Cuban Economy Advantage

1AC
Cubas economy is collapsing now --- production is declining in all key
sectors
Oppenheimer, 2013 (Andres, Latin America correspondent , Castro's revolution has been
a fiasco, Sun Herald, July 29, 2013 , http://www.sunherald.com/2013/07/29/4832435/andresoppenheimer-castros-revolution.html)
Cuban President Gen. Raul Castro celebrated Friday

the 60th anniversary of the guerrilla attack on the Moncada

marked the beginning of the Cuban revolution, but the event could just
as well be remembered as marking six decades of Latin America's biggest political,
economic and social fiasco. Granted, many of us, especially those born outside the island, once saw the "Cuban
barracks that

revolution" with a dose of romantic admiration. But even if you brush aside the fact that Cuba's revolutionaries toppled one
dictatorship to install another, the cold statistics of the past six decades tell a story of thousands of senseless deaths, a massive
emigration that split Cuban families, and an economic collapse with few parallels anywhere. In 1958, the year before thenguerrilla leader Fidel Castro took power, Cuba had a per capita income of roughly $356 a year , one of
the three or four highest in Latin America, according to Carmelo Mesa Lago of the University of Pittsburg, co-author of "Cuba under
Raul Castro" and one of the most prominent experts on the Cuban economy. By comparison, Costa Rica was poorer, and Asian
countries such as South Korea were much poorer, with per capita incomes of less than $100 a year. Consider how much things have
changed since: n According to the World Bank's databank, South Korea, which started welcoming massive foreign investments in
the early 1960s, today has an annual per capita income of $22,600; Costa Rica of $9,400, and Cuba of $5,400. And according to
Mesa Lago, Cuba's real per capita income is probably lower than that because the

figures have been manipulated by the island's government. n South Korea has 276 cars per
1,000 people, while Costa Rica has 135, and Cuba only 21, the World Bank statistics show. n In South Korea, 37 percent of the
population has access to broadband Internet, compared with 9 percent in Costa Rica and 4 percent in Cuba, they show. While South
Korea has become an industrial powerhouse -- its Samsung electronic goods and Hyundai cars are exported everywhere -- and Costa
Rica has high-tech factories from companies such as Intel, Cuba is an industrial basket case. The island has not
even been able to continue producing sugar or cigars at its 1958 levels. According to Cuban government figures cited by Mesa Lago,
Cuba's sugar production has fallen from 859 tons to 106 tons per 1,000 people over
the past six decades, and Cuba's

cigar production has fallen from 92,000 cigars per 1,000

people to 36,000 over the period. Until recently, Cubans used to joke that the three biggest accomplishments of
Cuba's revolution are health, education and the restoration of national dignity, while its three biggest shortcomings are breakfast,
lunch and dinner. But even Cuba's health and education standards have fallen in recent years, and its national dignity has been
compromised by its almost total economic dependence -- first from the former Soviet Union, and lately by Venezuela. Today, Cuba's
life expectancy of 79 years is the same as that of Costa Rica, and below South Korea's 81 years. In education, Cuba deserves credit for
virtually eliminating illiteracy sooner than most other Latin American nations, but its higher education is far from what it used to be.
A newly released ranking of Latin American universities by QS, a well-known London-based university research firm, places the
once prestigious University of Havana at the 81st place in the region. It ranks way behind universities of Brazil, Chile, Colombia,
Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Paraguay. Asked whether Castro's latest pro-market

reforms to revert Cuba's economic disaster will work, Mesa Lago told me in an interview
that "these are the most important economic reforms that have been implemented in Cuba since the
revolution. The problem is that excessive regulations, bureaucratic red tape and taxes
are blocking their success." My opinion: Cuba's apologists will probably argue that I'm influenced by the Miami
exile "mafia" and will come up with Cuba's own figures purporting to show the island as a model country. But when I heard the
presidents of Uruguay, Bolivia, Nicaragua and other countries who were standing next to Gen. Castro on Friday's anniversary in
Santiago de Cuba praising the "achievements of the revolution," the first question that came to my mind was: If Cuba is such a
success and Cubans are so happy, why hasn't the government allowed one single free election in six decades? The answer is that
Cuba's dictatorship knows very well that its revolution has been a fiasco, and that it would lose them.

