the arrangement and settled long, LONG ago.
Information which should help:
The US Blockade of Cuba: Its Effects and Global Consequences
Nicholas Partyka I Geopolitics I Analysis I May 2nd, 2014
. . .
On New Year's Eve 1958, Fulgencio Batista fled Cuba. The next day, the revolutionary government took control of the country. For the better part of a year, the US foreign policy establishment did not know what to make of Fidel Castro and his revolution. Relations remained cordial until Fidel announced the implementation of a set of Agrarian Reform laws. These laws aimed to put land in the hands of poor farmers who had been largely excluded from land ownership under the old regime. Many of the lands nationalized under Fidel's measures belonged to US citizens or companies; e.g. King Ranch. Other nations also had property nationalized in Cuba in the wake of the revolution, but only the US refused compensation, which the Cubans offered.
In a somewhat ironic twist, the Cubans offered compensation for nationalized property on the basis of the property's value as determined by the most recent pre-revolutionary Cuban tax assessments. Now, this would only be a problem for US owners of Cuban property to be nationalized if those owners felt that there was too large a discrepancy between the value of the compensation offered and the market value of that property. This kind of situation would be likely to come about if US owners had massively underreported the value of their Cuban property to Cuban tax officials (perhaps with official blessing of the regime at the time). The response of the US to these compensation matters also has nothing to do with the fact that the then-sitting CIA Director, Allen Dulles, sat on the Board of Directors for at least one large US firm to have property nationalized in Cuba, namely the infamous United Fruit Company.
Before the revolution, underreporting taxable value saved money in taxes and thus put more of it back in the owner's pocket. After the revolution however, this meant that those owners would lose out in a compensation package offered by the new Cuban government as the value of the compensation offered would be substantially less than what the property would be worth on the market. US owners of Cuban property wanted to both receive the real value of their property, but also not thereby tacitly admit what Castro and the Cuban revolution had accused them of, namely taking advantage of Cuba and Cubans for their own private gain. This is a classic example of one not being able to have one's cake and eat it too. The refusal of the US to acknowledge this had lead to the lion's share of the trials and tribulations that have arisen as the US and Cuba attempt to normalize relations.
Quickly, this spat about compensation for nationalized property developed into much more. As is well known, the US was Cuba's largest market for its most important export, sugar. Thus, the US imposed quota on the import of Cuban sugar provided the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations with leverage over Cuba. At first, the US simply lowered the quota. Shortly thereafter, the entire quota was eliminated. It was in response to this move by the US that Cuba had to find a new buyer for its sugar. Here entered the Soviet Union. The Soviets were more than happy to acquire an ally, especially one so close to the US. After all, the US had nuclear missiles stationed in NATO allies very close to Russia, e.g. Turkey. The Soviets offered to buy Cuban sugar for well above market prices, and also to sell them petroleum at well below market price. This was the beginning of the relationship between Cuba and the USSR, the center piece of which was this sugar for oil trade, which was in effect a large annual economic subsidy given to Cuba by the USSR.
More:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/cuba-project-part-two.html#.Vc2FquRRGwl
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Cuba, 1959 to 1980s: The unforgivable revolution
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We now know that in August, 1961, four months after the Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara met with Richard Goodwin, President Kennedy’s assistant special counsel, at an international gathering in Uruguay. Guevara had a message for Kennedy. Cuba was prepared to forswear any political alliance with the Soviet bloc, pay for confiscated American properties in trade, and consider curbing Cuba’s support for leftist insurgencies in other countries. In return, the United States would cease all hostile actions against Cuba. Back in Washington, Goodwin’s advice to the president was to “quietly intensify” economic pressure on Cuba. In November, Kennedy authorized Operation Mongoose. 50
More:
http://williamblum.org/chapters/killing-hope/cuba
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December 22, 2014
America’s Cuba
by Chris Lewis
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In May 1959, Castro unveiled the revolution’s land reform program, which called for breaking up holdings larger than 1,000 acres and distributing them to small farmers. It also specified that only Cubans would be allowed to own land, and promised compensation for confiscated territory.
More:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/12/22/americas-cuba/
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Interesting fact supplied by a great DU'er:
former9thward (15,351 posts)
Response to rhett o rick (Reply #103)
Thu Jan 29, 2015, 10:26 AM
Interesting trivia fact about Cuban compensation.
Office Depot, which did not even exist at the time of Cuba's revolution, holds the largest compensation claim. This is because of various corporate mergers and buyouts. Cuba Electric, which supplied 90% of Cuban electricity, had a $268 million claim and Office Depot ended up with ownership of the claim because of corporate mergers.
