

       Once the economic transformation of Cuba has begun, the 
     biggest obstacle to normalization of economic relations with 
     the United States will be the claims against the Cuban 
     government by Americans whose property in Cuba was 
     nationalized after the revolution.
       ``It's the crazy-aunt-in-the-basement issue,'' said Robert 
     E. Freer Jr., a senior partner in the Washington law firm of 
     Freer & McGarry. And like the unpredictable relative it's a 
     highly emotional issue likely to cause hitches in lifting the 
     embargo and serious clashes between the exile community and 
     the people in Cuba today.
       In the 1960s the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission 
     valued the nationalized property--primarily industrial 
     plants, commercial buildings and farmland--at $1.8 billion. 
     It's now valued at $5.6 billion. And then there's all the 
     confiscated property, much of it residential, that was 
     owned at the time of the revolution by Cuban citizens who 
     subsequently became U.S. citizens.
       Claimants have different interests in resolving the status 
     of the assets. Some large U.S. corporations, especially those 
     with a brand name to protect, want restitution of their 
     original property. Similarly, many middle and upper-class 
     Cuban-American refugees who left a lot of property behind in 
     Cuba have an economic and emotional stake in the return of 
     their original holdings. Others who have little desire to 
     return to Cuba would be happy with financial compensation for 
     their losses. And some Cuban-Americans who made their 
     fortunes in the United States only care that the confiscated 
     properties be privatized at auction so that they will have a 
     crack at them.
       Freer, who's the general counsel to the U.S.-Cuba Business 
     Council, contends that restitution will ensure an immediate 
     infusion of foreign investment and modern management in Cuba.
       But fights over restitution delayed the privatization of 
     property in Eastern Germany for years, holding up foreign 
     investment. Moreover, Montalvan argued, ``restitution would 
     install the same distribution of wealth in Cuba that you had 
     before the revolution.'' Americans would control 90 per cent 
     of Cuba's electricity generating capacity, its entire 
     telephone system, most of its mining industry and some of its 
     best land, providing dry tinder to rekindle Cuban 
     nationalism.
       Compensation--on the surface, a more straightforward 
     resolution of the problem--sparks similar controversy. It 
     could burden an already indebted Cuba with new foreign 
     obligations. It took the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission 
     six years to come up with estimates of losses. ``To ask a 
     country in the midst of rebuilding to administer that kind of 
     thing, or deal with claimants on an individual basis, is 
     absolute folly,'' Montalvan said.
       Nevertheless, Travieso-Diaz said, ``the paramount issue is, 
     when and how is the title going to be put to rest?'' 
     Claimants' lawyers have threatened to use the courts to delay 
     the privatization of their former properties until some 
     restitution or compensation is made. To avoid that 
     economically debilitating eventuality, Travieso-Diaz 
     suggested that some partial compensation for claims, some 
     percentage on the dollar, is inevitable.
       The sleeper political issue could be what to do with small 
     and medium-sized businesses, which have sentimental and real 
     estate value, and residential property. These were the 
     hardest claims to resolve in Eastern Germany and the Baltic 
     states. The Cuban-American community has largely disavowed 
     any interest in restitution of former residences. But this 
     is, in part, a tactical move to counter Castro's propaganda 
     that Cuban-Americans want to return to steal people's homes. 
     Notwithstanding such disavowals, reclaiming family homesteads 
     could suddenly have a powerful emotional appeal once the 
     opportunity arises.


                          containing inflation

       Clearing the underbrush of the embargo and foreign claims 
     issues merely sets the stage for tackling the fundamental 
     economic challenges facing Cuba's transition to a market 
     economy.
       The first problem is to contain the seemingly inevitable 
     inflation that's triggered by the end of socialism. The 
     government subsidies inherent in a state-run economy mask 
     inflation by making up the difference between what consumers 
     pay and what the price of a good or service would be if the 
     value were determined strictly by supply and demand. As 
     Cuba's economic crisis worsened in the past few years, 
     subsidies grew, and by 1993 Cuba's budget deficit was equal 
     to a third of the value of its economy. By printing money to 
     cover those subsidies as domestic production shrank, the 
     Cuban government provided average citizens with plenty of 
     money, but little to buy. As a result, a huge volume of 
     excess liquidity has been built up that will feed 
     inflationary fires if restraints on prices are lifted.
       To stimulate production to meet demand and get the Cuban 
     economy moving again, most economists recommend an immediate 
     end to price controls, which could lead to a tripling or 
     quadrupling in prices. The trick will be to stabilize those 
     prices once they have initially adjusted so that the 
     inflation rate doesn't spiral out of control.
       This requires curbing the flow of money into the economy 
     and sopping up some of the excess liquidity. Economists 
     prescribe a reduction in government spending and some hard 
     budget constraints; a freeze on public-sector wages and a 
     cutback in public-sector employment, including the military; 
     the imposition of new taxes; and a positive real interest 
     rate to encourage savings.