Lifting the embargo immediately enhances Cubas economy and

motivates political reform
Griswold, 2005 (Daniel, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies,

Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba, Cato Institute, October 12, 2005,
http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba)
The real dividing line in U.S. policy toward Cuba is how best to undermine the Castro regime and hasten the islands day of
liberation. For almost half a century, the U.S. government has tried to isolate Cuba

economically in an effort to undermine the regime and deprive it of resources . Since

1960, Americans have been barred from trading with, investing in, or traveling to Cuba. The embargo had a national security
rationale before 1991, when Castro served as the Soviet Unions proxy in the Western Hemisphere. But all that changed

with the fall of Soviet communism. Today, more than a decade after losing billions in annual economic aid from
its former sponsor, Cuba is only a poor and dysfunctional nation of 11 million that poses
no threat to American or regional security. A 1998 report by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency
concluded that, Cuba does not pose a significant military threat to the U.S . or to other countries
in the region. The report declared Cubas military forces residual and defensive. Some officials in the Bush administration have
charged that Castros government may be supporting terrorists abroad, but the evidence is pretty shaky. And even if true,
maintaining a comprehensive trade embargo would be a blunt and ineffective lever for change. As a foreign policy tool, the

embargo actually enhances Castros standing by giving him a handy excuse for the
failures of his homegrown Caribbean socialism. He can rail for hours about the suffering the
embargo inflicts on Cubans, even though the damage done by his domestic policies is far worse. If the
embargo were lifted, the Cuban people would be a bit less deprived and Castro
would have no one else to blame for the shortages and stagnation that will persist
without real market reforms. If the goal of U.S. policy toward Cuba is to help its
people achieve freedom and a better life, the economic embargo has completely failed.
Its economic effect is to make the people of Cuba worse off by depriving them of
lower-cost food and other goods that could be bought from the U nited States. It means less
independence for Cuban workers and entrepreneurs, who could be earning dollars from American
tourists and fueling private-sector growth. Meanwhile, Castro and his ruling elite enjoy a comfortable,
insulated lifestyle by extracting any meager surplus produced by their
captive subjects.

Lifting the embargo benefits both the US and Cuban economies

Reuters, 2012 (Thomas,multinational media and information firm,Cuba: Ending US
Embargo Would Help Both Countries, Newsmax, Friday, 21 Sep 2012 ,
http://www.newsmax.com/globaltalk/cuba-us-embargo-end/2012/09/21/id/457042)

Both the United States and Cuba would benefit if Washington would lift its longstanding trade embargo against the island, but
President Barack Obama has toughened the sanctions since taking office in 2009, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on
Thursday. The embargo, fully in place since 1962, has done $108 billion in damage to the Cuba

economy, but also has violated the constitutional rights of Americans and made a
market of 11 million people off limits to U.S. companies , Rodriguez told reporters. "The
blockade is, without doubt , the principal cause of the economic problems of our
country and the essential obstacle for [our] development," he said, using Cuba's term for the embargo. "The blockade provokes
suffering, shortages, difficulties that reach each Cuban family, each Cuban child.". Rodriguez spoke at a news conference that Cuba
stages each year ahead of what has become an annual vote in the United Nations on a resolution condemning the embargo. The vote
is expected to take place next month. Last year, 186 countries voted for the resolution, while only the United States and Israel
supported the embargo, Rodriguez said. Lifting the embargo would improve the image of the United States around the world, he
said, adding that it would also end what he called a "massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights." That violation
includes restrictions on U.S. travel to the island that require most Americans to get U.S. government permission to visit and a ban on
most U.S. companies doing business in Cuba, he said. "The prohibition of travel for Americans is an atrocity from the constitutional
point of view," Rodriguez said. Cuba has its own limits on travel that make it difficult for most of its citizens to leave the country for
any destination. Rodriguez said the elimination of the embargo would provide a much-needed

tonic for the sluggish U.S. economy. "In a moment of economic crisis, lifting the blockade
would contribute to the United States a totally new market of 11 million people. It would
generate employment and end the situation in which American companies cannot
compete in Cuba," he said. Obama, who said early in his presidency that he wanted to recast long-hostile U.S.-Cuba
relations, has been a disappointment to the Cuban government, which expected him to do more to dismantle the embargo. He has
lifted some restrictions on travel and all on the sending of remittances to the island, but Rodriguez said he has broadened the
embargo and its enforcement in other areas. Fines against U.S. and foreign companies and individuals , he
said. U.S.-Cuba relations thawed briefly under Obama, but progress came to a halt when Cuba arrested U.S. contractor Alan Gross
in Havana in December 2009. Gross was subsequently sentenced to 15 years in prison for setting up Internet networks in Cuba
under a controversial U.S. program that Cuba views as subversive. Rodriguez dodged questions about how U.S. policy toward Cuba
might change if Obama is re-elected in November or if Republican candidate Mitt Romney wins the presidency, but said whoever is
in office will have a chance to make history. "Any American president would have the opportunity to make a historic change," he
said. "He would go into history as the man who rectified a policy that has failed."

