Since Chávez’ times Cuba and Nicaragua obtain significant amounts of oil from Venezuela. But where does the raw material to come, when the government of Nicolás falls Maduro actually?
Doctors against Oil is the Deal, and the Cuban leadership celebrated the contract, valid up to 2021, as “the most important agreement between the two countries in recent years”. Cuba sends its most important export, its largest source of foreign exchange, namely, highly trained Doctors, in turn, the socialist Caribbean receives island for oil. In the name of the trading partner, you must get used to: Algeria. Cuba is bracing itself already for the case of an emergency – if in the near future no more Oil comes from ally Venezuela.
Close relations since Chávez
The economic relations between Venezuela and Cuba since the assumption of office by President Hugo Chávez in 1999, closely. Venezuela took over at that time, the helpful role of the departed USSR and two decades later, Cuba’s second largest trading partner after China.
“Oil from Venezuela covers the majority of the energy supply of Cuba, to replace it would plunge Cuba into a deep crisis”, says Bert Hoffmann, a political scientist from the GIGA Institute for Latin American studies, “that would definitely lead to dramatic savings programs, and to a large burden for the population.”
Also, Nicaragua is affected by the Venezuelan crisis
In addition to Cuba, Nicaragua, from 2005, initiated by “Petrocaribe”program benefits, albeit on a smaller scale. The agreement with some Caribbean States price guaranteed Venezuelan Oil at a preferential price. It is only to pay half directly, the Rest can be abgestottert over a period of 25 years at low interest rates.
The Castro brothers Fidel and Raúl and Hugo Chávez in Havana
For Cuba, says Hoffmann, the struggle for power in Caracas is much more to the game than it is for the government of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua. “The barter trade with Cuba is much larger. Cuba has sent 30,000 Physicians and other medical personnel in exchange for oil supplies to Venezuela.”
Brazil stands as a Partner on the Brink
Official data on how much oil Cuba receives daily from Venezuela. Weddings are supposed to be 115,000 barrels have been, what, around 80 per cent of the total petroleum consumption is eighth on the Caribbean island. Today, around 50,000 barrels of Hiking, probably every day to Havana. The times in which Cuba received so rough amounts that it could sell oil on the international market even more, are long gone.
A Similar “Doctors for Oil”Deal in Cuba with Brazil. About 10,000 Cuban doctors are currently working in Brazil. However, this partnership is on the Brink: After Brazil’s new President Jair Bolsonaro ranted in the election campaign against the Cuban Doctors, announced Cuba, Doctors deduct.
“In the meantime, Cuba has deducted many Doctors, there is also a large part of the breaks away now,” explains Manuel Neumann from the Latin America club in Hamburg.
More than 10,000 Cuban Doctors working temporarily in Brazil. Now, the program is terminated
Cuba is forced to seek new oil suppliers to look out for, whether it is since 2017 Russia, or Algeria, Mexico and Qatar. “If Cuba can have one from many years of experience, then, is to act politically clever,” says Neumann, “the government in Havana is not radical, but very pragmatic.”
Trump Card Tourism
How this pragmatism might look like, explains the Cuban economists Pavel Vidal Alejandro, who teaches at the University of Cali in Colombia. “Cuba is open to the private sector on the island, and also direct investments from abroad make it easier, there is broad consensus in the Cuban government.” To work as well as to conclude international economic alliances with new partners.
But above all, Havana will be an increased focus on the tourism map, says Vidal Alejandro: “tourism has increased in the last year by 16 per cent and was, therefore, as a shock absorber for the crisis in Venezuela.” Cuba Libre for the tourists so instead of free oil from Venezuela. In contrast to Venezuela, Cuba, has mastered in the last 60 years, yet every acute supply crisis.