President Obama's decision to normalize relations with Cuba throws the communist regime an economic lifeline at a time when two of its top backers – Russia and Venezuela – are facing massive economic problems, experts say.
Cuba,
The Wall Street Journal observed on Wednesday, is heavily dependent on subsidized energy exports from Caracas. But Venezuela’s economic situation is worsening, making it increasingly difficult for President Nicolas Maduro's government to continue to subsidize the Castro regime.
Like Venezuela, President Vladimir Putin's Russia is facing financial problems of its own due in large part to falling global oil prices.
"A collapse in Venezuela, which I think is pretty predictable, means the Cuban government will no longer be able to count on billions of dollars in assistance from Venezuela,"
said Roger Noreiga, the senior State Department official handling Latin American affairs in the George W. Bush Administration.
Business Insider reported this week that the deteriorating situation in Venezuela left the communist regime in Havana no real choice but to distance itself from that nation, which it described as "a state on the verge of collapse." It quoted one Latin American bond trader as predicting Venezuela would default within a year, with falling oil prices "just adding to a completely dysfunctional political and financial situation."
Jose Cardenas, a former National Security Council member in the George W. Bush Administration and an expert on Latin America, told
The Washington Free Beacon that the Castro regime knew it "couldn't bet on the longevity of that [oil] bonanza” under the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Experts say Maduro, who succeeded Chavez, is suffering from the economic consequences of statist policies and economic mismanagement he inherited from Chavez, who died last year.
With some analysts estimating that opening Cuba up to the global economy would result in $20 billion worth of trade, the Castro regime hopes to improve relations with Washington and lessen its dependence on Caracas, Cardenas said.
"They never took their eye off the ball," Cardenas told the Free Beacon. The ball, he said, "is a margin of economic relief " for Cuba in the event that Venezuela collapses.
And Russia, which forgave more than $30 billion worth of Cuban debt in August, is wrestling with the collapse of the ruble amid falling oil prices and Western sanctions imposed in response to Moscow's actions in Ukraine.
"Now [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has a lot more problems on his plate and doesn’t have the time to spend it yucking around with anti-American dictators in the Americas," Cardenas said.
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