Cuba in crisis

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next: Cuba in crisis.

Yesterday, the Caribbean country’s electrical grid collapsed, leaving some 10 million people without power. The blackout comes after weeks of widespread power disruptions and increasing pressure from the U.S.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Our producer Lindsay Mast joins us now with more about where things stand. Lindsay…

LINDSAY MAST: Thanks, Nick and Mary. 

Cuba relied heavily on Venezuela for oil to produce energy… and lost access to a large percentage of what it needs when the U.S. captured Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and then imposed new sanctions.

Last week, Cuba confirmed it is in talks with the U.S. over the future of the country. 

Joining us now to talk about the situation is Charles Shapiro. He is former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela. During his more than three decades at the State Department, he also served as the Coordinator for Cuban Affairs. 

Ambassador, good morning.

SHAPIRO: Good morning, how are you Lindsay?

MAST: I'm doing well, thank you. 

So President Trump recently called Cuba a failed state and reports of the situation there for the people are pretty dire. What can you tell us briefly about the situation on the ground in Cuba?

SHAPIRO: Their economy has ground to a halt. They produce only about 40% of the petroleum that they consume. They generate electricity using petroleum, so they're essentially out of oil, out of energy. 

MAST: Mmhm. So the Cuban's stated goals for the talks are vague, things like "bilateral issues and finding solutions." Can you uncloak that from the official terminology for us?

SHAPIRO: I mean, they're not going to say "we're having talks to surrender and find a way for us to flee the country." And so we'll see how far those talks go. The strong guy in Cuba is still Raul Castro, even though he's no longer president and he's allegedly retired. The government of Cuba who put out that statement really is out of options and isn't the real authority in Cuba. Raul Castro is, and there's a private business that's run by the Ministry of Defense and owns most of the tourist hotels in the country. And they're the two institutions in the country that work. 

What doesn't work is the Communist Party, the economic system that they've been following since 1959, and the state-owned enterprises, all of which are failing.

MAST: There were reports of protests over the weekend at the Communist Party headquarters, which is, I understand, is outside of the capital. Protests can come with prison sentences in Cuba, so what does that tell you about the situation on the ground?

SHAPIRO: Okay, first of all, it was in a small town and spontaneous. There’s no organized opposition in Cuba because they've all either been put in jail or they've left the country and are mostly in the United States or in Spain. 

What you had in this town called Moron, which really is in the center of the country and is not even the biggest city in the province it's located in, I mean, so it's a fairly small town. But there's no electricity and it essentially was a protest against, you know, why are we so poor? Why is stuff such a mess? And it was spontaneous and they did set the local Communist Party headquarters on fire. And yes, it takes a lot of nerve to do that because Cuba is literally a police state with police everywhere, and you get arrested and you get long jail sentences.

MAST: So when those people take to the streets and they shout liberty, what do they mean? What do you think they're asking for?

SHAPIRO: Well, you'd have to ask them. For Cubans, ordinary Cubans, the Cuban economy over the, since 1959, has shifted from an economy that produced sugar and exported sugar, to an economy based on tourism. And what they see with tourism is people dressed like you and me, showing up with money to spend, giving things away that would cost a fortune in Cuba, right? 

Everybody has access to internet now. There's prepaid internet cards and there's internet hotspots, and so people are talking to their relatives again—in Spain, in Miami, wherever they are—and people are seeing what life is like. People are hungry, people can't believe that they're still living this way. They want to be able to get ahead and they don't want to live in the dark.

MAST: So turning back to the talks, how would you judge success in those?

SHAPIRO: Well, this is for me, okay, and I don't speak for the U.S. government, I only speak for myself. What success would look like would be an agreement under which we would allow, whether it's Mexico or maybe it's the United States, why not the United States oil companies to sell oil to Cuba so that they can generate electricity, all that stuff they need, you know. So the United States would agree to supply it in return for an opening in the economic system. 

But the major sort of money that you think of with foreign direct investment is not going to go until you've got a legal system set up that would give confidence to investors that, if I sign a contract with you and you break the contract, I can take you to court. And that can be done. 

So you do that, and at the same time you start opening up the political system in Cuba. It should be the people of Cuba, Cubans outside of Cuba, and the United States government deciding that.

MAST: Ambassador Shapiro, you've been involved with Cuba for so long. How do you rate this as far as how close they may finally be to having a change there versus in the past?

SHAPIRO: That’s a great question. Look, I mean, they have shown amazing ability to hold on in the face of adverse circumstances. I mean, the government of Cuba has, the Communist Party of Cuba has. When the Soviet Union collapsed and Soviet Union stopped providing, I mean, they went through 10 years of a depression greater than the Depression the United States experienced in the 1930s. And they survived that, right? 

They had an opportunity under Barack Obama to find an off-ramp, and they turned it down. They couldn't bring themselves to accept it. So now, are they at the point where they have no alternative? They may well be, which means they might just have to accept this.

MAST: Charles Shapiro is former U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela, and during his three decades at the State Department he also served as the Coordinator for Cuban affairs.

Ambassador Shapiro, thank you so much.

SHAPIRO: Thanks Lindsay, this was fun, enjoyed it.

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