How do small countries make big countries wool? Although large countries are in a strong and oppressive position in international exchanges (with the exception of China), small countries often use their strategic position and leverage to obtain more benefits, and large countries often pinch their noses and endure. Typically represented is Cuba's relations with the USSR/Russia.
During the Cold War of the last century, the Soviet Union gave Cuba great support, given its important strategic value in the Central American Caribbean, as if it were a steel knife inserted into the backyard of the United States.
The Soviet Union has been actively serving as the most favorable market for Cuban exports for many years, importing a large amount of Cuban sugar, and the price given is very good, from the sixties, seventies and eighties, 85% of cuba's total exports of sugar have flowed to the socialist camp, mainly exported to the Soviet Union.
At the same time, due to Cuba's small grain production, the Soviet Union also provided Cuba with a large amount of food and food at ultra-cheap prices, and Soviet grain accounted for 70 per cent of Cuba's total food imports.
There is also unreserved assistance in other areas. The Soviet Union also provided Cuba with 13 million tons of refined oil products every year at the price of cabbage, assisted Cuba in the form of interest-free loans for a large number of machinery and equipment and manufactured goods, and also provided Cuba with huge low-interest and long-term loans, as well as subsidies for the import and export of raw materials.
Between 1960 and 1983, the Soviet Union subsidized Cuba's sugar exports at a price of $16.6 billion, refined oil products at $6.6 billion, and nickel ore at $220 million.
To what extent did the Soviet Union care for Cuba? Beginning in 1982, the Soviet Union even allowed Cuba to import Soviet gasoline (about 3 million tons per year) that they could not use up (the focus, did not run out) and export it again for foreign exchange, which once became Cuba's second largest source of foreign exchange.
The Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought the Cold War to an end, but that was not good news for Cuba, which had long enjoyed the dividends of the Cold War. Cuba pinched its fingers and calculated that it had accumulated loans owed to the Soviet Union, equivalent to $3,000 per Cuban, and with other sources of aid, Castro had drawn at least $5,000 per Cuban.
These debts have never been repaid (at all). However, Cuba's arrears were waived by Russia in 2013 with a large stroke of the money.
In 2013, Cuba's arrears were about $28.8 billion, which could buy 360 Su-35 fighter jets.
