Erika Barris

For more than 60 years, Cuba has survived on two seemingly contradictory economic strategies, leaning on its communist and socialist compadres and flirting with its frenemy, capitalism.

And right now, it seems like the U.S.

is making both strategies impossible.

When I asked Yasser, how did all this happen?

How did Cuba go from this mini boom to near failure?

Was it because of the U.S.

oil embargo over the last few months?

I'm guessing he listened, rubbed his temples and was like, where do I start?

In his message back, he told me, what's happened the last few months is an intensification of what's been happening for a long time.

So for help with my complicated questions, I also contacted an economist.

So you are Cuban.

But before all that, Ricardo lived and studied economics in Cuba.

So he was the perfect person to talk to us about Cuba's decades-long economic experiment, going between its communist compadres and its frenemy, capitalism.

Starting with the 1959 revolution, which Ricardo learned about in elementary school, when his teachers would tell him the heroic story of the great revolution led by their beloved leader, Fidel Castro.

Cuba is just 90 miles from the U.S., and this was the Cold War.

These two countries became the opposite of compadres.

So the U.S.

imposed what soon became the mother of all embargoes on Cuba.

Nothing from the U.S.

could be exported to Cuba.