Hi everybody. Cheryl Ackison here. Welcome to another edition of the Cheryl Ackison podcast.

Today, dashed dreams, American walls. We're talking about Cuba.

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Cuba, about 90 miles off the coast of Florida, is one of our closest foreign neighbors and our very closest communist neighbor. And there's been a very

complicated and tense relationship for decades ever since Castro was installed as their sort of

dictator and the U.S. was caught trying to assassinate Castro and lots of tensions. I would say, and I could be wrong about some of this,

but from my studies, my visits to Cuba, my reporting on the whole dynamic, it seems to me that

the United States has kind of pushed Cuba toward Russia and China. That's a big concern of

ours now, that Russia and China have

influence so close to our shores. But if you look at what's happened and our refusal to

deal with Cuba on the economy, we've had an embargo against them for decades, their economy

is devastated, and a lot of other Western countries follow our suit.

They've been left really with only, well, who will do business with them?

Who will buy their sugar?

Who will do oil business with them?

...