Latin America

Writing in Canada's National Post, New America Senior Fellow Andres Martinez reports on his recent travels in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

CARACAS -- I don't like arriving in a new city early in the morning. You and the city are both still groggy, exposed; the pulse-racing anticipation of discovery is deadened by the overnight flight. It's like agreeing to go on a first date at 6 a.m. No, I'd rather make my first landing at night, when the shimmering lights only hint at what is soon to be unveiled.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (ret.), Co-Chair of New America's U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative comments on the ease with which Cuba's leaders can ignore America's unilateral trade embargo. From the Havana Note:

LET'S look at what Cuba is doing with regard to diversification. It’s darned smart.

Having experienced the Soviet withdrawal from their island—a move that impacted nearly every Cuban in some way—and the concomitant epiphany of the tragic downside of sole-source support, the Cuban leadership vowed never to repeat. As a result, today that leadership is diversifying its support by state and function. Spain, China, Germany Canada, Israel, Venezuela, Brazil, and others fill the former role and nickel, tobacco, oil, rum, tourism, and other trade the latter. Cuba will never be trapped again into reliance on one state or on one or two commodities or trade functions.