Cuban economic collapse causes state collapse

Morris, 2011 (Emily, Reporter/Producer, FORECASTING CUBAS

ECONOMY, April 2, 2011., http://web.gc.cuny.edu/dept/bildn/cuba/cubaforecasting.pdf)

Five years is a very long time in politics, and with the near certainty of both a generational transition and a deep and disruptive
overhaul of the system of economic management and structure of relative prices, forecasting is particularly hazardous. The one-

party political system will be severely tested. If the government were to collapse,
the range of possible scenarios would be huge: the economy might collapse in to
chaos and hyperinflation amidst violent conflict, or enjoy a US- financed boom,
depending on the circumstances. However, It is worth noting that, as ever, the probability of government
collapse remains smaller than is estimated by those hoping for a political tran- sition. If it were not, the exercise of forecasting a
survival scenario would perhaps be a futile one. Forecasting Cubas Economy: 2, 5, and 20 Years 21 Even in the absence

of political collapse, there remain substantial risks of economic instability and

weakness. The reform process, which includes the removal of subsidies and extensive realignment of relative prices and
incomes, will create inflationary pressures that will be hard to contain. The forecast of a steady rise in average productivity is derived
from an expectation that the positive impact of the introduc- tion of market signals and improvement in incentives will outweigh the
disruption costs. The slow rate of average real income growth would imply continued

pressure on the government to maintain subsi- dies for basic goods and extend
welfare provision to households struggling to adapt to the new conditions, draining fiscal resources and
increasing the temptation to raise taxes on productive activity to levels that
discourage innovation and enterprise, or push activity back from the formal economy to the informal sector.
If Cubas reform wave were to coincide with deteriorating external conditions, rather than the relatively benign scenario presented in
the EIUs global assumptions, the political and economic risks would be greater. The danger of upsets in the global economy remains
height- ened by concerns about high debt levels and sluggish growth in the EU and Europe, and inflated asset prices among the
rapidly-growing economies of the developing world. A deterioration in global condi- tions might feed

through to Cuban economic performance through collapse in the nickel price or

surge in oil or food prices, or a sudden contraction in tourist arrivals.

Cuban instability causes Caribbean instability, democratic

backsliding, and refugee flows
Gorrell 5 (Tim, Lieutenant Colonel, CUBA: THE NEXT UNANTICIPATED ANTICIPATED

STRATEGIC CRISIS? 3/18, http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA433074)

Regardless of the succession, under the current U.S. policy, Cubas problems of a post Castro
transformation only worsen. In addition to Cubans on the island, there will be those in
exile who will return claiming authority. And there are remnants of the dissident
community within Cuba who will attempt to exercise similar authority. A power vacuum

or absence of order will create the conditions for instability and civil war .
Whether Raul or another successor from within the current government can hold power is
debatable. However, that individual will nonetheless extend the current policies for an indefinite period,
which will only compound the Cuban situation. When Cuba finally collapses anarchy
is a strong possibility

if the U.S. maintains the wait and see approach. The

U.S. then must deal with an

unstable country 90 miles off its coast. In the midst of this chaos, thousands will flee the
island.

During the Mariel boatlift in 1980 125,000 fled the island.26 Many were criminals;

this time the number could

be several hundred thousand flee ing to the U.S., creating a refugee crisis. Equally
important, by adhering to a negative containment policy, the U.S. may be creating its next series of
transnational criminal problems. Cuba is along the axis of the drug-trafficking flow into the U.S. from Columbia. The
Castro government as a matter of policy does not support the drug trade. In fact, Cubas actions have shown that its
stance on drugs is more than hollow rhetoric as indicated by its increasing seizure
of drugs 7.5 tons in 1995, 8.8 tons in 1999, and 13 tons in 2000.27 While there may be individuals within the government and outside who
engage in drug trafficking and a percentage of drugs entering the U.S. may pass through Cuba, the Cuban government is not
the path of least resistance for the flow of drugs. If there were no Cuban restraints,
the flow of drugs to the U.S. could be greatly facilitated by a Cuba base of operation
and accelerate considerably. In the midst of an unstable Cuba, the opportunity for
radical fundamentalist groups to operate in the region increases. If these groups
can export terrorist activity from Cuba to the U.S. or throughout the hemisphere
then the war against this extremism gets more complicated . Such activity could
increase direct attacks and disrupt the economies, threatening the stability of the
fragile democracies that are budding throughout the region. In light of a failed
state in the region, the U.S. may be forced to deploy military forces to Cuba,
creating the conditions for another insurgency . The ramifications of this action could very well fuel
greater anti-American sentiment throughout the Americas. A proactive policy now can mitigate these
potential future problems. U.S. domestic political support is also turning against the current negative policy. The Cuban American population in the
U.S. totals 1,241,685 or 3.5% of the population.28 Most of these exiles reside in Florida; their influence has been a factor in determining the margin of
victory in the past two presidential elections. But this election strategy may be flawed, because recent polls of Cuban Americans reflect a decline for
President Bush based on his policy crackdown. There is a clear softening in the Cuban-American community with regard to sanctions. Younger Cuban
Americans do not necessarily subscribe to the hard-line approach. These changes signal an opportunity for a new approach to U.S.-Cuban relations.
(Table 1) The time has come to look realistically at the Cuban issue. Castro will rule until he dies. The only issue is what happens then?

