But until now Havana has been trying to make lemonade out of the coronavirus by advertising Cuban holidays as an escape from the pandemic. A symbiotic relationship blossomed: Cuba would exchange its comparative advantage in repression for Venezuelan petroleum products. With the international oil-price swoon, tar-heavy Venezuelan crude has plummeted to between $10 and $15 a barrel. Yet more than crude, Havana needs gasoline, diesel and gas oil for electricity production, which Venezuela used to provide but no longer has the infrastructure to produce. Meanwhile the effects of the coronavirus shutdown “are likely to be catastrophic for Venezuela,” Francisco Monaldi, an energy economist at Rice University, told me in a telephone interview last week.

Source: Wall Street Journal March 22, 2020 19:52 UTC