in this interview is the american them more broadly, western sanctions against russia. and tom would say, indirectly against the in the rest of the world as well. but let's start with a more contained case of the daycare long american efforts to economically penalize q by which i'm sure you are familiar through your line of work better. well, has it been effective? the, the challenge with determining effectiveness, with respect to us sanctions, toward cuba, commercial economic and political is defining the term because when they originated, the goal was regime change. and then you get to what is that defined as does that mean change the people in the regime or change the behavior of the people in the regime. and so over the last 60 years, the u. s. has continued to expand the commercial and the economic and the political

perspective with respect to changing the behavior. cuba has it, has it worked? the cuban government remains, quote, communist, unquote. the cuban government has not made the type of changes the united states just wanted to made primarily why? well, they've been able to suffer, and i'll give you a quote for us diplomat in the midnight ninety's said to me during the visit, this was when we had the us intersection. that was during the time where official diplomatic relations were suspended. and he said to understand cuba, you have to understand fidel castro saying this to the united states, and he said, could castro would say, i'm willing to let my people suffer? are you willing to let my people shot? well, this is actually

a good question. i are the american officials willing to lead people suffer because i heard you say in, in a couple of interviews that the sanctions hurt not only in the cuban side, but even more so than american side. so what's been the gain for the united states from this policy against cuba, as well as against other countries and by the united states, i mean, the american people, the american try, taxpayers and some highbrow american officials. you know, the, how you define success is basically in 4 year cycles, the term of the president of united states. and so what you have is continuing every 4 years. you redefine what you're doing to cuba, and then you redefine how you're going to define success for the cuban people. they've suffered mightily during the last 60 years. now, have they suffered solely because of us policies, regulations, and laws. now, they suffered also because of decisions by the cuban government,

which inherently minimize their ability to earn foreign exchange. has us policy just waited, the interest of us companies and us individuals toward engage with cuba. it has to some extent, particularly companies because the nature of us sanctions on cuba, which extend to the russian federation in current time and extend to other countries, china and syria, north korea, and venezuela, nicaragua, etc, is what's called ex territory. and that means that the u. s. government takes the position that when it implements a sanction on cuba, that that sanction is good anywhere in the world. and so any other company that engages with cuba, any government that engages with cuba, they potentially can run afoul of these treasury department's co ofac sanctions.

and the amount of fines are tremendous in russia or frontier. does the goth complex, the american got complex, but you mentioned before and there's nothing funny about it because it's actually calculated in numerous debt like millions of doubts if you actually take the cumulative effect of it. you know, like i once made a story from around about children dying from cancer because they cannot get life saving drugs and 11 with wonder. what do die lives have to do with, you know, the actions of that government. that they are not even conscious enough to understand, but speaking of that, do you think that the link between economic sanctions, economic limitations and regime change aspiration is it wasn't only about cuba or is it the general feature of the american sanctions regime? it is, you're generally the goal of us sanctions to change the behavior of either an entire government or individuals within

a government. and that's why you see us sanctions, whether from the treasury department, the state department or the commerce department will be, you know, sometimes they will say we're sanctioning these people and we're not going to let them come to united states, which generally isn't a great deterrent because most of these people don't come to me, i'd stayed most and don't have bank accounts in the united states. so, you know, it gets, it becomes more of a political posturing than it does having real teeth and real meaning. if i can circle back one moment to what you said about iran, because it is valid killer. every year the cubans go to the united nations and they introduce a resolution condemning u. s. policy. and generally, it, it is approved. overwhelmingly, usually it's united states, israel, and one or 2 other countries that vote against it. the cubans do have a point in terms of when they say that even though us law. so this isn't us

regulations, this isn't the president saying, oh, guess, go ahead and do it. it's not a policy that can be changed. it's by law from 990 to the human democracy act that says you can export health care products to cuba. but because of the, the order richness, because of the, the challenges in terms of getting a license because of the politics, they're always going to be members of congress and others that are going to criticize. even though companies can export health care products to cuba. a lot of them just don't. now, one of the things i often hear this is from my north western gas. you know, people from asia, from africa is the frustration that they are being drawn into this conflict that russia has with, with the west or that they are being forced to bear the consequences of this