The U.S.

can little afford to be distracted by a failed state 90 miles off its coast. The
administration, given the present state of world affairs, does not have the luxury or the resources to
pursue the traditional American model of crisis management. The President and other government
and military leaders have warned that the GWOT will be long and protracted. These warnings were sounded when the
administration did not anticipate operations in Iraq consuming so many military, diplomatic and economic resources. There is justifiable concern that

Africa and the Caucasus region are potential hot spots for terrorist activity, so these
areas should be secure.

North Korea will continue to be an unpredictable crisis in waiting.

We also cannot ignore China . What if China resorts to aggression to resolve the
Taiwan situation? Will the U.S. go to war over Taiwan? Additionally, Iran could conceivably be the next
target for U.S. pre-emptive action. These are known and potential situations that
could easily require all or many of the elements of national power to resolve. I n view of
such global issues, can the U.S. afford to sustain the status quo and simply let the Cuban
situation play out? The U.S. is at a crossroads: should the policies of the past 40 years remain in effect with vigor? Or should the U.S.
pursue a new approach to Cuba in an effort to facilitate a manageable transition to post-Castro Cuba?

Caribbean terrorism leads to attack on the US---theyll use

bioweapons
Bryan 1 (Anthony T. Bryan, director of the North-South Centers Caribbean Program, 10-212001. CFR, Terrorism, Porous Borders, and Homeland Security: The Case for U.S.-Caribbean
Cooperation, p.
http://www.cfr.org/publication/4844/terrorism_porous_borders_and%20_homeland_
%20security.html)
Terrorist acts can take place anywhere. The Caribbean is no exception. Already the

linkages between drug trafficking and terrorism are clear in countries like Colombia and Peru, and such connections have similar
potential in the Caribbean. The security of major industrial complexes in some Caribbean

countries is vital. Petroleum refineries and major industrial estates in Trinidad, which host more than 100 companies that
produce the majority of the worlds methanol, ammonium sulphate, and 40 percent of U.S. imports of
liquefied natural gas (LNG), are vulnerable targets. Unfortunately, as experience has shown in Africa,
the Middle East, and Latin America, terrorists are likely to strike at U.S. and European interests
in Caribbean countries. Security issues become even more critical when one
considers the possible use of Caribbean countries by terrorists as bases from
which to attack the United States . An airliner hijacked after departure from an airport in the northern
Caribbean or the Bahamas can be flying over South Florida in less than an hour. Terrorists can sabotage or seize control of a cruise
ship after the vessel leaves a Caribbean port. Moreover, terrorists with false passports and visas issued in the Caribbean may be able
to move easily through passport controls in Canada or the United States. (To help counter this possibility, some countries have
suspended "economic citizenship" programs to ensure that known terrorists have not been inadvertently granted such citizenship.)
Again, Caribbean countries are as vulnerable as anywhere else to the clandestine
manufacture and deployment of bio logical weapons within national borders.

Bioterror leads to extinction

Anders Sandberg 8, is a James Martin Research Fellow at the Future of Humanity

Institute at Oxford University; Jason G. Matheny, PhD candidate in Health Policy and
Management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and special consultant to the
Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center; Milan M. irkovi, senior
research associate at the Astronomical Observatory of Belgrade and assistant professor of
physics at the University of Novi Sad in Serbia and Montenegro, 9/8/8, How can we reduce the
risk of human extinction?, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,http://www.thebulletin.org/webedition/features/how-can-we-reduce-the-risk-of-human-extinction
The risks from anthropogenic hazards appear at present larger than those from natural ones. Although great progress has been made
in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world, humanity is still threatened by the possibility of a global

thermonuclear war and a resulting nuclear winter. We may face even greater
risks from emerging technologies . Advances in synthetic biology might make it
possible to engineer pathogens capable of extinction-level pandemics . The knowledge,
equipment, and materials needed to engineer pathogens are more accessible than those needed to build nuclear weapons.
And unlike other weapons, pathogens are self-replicating, allowing a small arsenal
to become exponentially destructive . Pathogens have been implicated in the extinctions of many wild
species. Although most pandemics "fade out" by reducing the density of susceptible populations, pathogens
with wide host ranges in multiple species can reach even isolated individuals. The intentional or unintentional release
of

engineered pathogens

with high transmissibility, latency, and lethality

might be capable of

causing human extinction . While such an event seems unlikely today, the likelihood may increase as
biotechnologies continue to improve at a rate rivaling Moore's Law.