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/12/22/obamas-cuba-shift-puts-spotlight-on-firms-asset-claims/?KEYWORDS=office+depot
More:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141000088#post14
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U.S. Wary Of Push To Buy Claims To Confiscated Property In Cuba
BILLY HOUSE
Published: June 17, 2008
WASHINGTON - Estela Roberts and her family have always hoped they would be compensated one day for their property in Cuba seized after that country's 1959 revolution. Roberts, 62, whose family eventually relocated to Miami and then to Tampa, still remembers her family's beautiful home in Havana, down to the "marble staircase with some ironwork."
Along with a summer home in Tarara, a small sugar plantation, a bank and a tobacco store, the total value of the family's confiscated property has been estimated to exceed $3 million. Decades later, Roberts and her siblings have yet to receive a dime; frozen relations between the United States and Cuba have prevented their claim from being resolved. Now, suddenly, they could become prime targets for speculators.
An orchestrated effort may be afoot to persuade people such as Roberts and companies in Florida and across the country to sell their decades-old claims, warns the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.
Mauricio Tamargo, head of the commission, said his agency had begun to receive inquiries last summer from some claimants -- many with sizeable claims -- saying they had been offered payments for those holdings. It is not illegal to sell or purchase these claims, Tamargo said, but the purpose of this sudden activity remains unclear to the government. As a result, the commission has put out an alert for potential sellers and buyers to beware. The warning comes as claimants and their descendants are losing faith that after nearly a half-century they will ever see their accounts settled between Washington and Havana.
There had been a glimmer of hope with Cuban President Fidel Castro's departure from power. But the commission, which oversees their claims, has said more recently that it "is not aware of any plans for, or any indication of, a settlement between the United States and Cuba, nor is the commission aware of any bilateral negotiations between the United States and Cuban governments regarding these claims."
"I was always hoping. I always had faith. But now, I don't know," said Estela Roberts. Her father, Alexander, an American citizen, had taken over the tobacco company as an importer in Cuba for American cigarette companies from his own father, who had arrived on the island after World War I.
The Cuban government has paid lump sum amounts to settle outstanding property claims by other countries, including Canada, France, Spain and Sweden.
More:
http://tbo.com/south-tampa/us-wary-of-push-to-buy-claims-to-confiscated-property-in-cuba-132002
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From an outstanding DU'er and Cuba traveler:
Mika
Fri Oct-22-04 05:23 PM
Response to Reply #3
Cuba has settled with every corp and indiv except the USA
Its the US's Trading with the Enemy Act that makes it illegal for US companies and individuals to settle with the government of Cuba.
Cuba is not the entity resisting US national's and corp's expropriation claims, Cuba has settled with every other country and non US foreign corporation - that is why they all have pretty much normal trade and travel relations with Cuba (except for certain elements of trade that the US's Helm-Burton law prevents due to it's territorial nature).
As far as the depletion of soil is concerned, its just not true. Cuba has one of the most complete organic farming systems in the world (forced on them by the US's embargo and petro chemical economics). Cuba is a world leader and a global education resource on organic farming.
A couple of examples..
Alternative Nobel Prize Goes to Cuban Group Promoting the Organic Revolution
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http://sync.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=116x7854#7861
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The History of Cuban-American Relations
This is not an exhaustive history by any means. Rather, I tried to indicate key moments that had an impact on the contemporary or future relations between the two nations. I also tried to identify international events that would also affect the relations. For more information and detail, please see the list of sources. For my essay on Cuban-American relations, click here.
. . . . . .
In May, Cuba signed an agreement with the USA for technical cooperation in the development of agrarian reform. The Cuban government passed its first Agrarian Reform Law, putting a limit on land holdings and expropriating the remainder with compensation offered in 20-year fixed-term government bonds paying an annual interest rate of 4.5 percent. (US investment-grade corporate bonds paid an average of 3.8 percent in 1958.) The basis for compensation is the value of the land as assessed for taxes. Foreigners owned 75 percent of Cuba’s arable land and five American sugar companies owned or controlled more than two million acres. The new law limited land ownership to 1,000 acres for farming or 3,333 acres for land used for livestock, sugar, or rice production. The expropriated land along with land already owned by the state was transferred to cooperatives or distributed free of charge to workers.
Che GuevaraIn June Che Guevara took a three-month trip to Africa, Asia and Europe to organize new economic and cultural agreements for Cuba. That month, US Senator George Smathers demanded a reduction in the Cuban sugar quota. The US government protested the Agrarian Reform Law and its compensation, claiming it was based on tax assessment rates which had not been adjusted to current land value for 30 or 40 years (thus allowing the owners to pay very low taxes). Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Sweden accept the compensation, but the USA does not. Cuba outlaws gambling in June.
More:
http://www.ianchadwick.com/essays/cubahistory.html
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