Fidel Castro: Free trader

Wen Jiabao was one thing, but Fidel Castro? Today’s “Reflections of Comrade Fidel” (in Spanish) column is a fun one. In it, the communist leader blasts the Obama adminstration and congressional Democrats for their protectionist tendencies (Translation assist from Blaine Sheldon): To please the unions that supported them in the campaign, the U.S. House of ...

By , a former associate editor at Foreign Policy.
588761_090205_fidel5.jpg
588761_090205_fidel5.jpg

Wen Jiabao was one thing, but Fidel Castro?

Wen Jiabao was one thing, but Fidel Castro?

Today’s “Reflections of Comrade Fidel” (in Spanish) column is a fun one. In it, the communist leader blasts the Obama adminstration and congressional Democrats for their protectionist tendencies (Translation assist from Blaine Sheldon):

To please the unions that supported them in the campaign, the U.S. House of Representatives, dominated by the Democrats, launched the extremely protectionist slogan ‘buy American products’, which throws aside a fundamental principle of the World Trade Organization: that all nations of the world, large and small, base their dreams of development on the exchange of goods and services, for which, however only the largest and those of natural wealth have the privilege to survive.

When Fidel Castro is lecturing the U.S. government on the principles of international capitalism, you know that something strange is afoot in the new world order.

Photo: ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images

Joshua Keating was an associate editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @joshuakeating

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