IT LOOKS LIKE the Soviet Union already has at least one New Year's resolution: Get tiny Cuba off the dole.
Despite billions of dollars in Soviet trade subsidies, Fidel Castro's Cuba has become one of the poorest countries in Latin America. Moscow, tired of propping up another welfare client state, will cut off all subsidized trade with Cuba on Jan. 1.
Moscow's recent demand for hard cash in exchange for Soviet oil -- ending three decades of oil giveaways -- has prompted rumors of the rapid demise of the Cuban dictator. And, ever since the democratic revolutions began rumbling through Europe, observers have been charting Castro's fall in months rather than years.
But as Western nations continue to rescue Cuba's drowning economy, rumors of Castro's political death may be greatly exaggerated.
Canada, one of Cuba's loudest economic cheerleaders, launched an attack against a U.S. bill sponsored by Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., prohibiting foreign-based U.S. subsidiaries from trading with Cuba. U.S. law already forbids American companies from trading with Cuba. But the Mack amendment would help reduce Western foreign investment, trade and aid that has been crucial in keeping Castro in power.
Several nations have their hands in the investment cookie jar. Brazilian officials recently concluded a trip to Cuba aimed at increasing economic ties and called the Mack amendment a "policy of provocative isolation." Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Canada have all joined ranks with China to increase ties to Castro.
Thus, as the Soviet Union and the new democracies of Europe distance themselves from Castro, Western "business moguls" are planning more trade and aid to Cuba's perennial strongman.
There is no doubt that Castro's international isolation during the last two years has weakened his revolution at home. But the real threat to Castro lies in economics, not politics.
A reduction in Soviet subsidies will cost Castro $2.5 billion per year. When the Soviet Union held up two food shipments earlier this year, the two-month delay sent the Cuban economy into a tailspin. Castro put the country on a war footing that he dubbed "a special period in a time of peace."
Special indeed: Castro heavily rationed food, halted construction projects, and forced large numbers of city workers into the countryside to cultivate more land. And when Hungary refused to send buses and spare parts to Cuba without payment in cash, 50 percent of Havana's bus service was shut down.