                          capital from abroad

       Domestic macroeconomic stability is a necessary, but not 
     sufficient, condition for a robust economic recovery in Cuba. 
     If Cuba is to climb out of its economic hole, it also needs 
     new capital from abroad.
       Cuba's needs are great. In the mid-1980s, the Soviet Union 
     pumped an estimated $4.4 billion a year into Cuba's 
     economy--about 15 per cent of its gross national product. 
     With the collapse of the Soviet Union, however, that 
     largess ended, and Cuba will somehow need to make up the 
     shortfall. In addition, Manuel Cereijo, a professor of 
     engineering at Florida International University in Miami, 
     estimates that Cuba will need $3.6 billion over a decade 
     to reconstruct its rundown transportation system and 
     another $2.5 billion to modernize its telecommunications 
     system.
       Simply lifting the current ban on remittances, economists 
     say, could inject as much as $1 billion a year into Cuba's 
     economy.
       Cuba has an estimated $10.8 billion debt with European and 
     Asian lenders and a 20 billion-ruble obligation (about $100 
     million at the current exchange rate) to the former Soviet 
     Union. To obtain some breathing room during its economic 
     transition, economists say, Havana will first have to 
     negotiate a moratorium on repaying its debts and then 
     renegotiate them at some fraction of their original value. 
     There is ample international precedent for such debt 
     restructuring, and the lenders should be obliging because 
     Cuba hasn't paid any interest or principal on its debt since 
     the mid-1980s.
       A speedy resolution of the debt question would open lending 
     windows at the IMF and World Bank. Depending on the initial 
     exchange rate, Cuba's per capita income may be judged to be 
     low enough to qualify for concessional loans, a definite 
     plus. Economists estimate that Havana will initially need to 
     borrow at least $750 million a year. The main sticking point 
     could be bureaucratic inertia.
       ``From the time Latvia turned democratic and applied for a 
     loan and got it, it took 18 months,'' economist Lago said. 
     ``If the international financial institutions take that long 
     in Cuba, with the current economic conditions, there will be 
     mass starvation.''
       Foreign aid is another likely source of foreign exchange. 
     Many economists think that Cuba will need as much as $1 
     billion a year in foreign aid. With the shrinking U.S. 
     foreign aid budget, however, Havana cannot expect much help 
     from Washington.
       Foreign investors could provide an additional supply of 
     capital. Foreign investment in Cuba has been growing. By the 
     end of 1993, there were 83 joint ventures in the industrial 
     sector and 29 in tourism, with Spanish companies in the lead. 
     Foreign interest was further whetted in June 1994, when it 
     was announced that Grupo Domos of Mexico had bought 49 per 
     cent of EmtelCuba, the national phone company, for $1.5 
     billion. But despite all this hoopla, many of the investments 
     have involved little cash upfront, and economist Preeg 
     estimates that real foreign investment may have totaled only 
     $50 million in 1992.
       Long constrained by the embargo, U.S. companies have only 
     begun to show any interest in Cuban investment opportunities. 
     (Business consultants, for example, tell stories of U.S. oil 
     companies scouting for gasoline station sites.) Lago and Jose 
     F. Alonso, a senior economic researcher with Radio Marti, 
     estimate that direct foreign investment in Cuba could reach 
     $250 million a year 5 years into an economic transition and 
     top $1 billion a year 15 years out.
       At first, investments are likely to center on a few key 
     sectors of the Cuban economy:
       Sugar.--Sugar plantations and mills are Cuba's largest 
     employers, and sugar exports provide its largest single 
     source of foreign exchange. The 1994 sugar harvest was 3.4 
     million tons, less than half the harvest in 1989. Four of 
     every five sugar mills in Cuba were built before World War 
     I, and many need to be replaced.
       Tourism.--Tourism, Cuba's second largest source of foreign 
     exchange, is deemed by many economists to have the greatest 
     economic potential. Cuba once dominated the Caribbean tourist 
     trade, but had only 3.2 per cent of the market in 1992. 
     Alonso and Lago think that Cuba's market share could rise to 
     11 per cent with adequate investment and to 15 per cent if 
     gambling returns.
       Minerals.--Cuba has the fourth-largest nickel reserves in 
     the world. But Cuban mining technology, largely from the 
     former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, is obsolete, pushing 
     up production costs at a time when world nickel prices are 
     falling. As a result, Cuba's nickel production has fallen 
     dramatically in the early 1990s. Reviving it will be costly.
       Manufacturing.--Manufacturing plants for textiles, shoes 
     and sporting goods all have the potential to start up 
     quickly. The key will be the revival of small and medium-
     sized firms, the conversion of military airports and ports to 
     civilian export use and the reconstruction of Cuba's public 
     infrastructure to support industrial expansion. Low wages 
     will initially be a major draw for new investors, but labor 
     costs will have to rise if state food, education and health 
     care subsidies are trimmed.
       Most economists who have studied Cuba advocate, as part of 
     the initial economic stabilization package, a sharp 
     devaluation of the peso to ensure that Cuban-made products 
     are competitive internationally. They say that this should be 
     coupled with partial convertibility of the peso, to enable 
     investors to repatriate their profits. Such a move would not 
     be without risk, however, because it could fuel inflation.
       Cuban investors will also want greater access to the U.S. 
     market. Without most-favored-nation trading status, however, 
     Cuban exports would face prohibitive U.S. import duties. 
     Cuba's poverty would also qualify it for lower tariffs under 
     the U.S. generalized system of trade preferences. And 
     admission to the Caribbean Basin Initiative and the North 
     American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is on every Cuban-
     American economist's wish list.