2AC XTs

XT Economy Down Now

Cuban economy down
TAMAYO, 2013 (Juan, Miami Herald Editor, Report says Cuban economic growth hasnt
quickened despite reforms, Miami Herald, 07.01.13,
http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/07/01/3480625/report-says-cuban-economy-is.html)

Cuba said Monday its economy will grow by no more than 3 percent this year, about the same as in 2012 but far short of the 3.6
percent goal and another indication that ruler Ral Castros reforms are generating little new economic activity. Castro,
nevertheless, seemed pleased with the reports on his reforms submitted Friday to a meeting of the Council of Ministers and detailed
in a story Monday in Granma, the official newspaper of the ruling Communist Party. We continue advancing and the results can be
seen. We are moving at a faster pace than can be imagined by those who criticize our supposed slow pace and ignore the difficulties
that we face, he was quoted as saying at the meeting. Since succeeding older brother Fidel in 2008, Castro has allowed

more private enterprise and cut state payrolls and subsidies. But many economists
have dismissed his reforms as too slow and too weak to rescue Cubas Soviet-styled
economy. Minister of the Economy and planning Adel Yzquierdo told the Cabinet meeting
that he expects Gross Domestic Product will grow by between 2.5 and 3 percent, far short of
the 3.6 percent goal. The countrys GDP grew by 3 percent last year. GDP growth for the first half of this year was
estimated at 2.3 percent, compared to 2.1 percent for the same period last year, he added. Cuba uses a unique way of counting GDP
that exaggerates the number when compared to other countries. Yzquierdo blamed the shortcomings on a

broad range of factors that went from last years Hurricane Sandy it caused an
estimated $2 billion in damages to what Granma called the deficiencies that are part and parcel of the Cuban
economy. Granma and Yzquierdo ticked off a list of reasons for the economic stagnation , from delays in
projects to broken contracts and the low productivity and shortage of the labor
force as well as the economic situation in Latin America and the rest of the world. Spending on
social services remained stable for the first semester of this year, Yzquierdo declared, and many parts of the economy grew at a 2.9
percent clip or better. But the sugar harvest fell 192,000 tons short of goal and bean

production fell 6,000 tons short. Government spending on construction and other capital projects
was 16.6 percent higher than in the first semester last year but 9 percent short of goal because of delays and others
issues, the minister said. Exports grew by 5 percent, Granma reported, and lower prices on imported food meant savings of $168
million. But shortcomings in Cuban farming forced the government to import an

unplanned $46 million worth of food. Cuba must import more than 70 percent of
the food items it consumes, at a cost of more than $1.5 billion a year . Underlining Cubas
economic stagnation, Vice President Marino Murillo, in charge of implementing the Castro reforms, told the Cabinet that the
government will promote the use of bicycles to cover gaps in public transportation, according to Granma. We will evaluate the
sale at cost of parts for their maintenance, Murillo was quoted as saying in the lengthy Granma report summing up the Cabinet
meeting. The government sold Cubans more than 1 million bicycles, most of them made in China, after the Soviet Union collapsed
in the early 1990s and halted it massive cash and oil subsidies to the communist-ruled island. But by 1996 about one-third of
Havana residents had stopped using their bikes because of the lack of spare parts, the bad state of Cubas streets and lack of night
lights, according to a report in 2011 by the Agence France Press news agency. The AFP report noted that Havana authorities had
already decided to cut the price of spare parts by 30 percent, guarantee the work of 105 repair shops and 110 air pumping stations
and try to create about 100 miles of bike lanes. Murillo also listed a series of problems with the public transportation system

bus passengers not paying their fares and bus company employees stealing the
money, and a black market for fuel and spare parts mostly stolen from state
enterprises. The government plans to use plastic cards to control fuel purchases by public transport employees the

principal source of black market fuel crack down on the theft and offer higher salaries to sector workers, he said, without raising
prices.

Cubas economic performance

Rodriguez, 2013 (Jose Luis, Cubas former economics minister and an advisor to CIEM,
Cubas Economic Performance in 2012, Counter Punch, JULY 24,
2013,http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/24/cubas-economic-performance-in-2012/)

Recently, the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) published a digital version of the Economic and Social Outlook
for 2012, a document it publishes regularly as a preview of the Statistical Yearbook of Cuba (AEC). [1] The first thing that stands out
in the published information is the adjustment in growth figures for last year, which were previously reported in the National
Assembly of Peoples Power in December 2012. Once the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy at the end
of the year were estimated and which according to estimates cost 6.9 billion pesos, [2] the GDP growth figure for
2012 was calculated at 3% as compared with the 3.1% previously announced and was lower than the projected 3.4%. [3] There were
other figures that had to be adjusted by sectors. Economic performance was negative in the agricultural

