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A Russian oil tanker has arrived in Cuba, the first oil shipment to reach the island
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nascent since January, Cuba has been under a de facto oil blockade ever since the United
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States seized Venezuelan leader Nicholas Maduro, a staunch ally of the Cuban government
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and has been providing the country with oil and had been providing the country with oil
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at preferential rates.
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Several shortages have caused nationwide blackouts while access to food, water and medical
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care have also been significantly impacted.
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Petro E. Friday is a Cuban American and shares the Ackerman law firm's international
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practice and has advised U.S. companies on doing business in Cuba he joined me earlier.
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This is the first fuel that's entered Havana since the start of January, how significant
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is this development?
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I think it's significant in the sense that it eases the very, very dire situation that
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Cuba had and I think it's a reflection on the extent of the crunch that had been put
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on Cuba, which is having all sorts of widespread effects in society, you know, things like hospitals
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and emergency services and so on.
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So I think it's a reflection on that and it's a reflection on the thought process of
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I think the U.S. administration, particularly Secretary Rubio who is a Cuban American in
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understanding that you can certainly exert pressure, but you've got to be careful not to
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throw the baby out with the bath water.
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And just remind us how we got here in terms of how this links into what happened in Venezuela.
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You know, there is certainly a persuasion and a push in this administration to, you
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know, deal with these regimes in Latin America that have been there for quite a long time.
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Countries that are in dire circumstances, the systems simply don't work.
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Countries that have bad histories in terms of human abuses, human rights abuses.
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And I think this administration just with this new concept of this new policy has taken
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the initiative and just finishing them and ending the agony in some way or another.
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So this Russian vessel has been allowed to arrive.
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Why has the Trump administration let this one come through?
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That's an excellent question and the question has been posed as to why a Russian vessel.
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I think, you know, that the Russian, I'll be handed, I think firstly, that humanitarian
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But second, in terms of why the Russian vessel, why now, Russia, as you know, has this shadow
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tanker fleet with a bunch of ships floating around in mid-Ocean with substantial cargoes.
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And you know, the other thing is the U.S. is dealing diplomatically with Russia and the
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issue of Ukraine and the issue of Iran and so on.
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So I wouldn't put it past us that we've got some kind of an arrangement with Russia, some
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kind of tit for tat where they look good, delivering the oil.
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We solve the immediate humanitarian issues and it's part of a larger, of a larger game
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Russia has called this a humanitarian shipment, but how much will Moscow be getting paid
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for it, do you think?
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I'm not sure they're going to get paid anything.
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Cuba is simply flat broke.
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There's no other way to say it.
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They have no capability to pay.
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So I have no clue as to how Russia is getting value for this.
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I do know that Russia and Cuba have very strong relationships.
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There may be a quick walk on something else, but certainly hard cash is very difficult
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for Cuba to come by these days.
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President Trump has recently said that Cuba is finished and he said that it's next.
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What's the view on what might happen next in relations between the U.S. and Cuba?
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I think that everybody looked at Venezuela as the model where there was this sort of a
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very neat, if you can call that, surgical military, or how they call it in the U.S. a kinetic
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action to grab the president of Venezuela who was under indictment in the U.S. and
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that tripped a series of changes and now our ambassador is back there, the embassy is
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working, the U.S. has granted a number of licenses for oil to move and so forth.
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And it's been relatively painless in sense of the political cost to the U.S. and I think
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that was kind of the model, but Cuba is very different from Venezuela.
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So it's going to be a little more, it's going to be more nuanced in how it's done.
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Pedro, you're a Cuban American.
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What are you hearing about the situation on the ground in Cuba?
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How desperate things are in some respects right now?
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It is dire and the word that I keep hearing is exhaustion.
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The population is exhausted, the model is exhausted, you know, the Cuba has lost roughly between
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10 to 15% of its population in the past three years because people are leaving in droves.
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If you can leave you leave, there's no hope for the future.
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The system is simply not working, it's just, it has stopped working.
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Not because of the lack of fuel, it stopped working before that.
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And they're out of options and the situation is just absolutely desperate.