                      CUBA AFTER 35 YEARS OF CASTRO                     
                     [Selected economic indicators]                     
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               1989     1990     1991     1992     1993 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Change in gross social                                                  
 product (equivalent to                                                 
 gross domestic product)                                                
 (Percent).................      0.1     -3.1      -25      -14      -10
Exports (in billions of                                                 
 pesos)....................      5.4      4.4      3.6      2.3      2.1
Imports (in billions of                                                 
 pesos)....................      8.1      6.4      3.7      2.5      1.7
Sugar production (in                                                    
 millions of metric tons)..      8.1      8.4      7.6      7.0      4.2
Budget deficit as per cent                                              
 of GSP (Percent)..........       11       16       NA       NA       34
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source. George Plinio Montalvan                                         

                            MAJOR OBSTACLES

       But trade expansion and increased foreign investment in 
     Cuba face major obstacles.
       In the 1950s, the United States bought nearly three million 
     tons of sugar from Cuba, accounting for more than half of its 
     total exports. Today, the United States imports only one 
     million tons of sugar from the entire world. Increasing the 
     import quota, even by several hundred thousand tons, as a 
     gestuer of support for Cuba would garner Havana only a few 
     hundred million dollars in revenue. Moreover, upping the 
     quota would draw severe opposition from U.S. sugar growers. 
     Expanding tourism in Cuba will come largely at the expense of 
     the tourism-dependent economies of other Caribbean nations, 
     leading to new requests for aid from them. And any proposal 
     to include Cuba in NAFTA is likely to be rapidly enmeshed in 
     domestic U.S. politics, with labor unions fearing job losses 
     to apparel and other labor-intensive assembly operations that 
     could shift to Cuba.
       Moreover, Cuba currently lacks the basic legal and 
     institutional framework needed to assure foreign investors 
     that their funds are safe. Cuban law doesn't sufficiently 
     protect private property rights, the court system doesn't 
     adequately enforce the law and there are no bankruptcy 
     procedures to speed entrance and exit from the marketplace.
       Moreover, the recent experiences of foreign investors have 
     already given ammunition to critics in Cuba. They complain 
     about investment deals at bargain basement prices. They 
     object to foreign control over national industrial assets, 
     such as the telephone company, and natural resources, such as 
     some of Cuba's best beaches, which are now off-limits to most 
     citizens. They resent the selling off of the nation's 
     patrimony--Grupo Domos obtained a 55-year monopoly over 
     telecommunications services. And they question the benefits 
     of foreign investment for average workers. Under the current 
     system, foreign investors must contract with the Cuban 
     government for labor. Havana is paid $400 per month per 
     employee. The workers are paid an average of 250 pesos per 
     month, less than $3 on the black market. The government 
     pockets the difference. ``It's an incredible case of 
     exploitation,'' Lago said.
       To set a new standard for foreign investors in Cuba, 
     Castaneda of the Inter-American Development Bank and 
     Montalvan have drafted a set of foreign investment guidelines 
     that have been dubbed the Arcos Principles (after Gustavo 
     Arcos Bergns, the secretary-general of the Cuban Committee 
     for Human Rights in Cuba). Signatories would pledge to hire 
     Cubans directly instead of through a government intermediary, 
     commit themselves to a 48-hour workweek, hire regardless of 
     political background and allow employees to organize 
     independent unions. In a swipe at the tourist oasis that 
     exists amid the desert-like Cuban economy, investors would 
     pledge to grant all Cubans equal access to all public areas--
     such as beaches and hotels--and equal access to the goods and 
     services that are now often reserved for tourists.