sector, decreasing 1.2% during the year compared with the 2% positive growth previously announced; there was
an important deceleration in manufacturing where growth dropped from 4.4% to 2.3%;
and the transportation and communications sector declined from 5% to 2.8% . On the
other hand, construction showed favorable growth of 18% compared with the 12.4% previously estimated, while domestic trade rose
from 5.9% to 6.4%. In general, since 2009, the Cuban economy has been growing very modestly from 1.4% in that year, 2.4% in
2010 and 2.8% in 2011 for an annual average up until 2012 of 2,4%. Except for 2010, these figures have remained slightly lower than
projected. Furthermore, these results compare favorably with Latin American and the Caribbean in 2009 and 2012 but are below the
regional figures in 2010 and 2011. In any case, a balanced evaluation of the countrys economic performance cannot be made
without taking into account the process of transformation that has taken place since the approval of the new economic and social
policy in April 2011, which assumed profound changes in the Cuban economy and its management system, all of which also has
effects on the pace of the countrys growth. In this sense, the current performance of the Cuban economy stems from a socialist
economic strategy centered on the creation of conditions for sustainable development in the medium term. To reach this objective,
it is especially important to have a process for improving the balance of payments, which in the short term, is a high priority element
in the Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy. [4] This policy calls for an updating of commitments for payment of the foreign
debt as an indispensable requirement for achieving an expansion of the economy taking into account the need for a greater flow of
external financial resources including greater foreign direct investment. In pursuing these priorities we have increased foreign
exchange earnings through growth of more than 100% in the value of exported goods, while imports increased by only 54% between
2009 and 2012 resulting in a decrease in the current account balance in relation to

GDP of -4.2% in 2008 to an estimated -0.6% in 2012. [5] Furthermore, we have made significance advances in revising
foreign financial commitments. By 2010, an agreement had been reached for the renegotiation of 2 billion dollars in foreign debt
payments. [6] Likewise, in February 2013, an agreement was reached with Russia for debt forgiveness with the old Soviet Union. [7]
All of this has made possible a strict compliance with foreign financial obligations, which should result in greater credibility at the
international level. Also, in relation to this issue, it is important to emphasize that the prioritized payment of contracted obligations
basically has been backed by a reduction in the nations expenditures. State spending dropped in relation to GDP from 78.1% in
2008 to 67.4% in 2011; the fiscal balance dropped from -6.9% to -3.8%; liquidity in the

hands of the population fell from 41.5% to 38.6%; and a process of restructuring basic social services
was carried out to reduce costs without affecting essential benefits. Along with the reduction in external financial tensions,
economic efficiency must be increased through greater growth in labor productivity, a process that focuses on a gradual reduction in
underemployment in the state sector, increasing activities in the cooperative, private and mixed sectors, [8] while reorienting
investment to favor the productive sphere. In this sense, there was an 8.1% growth in labor productivity between 2009 and 2012, but
the pace was still insufficient although it was in harmony with the increase in median salary. In this regard, it is worth noting that,
as a consequence of the scarcity of financial resources, investment funds are still limited [9], and with low levels of efficiency in their
management. All of which constitutes an obstacle to reaching higher levels of productivity in the midst of a process of real-wage
depression that, in comparison with 1989, has still not recovered. [10] The results that were achieved in 2012 can be said to be in
line with what can be expected of a process of changes that substantially alters the economic management system of the country
creating conditions for sustainable development while having to face a complex international economic situation and the
consequences of the U.S. economic blockade. This year and 2014 should see a change in the quality of state economic management
with a greater level of decentralization, growth in economic efficiency and a gradual increase in worker income, which, along with an
increase in the level of investment, will allow an increase in the pace of economic growth in a more favorable environment for
external finances. The challenge is clearly of enormous magnitude, but there are conditions to successfully face it.

Shortages in the Cuban economy

MacInnes-Rae 2013 (Rick, World Affairs Correspondent, Rick MacInnes-Rae: Cuba's

economy at mercy of Venezuela's voters, CBS News, Apr 1, 2013,

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/03/28/f-vp-macinnes-rae-cuba-venezuela.html)
It is not just Venezuelans who are looking anxiously at their post-Hugo Chavez future. Cubans, too, have

much to lose
if Venezuela's government changes after the April 14 election , and they're not happy about it.
In campaign speeches, Venezuelan opposition leader Henrique Capriles is threatening to axe the long-time lifeline Venezuela has

been providing to Cuba in the form of heavily discounted oil. For 13 years,

the small Caribbean state has

depended on Venezuela for nearly 100,000 barrels a day of petroleum to light Cuba's
homes and the hotels that underpin its tourist economy at discount prices that amount to an
estimated $6-billion subsidy over the six-year life of the current agreement. "The
giveaways to other countries are going to end," Capriles told a student rally in Zulia recently. "Not another drop of oil will go toward
financing the government of the Castros." The market-friendly Venezuelan governor is no fan of the radical socialism of the late
president Hugo Chavez who viewed Cuba's Fidel Castro as a mentor. And his message is getting through to Cubans loud and clear.
"The opposition is talking about cutting off the oil and if they do we're in big trouble," says Tina (not her real name), a tour guide in
the northern province of Mattanzas. Trouble is not something Cuba needs any more of, particularly now. "After the triumph of the
revolution in 1959, Cuba became an upside-down pyramid. Labourers at the top.