conflict in terms of their can all make activity despite our will and i wonder, do you think the united states should give any saw to that? i mean, does it heard the united states about the other countries, big and small, perhaps not as powerful as, as russia still develop resentment against its policies. because hello, it is one thing to, to have some beef with russia, but it's quite another one because of that. some african country cannot fulfill its budget, or i kind of feed its people are absolutely right in terms of the u. s. is putting countries particularly on the african continent, less in southeast asia, in the position of you're with us or you're against us. and you know, that goes to just a much bigger on fundamental issue that we're having. now when the united states you, mr. i mean, if it's just one moment, i think the,

the choice is even more stark is to leave or to die. because for some of these people, this isn't not laughing matter for them. providing what for their people is it, you know, is, is a, is a big challenge. so when they are put in that position it's, it's not just about policy, it's literally about human lives. you are correct. i'm not making making light of that. my point is that for these countries, and i've traveled throughout the african continent for decades, so i, i know from what i say, i've seen it, they are being put in a difficult position. and then you're right in terms of the commentary by politicians will always be, this isn't against the people and you can't separate the 2. it's, it is impossible. and so for the united states, for the european union, for specifically with respect to what's happening between russia and ukraine, now they are being put in a difficult position. south africa, you know,

most recently where you have the foreign minister law off there. you have more games going on, you have shopped, african needing, defeated people, they have all kinds of internal political problems and then you throw that on to them. oh, by the way, we're now going to make it more difficult and more expensive for you to get food for your people. so yeah, the consequences are, are global with respect to trying to change behavior. and you can't separate the 2 from harming people and trying to change government policy. now, as we know from physics any action produces a reaction. and as you noted in one of your articles and the western lab sanctions have spawned, a global sanctions are resisting industry and it was in place and before the war in the crane. but i think after the conflict began,

the connect kinetic stage of the conflict began to scale and the visibility of sanction invasion has become far more prominent. do you take that as a, as something situational or do you think it may have broader structural impact on the global economy? a broader structural impact. no question. you know, cuba was sort of the, the poster child of sanctions. and over 60 years, they have figured out ways to mitigate them, not completely, but they've figured out ways to mitigate them. and then you move forward with venezuela, nicaragua, north korea, and syria, and iran, and the russian federation and china. so over the last decade, but absolutely, during the last year it's gone on steroids because these countries they get together and they basically will say, how do we mitigate primarily what the united states has done. and they've been able

to do it. they made, they've develop basically a powerpoint presentation to worry a book, a volume of how do you avoid sanctions? how do you get by would sanctioned. and so for the united states, the question is becoming our effective, is it? and unless you have global by in they generally art and we're seeing that with respect to the russian federation and china, specifically where they've been successfully able to get around and less than the impact is still impact, but less than the impact. and then we get to the bigger, bigger question would sanctions, which is how good are sanctions when those imposing the sanctions are supporting both sides of a conference? well mr. cumberland, it's the deep ethical question. let's consider it after a short break. they tune me

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why is the west so determined to continue its ukraine proxy war against russia to such a position benefit ukraine instead of considering possible peace agreements? the west led by washington seems to see war is the only option. why can't there be security for all a ha, welcome back to one's appointments, john, co village, president of the us cuba trade and economic council. mr. village. before the break, we were talking about various ways of circumventing western sanctioned i one that share my own experience here because i think it's the brother counter intuitive. my kid loves coca cola lot and it's not being produced in russia these days. but a couple of weeks ago i was able to go to iran for work matters and surprise,

surprise, i was able to bring him a couple of my accounts from there. so what do you think about a russian smuggling, the trademark american drink from iran? isn't it ironic where became that's, that's a great story. i can give you one with cuba. coca cola used to be produced in cuba . and when the cuban revolution happened, they expropriated the coca cola plant, coca cola, stop producing. but over the years, coca cola, mexico has exported coca cola products into cuba. so when you get a cube a libra, coca cola roman in cuba, you're using coca cola that is made in mexico. that is owned by coca cola in atlanta, georgia. so it, it is amazing how products flow and they generally know what's like water. if you've got a leak in your house water, you would think the water is going to go in one direction, but it doesn't. it goes in all different or actions and that's the same with