                    PRESERVING THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET

       The greatest threat to the success of Cuba's economic 
     transportation into a market economy is the social and 
     political unrest that could accompany a further fraying of 
     its already tattered social safety net.
       During an economic transition, Cuba's high unemployment 
     would be expected to climb even higher. The first victims are 
     likely to be those on the state payroll. Cuba's regular armed 
     forces are 200,000 strong. Argentina protects a landmass 25 
     time the size of Cuba, with a population three times Cuba's, 
     with an army, navy and air force just a 10th the size. Cuba 
     has a million civil servants out of a population of 11 
     million. Most economists think that the government could 
     function adequately with 150,000 employees.
       To sop up the expected legions of jobless workers. 
     Montalvan said, ``Cuba will need a WPA-type program,'' 
     referring to FDR's famous public works program.
       Cubans pride themselves on their long life expectancy, 
     their low infant mortality rate and their widespread 
     literacy--all fruits of the revolution.
       But, Lago said, ``there is clearly an over-investment of 
     resources in the Cuban health system.'' Hospitals have long 
     served as employer of last resort. Fully half of all health 
     care workers are gardeners, cleaners and cooks. Moreover, the 
     average Cuban visits a doctor 9.3 times per year. Americans 
     make the trip only 5.6 times per year.
       Analysts forecast draconian cutbacks in medical staffing. 
     And, shades of Clinton, they suggest payroll taxes for basic 
     health care and a fee for all additional services.
       Similar changes may be needed in the social security 
     system. Cubans don't pay for their pensions. Analysts say 
     that this has to change, at least for those under 50 with 
     some productive years left. The retirement age may also have 
     to be raised. Cuban women currently can retire at 55, and men 
     at 60.
       ``People will have to understand that they will have to 
     take care of themselves,'' Cereijo said.
       But any significant shrinkage of the social safety net 
     risks exacerbating existing racial and class differences in 
     Cuban society. Most of the Cuban-American community that will 
     be investing in and returning to Cuba is white and middle 
     class, while more than half the island population is black 
     and poor. Tensions have already flared between whites in Cuba 
     with relatives abroad (who, until recently, had access to 
     dollar remittances and could live off the underground 
     economy) and blacks (who were confined to the peso economy). 
     During a transition, such friction could worsen.
       European intellectuals like to gloat that ``Cuba will be 
     America's East Germany''--a debilitating drain on the U.S. 
     economy that will give Washington a lesson in humility when 
     Americans begin preaching about making the transition from 
     socialism to a market economy.
       The analogy is overdrawn. Cuba's population of 11 million 
     is only two-thirds that of the former German Democratic 
     Republic. Its economy is less than a fifth the size of East 
     Germany's. And the United States has no intention of ever 
     merging the Cuban and American economies, with all the costs 
     that would entail.
       But as Cuba's most significant neighbor, it is the United 
     States that will have to foot the bill if Cuba's impending 
     economic and political transition is botched. Faced with that 
     reality, Washington has some tough choices--on the U.S. trade 
     embargo, on claims against the Cuban government and on the 
     nature of any post-Castro economic stabilization program. Is 
     the goal of U.S. policy a short-term one--to punish Cuba and 
     bring about Castro's rapid downfall, regardless of the long-
     run impact on the island nation's economy? Or are the 
     interests of the United States best served by easing the 
     transformation of Cuba into a market economy, even if it 
     means that Castro might stay in power longer than some 
     conservative Cuban-Americans might wish? Will the U.S. 
     interests in having a politically stable Cuba best be served 
     by restoring to its original owners all property seized after 
     the Cuban revolution and by imposing fiscal discipline on 
     Cuba or by policies that attempt to avoid reimposing the old 
     patterns of the distribution of wealth in Cuba and by seeking 
     to preserve the Cuban social safety net?
       The recent, at least temporary, resolution of the migration 
     crisis could once again relegate Cuba to the Administration's 
     back burner. But as long as Washington continues to overlook 
     Cuba's underlying economic problems--which drove its people 
     onto all those makeshift rafts in the first place--they will 
     continue to fester, and ultimately guarantee that Cuba will 
     come back to haunt Washington again soon.

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