Professionals at the bottom," says Tina, her own life being a case in point. Tina is a multilingual,
university-trained interpreter/translator in her late 20s who found no work after
graduating. So she became a teacher, and found there was no money in that. Her
teacher's salary equaled $25 Cdn a month. Almost enough to buy four kilograms of pork to feed her extended family, providing she
bought nothing else that month. But she's a smart woman. She speaks Spanish, English, German and realpolitik. So, like Cuba after
the collapse of its Soviet sponsor in the early-1990s, she stopped what she was doing and turned to tourism. Cuba's been turning
out joint-venture resorts as fast as it can drain the swamps of Varadero, building a new economy on the hard currency of foreign
visitors to the tune of almost $2.5 billion a year, according to reports. Tourists are flocking to the pastel-colored, all-inclusive, airconditioned bubbles of blue water and white rum that could be anywhere in the Caribbean since they portray so little of Cuba or
Castro or the political tensions that litter the country's past and present. For those willing to leave the bubble, Tina will guide them
where they want to go for a daily fee that's small to them, but eight times what she used to make in a month. Most of her

customers are Canadians ("So nice!") and Russians ("Not so nice."), since the ongoing 53year-old U.S. embargo pretty much keeps Americans out. The departures and arrivals board at
Varadero Airport reads like a survey of cold weather capitals, with flights from Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City, Edmonton and Saint
John coming and going all day long. But while there are plenty of Canadians and Russians (even a few
Chinese nationals) basking in sun and cheap rum,

there are shortages of other things, despite the much trumpeted

this month it was butter. Before that, toothpaste. And
before that, a shortage of shampoo. The U.S. embargo against the Castro regime compels Cuba
to pay for the things it wants in cash, and hard currency is hard to come by. That is also where
"triumph of the revolution." Earlier

Venezuela helps out. Along with the subsidized oil, it also invests billions of its hard-earned petrodollars directly in Cuba's aging
infrastructure. Still, despite the help, Cuba can't afford everything, all the time. So it constantly

runs out of all kinds of stuff. "Cubans get by on tips," Tina tells me. A bartender in a tourist resort trousers more in
a day than a teacher will in a month. Times are tough, but not as tough as they once were in the mid-1990s when some 50,000
state-owned cows suddenly vanished into many thousands of pots when Cubans were going hungry. There's emigration, of course.
Cuba has famously had two kinds. "Wet" and "dry." Wet means finding a boat, or lashing a few inner tubes together and trying your
luck on the tides to Florida, 144 kilometres to the north. Dry meant going to someplace like Venezuela, then travelling north over
land through Mexico by rail to the U.S. A little more expensive, and fraught with risks of its own. Passports have become easier to
come by since January, when Cuba lifted the burdensome restrictions that were once designed to prevent people skipping out. But
like the easing of restrictions on buying and selling cars and houses over the past two years, it sounds better than it is. As Tina says,
you have to be able to afford these things, and not many can. She likes to say that Cuba has no important natural

resources, which is why it is so tourist-dependent. But she's wrong about that. Cuba has resources all
right. Human resources. It exports people. Tens of thousands of doctors, health professionals, teachers and sports coaches are
dispatched on contracts all over the developing world, but particularly to Venezuela, where over 30,000 Cuban doctors and dentists
are based, part of a doctors for (subsidized) oil program that the Castros set up with Chavez. Human chattel, whose talents are part
payment for the oil lifeline many are worried about losing. Were the oil exchange to end, there'd be little waiting for these
professionals back at home, beyond slinging mojitos to surly Russians. But the first major poll of the Venezuelan campaign has the
party of late president Chavez in the lead. Its victory would ensure the oil keeps flowing to Cuba, at least for the short term.

XT Embargo Hurts cuba Economy

The embargo costs Cubas economy trillions
Siegelbaum 2011 (Portia Siegelbaum staff writer for CBS News September 14, 2011 Cuba: U.S embargo causes $1
trillion in losses http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503543_162-20106159-503543.html)

Cuba blames the U.S. embargo for nearly a trillion dollars in losses to the island's economy
since it was imposed by President Kennedy in 1962. Vice Foreign Minister Abelardo Moreno said that at
current prices a conservative estimate of economic damages to the island up until December 2010
would be more than $104 billion. However, he added, if you take into consideration the extreme
devaluation of the dollar against the price of gold on the international financial
market during 2010, they would add up to nearly a trillion dollars .

XT Embargo Hurts US Economy

U.S. would benefit as well
Griswold, 2005 (Daniel, director of the Cato Institute's Center for Trade Policy Studies,

Four Decades of Failure: The U.S. Embargo against Cuba, Cato Institute, October 12, 2005,
http://www.cato.org/publications/speeches/four-decades-failure-us-embargo-against-cuba)
Cuban families are not the only victims of the embargo. Many of the dollars Cubans could earn from
U.S. tourists would come back to the United States to buy American products , especially
farm goods. In 2000, Congress approved a modest opening of the embargo. The Trade
Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000 allows cash-only sales to Cuba of U.S. farm
products and medical supplies. The results of this opening have been quite amazing. Since 2000, total sales
of farm products to Cuba have increased from virtually zero to $380 million last year. From
dead last in U.S. farm export markets, Cuba ranked 25th last year out of 228 countries in total purchases of U.S. farm products.

