Ada Ferrer

The Cuban people are so desperate right now that they are much less interested in the question of who's to blame.

In some ways, they don't quite care who's to blame.

They just want something to change.

So I think that's the mood right now in terms of what I think.

The U.S.

embargo is a policy that has harmed the Cuban economy.

There's no question about that, right?

From the very beginning, it denied Cuba access to its major and natural market, right, 90 miles away.

Cuba turned to the Soviet Union and found salvation there.

But in some sense, it never became an economically independent nation.

It relied on the Soviet Union for decades.

The Soviet Union collapsed.

It sent the Cuban economy into a tailspin.

And then, you know, Venezuela stepped in with oil, right?

But there's no saviors anymore.

If you look at what the Cuban government has been investing in over the last years, there's tremendous investment in the tourist industry.

but remarkably surprisingly little in things like agriculture or infrastructure or even education, health, and so on.

So they've made decisions that have contributed to the current crisis.

Absolutely.

I think Cuban Americans would—a majority of Cuban Americans would welcome some kind of action by Trump and Rubio to force a change in Cuba.