The Cuban dispatch

Marketplace All-in-One

Marketplace

News, Business

4.5 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On today’s episode, Kimberly takes us along her trip to Cuba, a country that remains under strict U.S. economic sanctions. She’ll explains some unique aspects of the Cuban economy, from how the currency works to the island’s complicated complicated past as a colonial outpost for sugar plantations. Plus, what makes the Cuban mojito special.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“Cuba predicts 1% growth in 2025 after dismal year, economy minister says” from Reuters

“How U.S. sanctions and a Communist government caused Cuba’s power crisis” from NPR

“Biden’s move to remove Cuba from terror list continues ‘yo-yo’ policy likely to be reversed by Trump” from The Conversation

“How Cuba’s sugar industry has been ground into dust” from Al Jazeera

Got a question or comment for us? Leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, it's Kai Rizda.
0:08.8	Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today make sense.
0:11.4	It is 27 January.
0:13.0	This one is a Monday.
0:14.2	Kimberly Adams is in Cuba.
0:19.7	Hello, Kai. And let everybody in the group here with me in Cuba say hi. Hello, Kai.
0:21.0	And let everybody in the group here with me in Cuba say, hi, Kai.
0:24.4	Hi, hi, everybody.
0:26.2	Oh, my God, you're doing this in front of a crowd?
0:28.2	How absolutely mortifying.
0:29.9	But anywho.
0:31.0	We are actually here at a mechanic where they repair classic cars,
0:37.1	which I can tell you about in the minute.
0:39.0	Why don't you tell everybody what you're doing in Cuba?
0:41.5	Yeah, so what I'm doing in Cuba, we're doing one of these like custom public radio travel
0:46.0	things where we basically said, hey, who wants to go with Marketplace to Cuba and learn a little
0:52.0	bit more about the Cuban economy. And like 30 people
0:55.5	said yes. And so we are here, technically not as tourists, but as people to support the Cuban
1:03.5	people. It's like a cultural exchange type thing because Cuba is under sanctions. It's a state
1:09.1	sponsor, terrorism, according to the U.S. government.
1:11.7	And there's a pretty strict embargo on a lot of stuff.
1:14.7	Yeah, so just let's do a little nuts and bolts, first of all here. What about lodging?
	...

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