To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
CubaBrief: Castro again defaults on payments to the Paris Club, but purchases more U.S. products for cash than under Obama
The United States since 2000 has not provided credits to the Castro regime and maintained a cash in advance trade arrangement for the purchase of agricultural and pharmaceutical products. This protects U.S. taxpayers from having to subsidize the Cuban dictatorship when it defaults on its financial obligations. Their European, Latin American and Asian counterparts cannot say the same to their respective taxpayers.
Under this cash in advance agreement American companies sold over $6.3 billion to the Castro regime and have gotten paid. Despite billions in debt forgiveness on its restructured debt less than five years ago by the Paris Club, the Cuban dictatorship in 2019 again defaulted on its payments, reported Reuters on February 11, 2020.
How did the Castro regime raise the money to purchase U.S. goods?
James Prevor, President and Editor in Chief of the publication Produce Business in the October 2002 article, Cuba Caution, reported that Cuba "had exhausted all its credit lines and, at best, was simply rotating the accounts. When the opportunity came to buy from the United States, Cuba simply abandoned all those suppliers who supported the country for 40 years and began buying from us." The suppliers were not the ones impacted by Cuba's failure to pay its debts, the taxpayers of the suppliers' home countries were the one's left holding the bag.
On November 1, 2013 the government of Mexico announced that it was ready to waive 70 percent of a debt worth nearly $500 million that Cuba owes it. The former president of Mexico Vicente Fox protested the move stating: “Let the Cubans get to work and generate their own money…They’re normally like chupacabras. The only thing they’re looking for is someone to give them money for free.”
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