avoiding sanctions. there are always ways to do it because it's a business. people are always going to want to make money from it. and people are always going to want to find the products that they want. now, i know for a fact that the russians are now very deliberate inciting both the iranian and cuban experience of circumventing functions and growing their own domestic industry in stat. i wonder if you think that's also worthwhile for other countries, not necessarily american adversaries. given your understanding of where the goal local economy is having, what do you think is a safe or bad to sort of rely on the global production change or to invest in your own self sufficiency? in this regard, coven, beginning and 20. 20. change the dynamic with respect to how countries looked at what had been, you know, the big word was out source, you know, during the last 5 years it was, you know, don't do it yourselves, send it to

a country that has lower costs, have them do it and then import it back and so that's what everyone was doing. but what did cova do? it disrupted supply change and so factories were shut down. shipping companies weren't operating. and then when they were shipping prices were going, you know, fivefold in terms of cost. so from 2020, basically 20212022 governments. those are those there that are under sanction. and those that are not started say wow, we need to now look at in sourcing. so let's try to bring all this production back, just in case there's another pandemic, or with respect to russia, ukraine. there's a war, there's a conflict, there's a special military or whatever you want to call it, but there's an interruption that becomes global. and for the u. s taiwan is a great example of this because the u. s. is that a protector of taiwan?

the can census is that president she during probably next 5 years is going to absorb taiwan peacefully by force by both whatever. but one of the reasons that taiwan is important is because chips computer chips. and so what is the united states been doing last year? and this year, president biden has been traveling around saying we were investing all this money to bring chip manufacturing back to the united states. will part of the result of that is you weaken taiwan in terms of its ability to have people supporting its independence. the same goes with respect to other countries and they've become very adapt at replace it. let me ask you specifically about the american intention desire to penalize russia because with all due respect to iran on the car, i'm going cuba. you know, that animosity with the united states has this and,

you know, david versus goliath dynamic. you know, one country is much bigger than they are there. but russia is a fairly big market, not as big, of course as the american one, but they're fairly big. but what's more important, i think, territorially, it's a huge country with access to abundant mineral resources, vidal, of waterways. so i wonder if you think the american intention to try while gordon, all for ostracized russia. is it realistic at all, given simply a russia size and it's integration into the global economy? and given that, unlike in the cold war, russia doesn't want to be isolated from the rest of the world. from a business perspective, there are a 145000000 consumers in the russian federation. so no company is going to want to write that off. and even since february 24th of

last year, the number of companies that have remained in the russian federation are much higher than people think for various reasons, whether it's, you know, legal or it's positional. but they've remained and, you know, the u. s. government goal with respect to changing the behavior of the, of the russian federation when it comes to ukraine. it's difficult to separate that from the impact of sanctions and with respect to access to the marketplace. because for us companies even today, and this goes sort of circle to what i was saying before about both sides supporting both sides of the sanctions from the united states from european union. other countries today exempt certain products from sanctions, including products that are transported from china across russia, into the european union. and why is that?

because russia is deemed an important source of those products. they don't want market disruption at the same time. those same countries that are importing some of those products from russian federation are also supporting you, chris. so until, until those that are supporting both sides make a decision in terms of lessening that support ending that support. we have a, an economic conflict. it's going to continue, but in terms of just the marketplace, you every, every company that i've talked to, you know, they want to return to the russian federation marketplace. now i want to seize upon something that you said a moment ago that while trying to change rushes behavior certain countries and not trying to change their own behavior and continue sort of penalizing or russia while also buying products from it while also sending weapons to ukraine. and perhaps

also making some profit from that, i assure that those countries that proclaim that hard support for ukraine, actually one at cnn to this war war is incredibly profitable. and the war between russia and ukraine will continue until it's not profitable. wars become profitable for defense industries. they become profitable for financial institutions. they become profitable for politicians who end up running on word more and more tough than the person we're running against. then you get this, this, this battle of testosterone. you know, who's going to be more muscular and we've had that in with 2 words. you'll hear politicians, we, if i'm elected all sanction cuba, i'm elected all invade cuba. if i'm elected, i'll send nuclear weapons and blow up cuba. if it gets absurd. in the case

of the russian federation and ukraine, you do have you know, a, a conflict that is becoming profitable, or i'm sorry, it has become profitable and more continues is going to become more profitable and then it becomes more difficult to stop. now can i, can i ask you about something? because i know that recently you visited both russia and ukraine and i appreciate your desire and efforts to actually learn about the situation on the ground. but i was struck by your account of a conversation that you had with some ukrainian young man and keith, during which they ask you, why don't russian people take to the social media and tell the government that war is horrible. and correct me if i'm wrong, but i think your response was something along the lines that the, you know,

