He says that, "making deals with the Castro government is pouring billions of dollars down the drain."
It's my observation that these dollars will come from American taxpayers.
Benitez explains:
In 1986, Cuba defaulted on its multibillion dollar debt to the Paris Club of nations. That debt is now estimated to be around $37 billion and the Castro government refuses to pay it. A couple of months ago, Russia had to write off 90 percent of Cuba's $32 billion debt. That’s almost $29 billion dollars that Castro will never pay back to Moscow. In November, Mexico wrote off $340 million of Cuba’s debt to its development bank, Bancomext. It is no wonder that, according to Moody’s, Cuba’s credit rating is Caaa1, which means worse than highly speculative and a “substantial risk” to investors.
It makes no business sense to drop the embargo for the sake of trading with a government that reneged on so many loans its credit rating is now at the subprime or “junk bond” level. Yet, loans are what would be necessary to "normalize" relations with Cuba. The embargo allows for U.S. food and humanitarian supplies to be sold to Cuba. In fact, the U.S. is currently the fifth largest exporter to Cuba. The big difference is that, according to the embargo, the Castro government must pay for all U.S. imports with cash, no credit allowed. [1]
The U.S. already provides food and medicine to Cuba. What the Cuban government wants is credit, or permission to borrow money from U.S. banks. When they default on those loans, American tax-payers will have to pick up the bill.
Notes:
- U.S. News - World Report, "Lining a Dictator's Pockets," accessed on July 20, 2015
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