The Islamic regime in Iran has held talks with Cuba’s communist Castro regime to renovate 160 run-down sugarcane factories in Cuba, the Iranian state-run Tasmin News Agency reported Wednesday.
Cuba, once one of the world’s top sugar exporters, has seen its sugar production drop to levels not seen in more than 125 years. Only roughly two dozen sugar mills remain in operating conditions out of more than a hundred on the island.
The announcement of the Iran deal was made during the Iran-Cuba Business Forum, held in Tehran on April 30. During the event, the CEO of Iranian Small Industries and Industrial Parks Organization Farshad Moqimi stated that feasibility studies had started in the “lucrative Cuban market,” adding that results will soon be available to the Iranian economic enterprises that are “interested to cooperate with Cuba.”
Moqimi noted that, following the 39th edition of the Havana International Fair (FIHAV) in November 2023, several Cuban delegations visited Iran to hold talks regarding the renovation and optimization of 160 sugarcane facilities in Cuba.
Cuba’s flagship sugarcane industry has experienced a continued decline throughout the past six decades of communist rule following the rise to power of late dictator Fidel Castro, who nationalized the entire sugarcane industry in 1960. Castro stole sugarcane mills from private ownership, including those that belonged to U.S. entrepreneurs.
During Cuba’s 1959-1960 sugarcane harvest season — the last under private entrepreneurship — the nation yielded 5.6 million tons of raw sugar.
In 1964, Castro promised to increase Cuba’s sugar yield to ten million tons by 1970 at a time when the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main business partner at the time, had agreed to purchase a larger amount of Cuba’s sugar harvest. Under a slogan roughly translating to “The Ten Million Are Happening” (¡los diez millones van!), Fidel Castro forced Cubans into “volunteer” labor for a project that even the pro-Castro New York Times admitted was a failure.
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While Cuba did progressively see its raw sugar output increase to 8.1 million tons by 1989, the industry began a continued downward trend in the 1990s.
Much like the rest of Cuba’s industries and infrastructure, the Castro regime has continuously blamed the collapse of Cuba’s sugarcane industry on the United States’ “embargo.” The nature of the alleged “embargo” is such that, by August 2023 Cuba was importing sugar from the United States to help cover its own internal consumption demand. By December 2023, Cuba’s sugar imports from the United States had reportedly increased by 900 percent.
Out of more than 150 sugar mills that once operated in Cuba in 1959, only 25 were reported to have operated during the 2022-2023 harvest season, which yielded some 350,000 tons of sugar, marking the worst harvest season in the past 125 years.
The output of the 25 mills was not sufficient to simultaneously cover Cuba’s own requirements, estimated at 600,000-700,000 tons per year and be able to comply with a 400,000 tons of sugar per-year export agreement with China.
The announcement of Iran’s renovation of Cuba’s derelict sugarcane industry joins other potential cooperation agreements between the rogue regimes announced in recent months, such as a potential cooperation agreement for the construction of ships for South American countries, a “digital cooperation” agreement, and a contract signed by Cuba for the purchase of Iranian-made parts and the repairing of transport wagons.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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