the russian understanding of freedom is somewhat different, blah, blah, blah. and with all my respect to you, i find this extremely condescending, because i don't know a single person in russia who believes that this war is a marvelous option. i think a lot of people believe that this is the horrible option, but the policy of the united states divide and conquer policy of the united states left us with no other choice. and i was wondering whether it would perhaps have been more honest to tell those free ukrainian young people to tell the own government to stop turning the country into a, you know, battering ram against russia to stop, you know, getting all di advised, all the, all that weapons from the united states, from the west, and perhaps mind their own interest, because in this case, russia, ukraine can find the mutually respectful and profitable way of coexisting. what do you think about that? well, thanks for your comment. i would suggest that there's

a little distance between how you described what i said to to those young people. and i said that there are different government structures and different social structures. and so it's, it's, you can't simply say that why young people are behaving one way in ukraine and not in the russian federation and use the same metrics just measure it. so i said that they were, they were different. it was just a different environment. even though the beliefs may be the same, how they manifest them are different. and that's not a criticism that's just looking at the reality of different structures. you, you make a point and that's valid capsule. but in terms of how people are looking at the conflict from different perspectives and not just in the russian federation and ukraine, but from outside. and it's very difficult. you know,

i have the luxury being able to go in and go out. but there are people who are in, in the russian federation, in the ukraine, who don't have that luxury. so they don't have the ability to, to distance themselves from what they're saying, what they're feeling, the impacts. they have to live it every day. you have to live it every day and it's all about degrees, that's all about, you know, level of impact. but it does impact everyone in different ways and they manifest those beliefs in different ways. like young people, you know, what, i'm sorry for interrupting because we are running out of time quickly. but one of the hopeful messages in your writing was that you looked at the various histories of antagonism between countries. you mentioned that if we actually look at that, can all make history starting from the world, will one all the way to the vietnam war. there were many examples of former

antagonists and becoming a comic partner. do you think that's still possible for your brain and russia to not be friends? not be brother, is i think that's something that we are no longer hold for, but cor existing in a mutually respectful manner. when we can stop being enemies for one another deliberate enemies for one another. yes. ukraine and russia. shera. i believe it's about a 1300 mile border that you know that something however, you know we're drawing certain art but you're next to one another. and there is a history with respect to people, 44, roughly 44000000 people and ukraine, roughly a 144 or more people in the russian federation. so when this conflict edge and it will lead it mustang, and the definition of end is going to be subject to negotiation and

semantics in that. but there will be again, commercial relationships. they'll be social relationships, they'll be family relationships. it's going to take some time, but it's natural and there isn't going to be a great wall built between ukraine and the russian federation that we're not going to get chinese architects to come and build a great wall or all of you. i'm so love have the american architects to come in and in system that i've been hearing that from an american like yourself is it? i wouldn't say it's very encouraging, but it does produce some coping. me music as well as we have to live in there. but i really, really appreciate your time and your candidate. thank you so much for the opportunity . thank you for watching hope to see her again on was a part ah ah

i rick sanchez and i am here to plead with you whatever you do, you do not watch my your shelf seriously by watch something that's so different. my little opinion that you won't get anywhere else, look of it please. if you have the state department to see a weapons makers, multi $1000000000.00 corporations, choose your facts for you. go ahead. i change and whatever you do. don't watch my show, stay main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show was

called direct impact, but again, you probably don't want to watch it because it might just change dwayne, think ah, articles list of them and be titled, i mean our how to mitchell was how your ship was through. when i was a hair dresser, a bus driver, a sales person, anyone could become a victim that sail private negotiators 1st appeared with what am i'm focusing with us with a a. ready september, the reason why you're bored yet, but i am on that. on the global lending. it isn't going to be feasible mentioned on, on the yet could be yet studies pointy. took over the serious me. he could put it

with this equip cuz it would go this week was just a good a with hello and welcome to cross talk. we're all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle . why is the west so determined to continue? it's ukraine, proxy war against russia? how does such a position benefit ukraine instead of considering possible peace agreements? the west led by washington seems to seem war is the only option. why can't there be security for all.