Cuba is now the fifth largest export market in Latin America for U.S. farm exports .
American farmers sold more to Cuba last year than to Brazil. Our leading exports to Cuba are meat and poultry, rice, wheat, corn,
and soybeans. The American Farm Bureau estimates that Cuba could eventually become a $1 billion agricultural export market for
products of U.S. farmers and ranchers. The embargo stifles another $250 million in potential annual
exports of fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides and tractors. According to a study by the U.S. International Trade Commission ,

the

embargo costs American firms a total of $700 million to $1.2 billion per year.
Farmers in Texas and neighboring states are among the biggest potential winners. One study by Texas A&M University estimated
that Texas ranks fifth among states in potential farm exports to Cuba, with rice, poultry, beef and fertilizer the top exports.

Revenue Increase
Alexander, 2001 (Brian, media and public affairs adviser, LIFTING U.S. EMBARGO

AGAINST CUBA COULD RESULT IN $2 BILLION TO $3 BILLION ANNUALLY FOR U.S.

ENERGY INDUSTRY,
ACCORDING TO NEW REPORT BY TWO OF NATIONS TOP ENERGY ECONOMISTS, Cuban
Policy Foundation, http://www.cubafoundation.org/CPF-Release-EnergyStudy.htm)
December 17, 2001, Washington - Lifting

the U.S. embargo against Cuba could provide U.S. energy firms
$2 billion to $3 billion annually in new revenue . Thats the conclusion of a new report, The Potential for
the U.S. Energy Sector in Cuba, by two of the nations leading energy industry economists: Amy Myers Jaffe, senior energy adviser
at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and Ronald Soligo, a Rice University professor of economics
who specializes in economic growth as well as in Latin America. In their report released today, which they wrote as independent
consultants, Jaffe and Soligo state the embargo is blocking promising ventures that could help

enhance U.S. energy security, create a diversified energy supply for Florida, and help ease an expected shortage in
U.S. local refining capacity. The report was commissioned by the Cuba Policy Foundation, a Washington, D.C.- based organization
led by senior diplomats from Republican Administrations who believe lifting the embargo against Cuba would be

in Americas best economic and national interests , as well as hasten democratic reform on the island.
In their report, Jaffe and Soligo state that Cubas waters could also provide a rich source of
natural gas, potentially for export to Florida by pipeline . Though its hard to predict how much
natural gas might be discovered in the coming years were U.S. sanctions against Cuba to be lifted, demand for the relatively clean
fuel in Florida is expected to grow substantially over the next decade. A 2 MM tons a year or 0.27 bcf/d

pipeline to Florida would represent a business opportunity of roughly $300

million a year. Gas finds in Cuba might also be profitably converted to liquid fuel products such as gasoline or diesel fuel
through the construction of a gas-to-liquids plant. Jaffe and Soligo project that per capita energy demand in Cuba in 2015 will
become similar to that of other comparable countries in the region in 1998 and could increase by 148-184 thousand b/d by 2015.
This increase will have to be met by additional imports or increases in domestic production of crude oil or natural gas. Using the
modest population growth rate and the experience of Costa Rica and Jamaica, it would appear that Cuba would require additional
electric generating capacity of 48-107 megawatts by 2015. That would bring Cuban per capita usage to the levels prevailing in those

countries today. However, if electricity demand grows at 4% per annum, Cuba will need to install an additional 478 megawatts of
capacity by 2015. Additional refining capacity for gasoline would have to increase by 30-38,000 b/d to bring Cuban usage in 2015
to current Jamaican and Costa Rican levels. These estimates should be regarded as a lower bound. Higher population growth rates
or GDP growth rates will increase these investment requirements, according to the study. The authors note that the future growth
rate for Cuba will depend on a number of factors, including future US policy towards the island. Though Cuba may not have the
energy potential of some of its Caribbean or Latin American neighbors, there is continued interest from

foreign oil firms in exploring for crude and natural gas on the island. Between 1991 and
1999, foreign investment in oil exploration and production in Cuba increased by about $600
million. While the growth potential is not considered large, the countrys geographic position near to growing markets in the
U.S. and Mexico make it an interesting possible entry point for energy project development. Combined with a base oil import
market of 100,000 b/d or more, high-end growth possibilities of the Cuban oil import market potential

could represent gross sales business value of over $1.4 billion to $1.65 billion a
year beyond the next decade. Electricity sector expansion could also represent a substantial business opportunity
for American firms. Many existing Cuban power plants are also aging and in need of refurbishment or upgrading. Finally, Cubas
strategic location would also make it well suited as an energy-trading entrepot in refined products, oil storage and natural gas
development and transshipment.