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26 The Americas The Economist April 25th 2020
2 planting a hectare of vines is 20% higher terest from European distributors and can- tion of Winegrowing Industries predicted
than in Mendoza, Argentina’s top wine- not themselves afford to market and volume would grow by 7% a year. Bolivian
making region, says Luis Pablo Granier, a distribute. To expand they would need to producers are protected by tariffs on im-
co-owner of Campos de Solana. Bolivian buy more land. But arable land in Tarija ports of up to 40%. But those encourage
vineyards have one-third of Mendoza’s suitable for irrigation is scarce and expen- contraband wine, especially from Argenti-
yield per hectare. Bolivia is landlocked, so sive. Bolivian vintners have planted just na. A third of wine consumed in Bolivia is
freight costs are high. An overvalued cur- 4,000 hectares (10,000 acres), a fraction of smuggled through the southern border.
rency makes the Bolivians less competi- Argentina’s 220,000 hectares of vineyards. The temptation is to go down-market,
tive. So the families agreed to make better They hope that locals will develop more especially after the economic shock from
wines. Prodded by Mr van Casteren, they of a thirst for the good stuff. Bolivia’s 11m covid-19. But the Bolivians are loth to give
bought oak casks for ageing and upgraded people drink just 14m litres (3m gallons) of up their newly won reputation for quality.
irrigation systems. Prizes followed. wine a year, a 20th of consumption in Bel- “We’ve realised that is where our strength
Big sales and high profits have not. Bo- gium, which has the same number of peo- is,” says Mr Granier. Now they have to con-
livia’s producers are too small to attract in- ple. Before covid-19, the National Associa- vince oenophiles at home and abroad. 7
Bello Cuba on the edge
It is better placed to tackle covid-19 than to cope with its economic impact
t is the dream of every exile to die in als, confined vulnerable groups, shut imports will fall to $9.1bn this year, from
Ithe home country, but not in the down educational facilities and suspend- $11.7bn in 2015.
circumstances of Víctor Batista Falla. A ed interprovincial public transport. Shutting borders has ended black-
member of a wealthy banking family, he Yet neither health care nor the econ- market food imports, while the curbs on
left his native Cuba in 1960 when Fidel omy are what they were when Cuba en- transport have cut domestic deliveries to
Castro’s revolution moved towards joyed lavish subsidies from the Soviet Havana, the capital. The government
communism. He devoted his life to Union. The health system has suffered lacks sufficient supplies to add items to
publishing the work of exiled writers and spending cuts, the loss of doctors who no the state ration-book all Cubans receive.
thinkers, especially of social-democratic longer practise because of low official There are long queues outside meagrely
and liberal persuasions. Last month he salaries, and shortages of supplies. stocked state supermarkets. Miguel
visited Cuba for the first time in 60 years. Drought and poor infrastructure have led Díaz-Canel, who replaced Fidel’s brother,
On April 12th he died, aged 87, in a Ha- to water shortages. There is another risk Raúl, as Cuba’s president two years ago,
vana hospital, of covid-19. He had prob- factor: almost 20% of Cubans are over 60, admitted this month that social dis-
ably brought it with him from Madrid, more than anywhere else in Latin America. tancing has been hard to impose and
where he had lived for decades. So covid-19 poses a severe test, just as it complained of the “indiscipline and
Since the 1990s Cuba has been open to does elsewhere in Latin America. It comes irresponsibility” of some Cubans.
mass tourism and family visits. It is not when Cuba’s economy was already under Worse may be in store. At the front of
surprising that it is vulnerable to co- great strain. Cuba failed to reform even as Cubans’ minds is fear of another “special
vid-19, like the rest of Latin America and the United States, under Donald Trump, period”, as Fidel Castro called it, when
the Caribbean. As of April 23rd it had has stepped up sanctions and Venezuela, the economy shrank by 35% in the early
reported 1,189 cases and 40 deaths. In Cuba’s ally, has cut subsidised oil. 1990s with the end of Soviet aid. That
proportion to its population, that is These pressures have exacerbated the came with widespread power cuts and
similar to Argentina’s caseload. state-dominated economy’s chronic in- other shortages. Pavel Vidal, a Cuban
Even as it has failed to offer Cubans ability to generate foreign exchange. The economist at the Javeriana University in
prosperity or freedom, communism has closure of the tourist industry makes that Cali, Colombia, reckons that gdp could
provided them with good health. For even worse. The Economist Intelligence fall by around 10% this year. Although
decades the regime has overproduced Unit, our sister company, reckons that the plunge in global oil prices will help,
doctors and spent more than the regional Cuba will still need shipments from
average on health care as a share of gdp. Venezuela. “On that depends whether or
That has paid off in another way, too. not there are power cuts and another
Sending health professionals abroad special period,” he says.
generates 46% of the island’s export The Trump administration, in which
earnings, not to mention diplomatic Cuban-Americans play a significant role,
prestige. (The state, for which they all is counting on tightening pressure to
work, keeps most of their foreign wages.) cause the collapse of communism. That
A particular Cuban strength is the is unlikely. In its island fastness, with its
health system’s ability, characteristic of a mixture of coercion and paternalism, the
dictatorship, to mobilise the population regime Fidel created has outlasted not
for public-health action. The govern- just him but the lifelong resistance of
ment prepared for the virus as early as people like Mr Batista. The immediate
January. When cases were reported from result of Mr Trump’s reversal of Barack
March 11th it was quick to isolate the Obama’s opening towards Cuba was to
patients, and trace and test their con- halt a cautious process of market reform.
tacts. On March 20th, with only 21con- Coronavirus is likely to push it off the
firmed cases, it banned all tourist arriv- agenda altogether.
