Look above for all the reasons why the US doesn’t trade with Cuba. I think that part of your question has been answered, but why trade with China?
Part of it was the Chinese distancing themselves from the Soviets, but that was not the only reason. Indeed, the PRC, maintained a closed and restricted border until 1978, when then premier, Deng Xiao Ping declared it was okay for people to improve their lot through economic gains (Not those words exactly). He started an economic reform that has been continuing to this day. China truly opened up in the early 90’s after the Soviet Union collapsed. I have been traveling to China since the early ‘90s on business and I can personally confirm that China has adopted capitalism fully. Shanghai in 1992 compared to Shanghai in 2006, is like visiting two very different cities.
Although the ruling party is still the communist party, in reality, it is communist only in name. The economic reform in China has made it acceptable to do business there, where as Cuba is still ideologically communist under Castro. Although I understand there have been some reforms there as well, although not to the extent as China has reformed.
Depends on what you mean by “trade.” They export oil, and, being a fungible product, once a given barrel goes on the world market it might wind up in a refinery anywhere in the world.
Any attempt to justify the Cuba embargo based on Castro’s current restrictions of personal or economic rights runs afoul of the fact that the United States trades with nations that do much worse, and has done so for decades. In the China case, while some segments have the country have made vast gains, the farm and factory laborers are still effectively enslaved, law enforcement is brutal and human rights nonexistent. The United States also trades with Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the list goes on.
The contradictory policies arise from the fact that the U. S. government is controlled by corporate interests.
That may be, but there are probably more U.S. commericial interests that want to trade with Cuba, especially in agriculture. And those Cubans that got thrown out of the hotel in Mexico City? They were there in talks with some U.S. energy execs.
Why? Other than sugar and tobacco, what do they grow in Cuba that can’t be grown more cheaply in the U.S.?
Why? Cuba has no oil, does it? And if the execs wanted to sell them oil – how would the Cubans pay for it? Besides, Cuba no longer has an oil problem since it worked out a deal with Venezuela: Venezuela supplies Cuba with oil, Cuba supplies Venezuela with doctors. (Cuba has the best medical-education system in the region and even does some original pharmaceutical research.)
It has been years since I read anything about LA history, but wasn’t Castro involved in exporting revolution somewhere, as well as the 59-63 belligerencies?
Castro’s lieutenant, Che Guevara, went to Bolivia in 1966-67 to foment revolution there. He was ultimately captured and executed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_guevara#Bolivia In 1975 Castro sent troops to Angola to help its Marxist government fight the UNITA insurgency. In 1979 he supported the Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro#Relations_with_the_outside_world And he currently has close ties to Hugo Chavez in Venezuela – a government many, including Chavez, consider a “revolution” even though it came to power by free elections.
So, yeh, kindasorta.
But even that doesn’t matter much now, does it? Except for Chavez, all the left-wing revolutions Castro supported to date have failed. Even Chavez does not call himself a Marxist. (He prefers “Bolivarian.”) Neither do the Zapatista rebels in Mexico. There is really no possibility any more of international Marxist or Communist revolution in LA. The name of Marx has lost its power to conjure, and Castro is no longer any serious threat to anyone outside of Cuba.
(Bolding mine. So far as I know, nothing has changed since.) My understanding, however, is that some U.S. ag business is even trying to get financing approved, though I doubt that will happen soon.
You seem to think that Cuba is completely destitute.
I know they were, for a few years after the Soviet Union collapsed – they even had a malnutrition problem – but they solved that by switching a lot of their land from growing sugar and tobacco for export to growing food for domestic consumption; and by adopting organic-farming methods that don’t require a lot of petroleum. But I didn’t think they were yet actually producing much of anything for export (except for sugar, doctors and pharmaceuticals), so they wouldn’t have much to trade with internationally.