Thread by @prchovanec

1. One of my takeaways from visiting Cuba several years ago was that Castro was very clever to make it difficult but not impossible to leave the island.

2. As a result, the people who were most ambitious and dissatisfied - and mostly likely to cause him trouble if they stayed - were willing to take the risk and flee to Florida.

3. Those - even within the same family - who were more risk adverse (and therefore likely more compliant) remained, often supported by remittances from more ambitious family members who left.

4. It gave the Castro regime, in a strange way, the best of both worlds: not only a safety valve for the most dissatisfied, but a way of harnessing them to mitigate the circumstances of those who stayed ...

5. And a relatively more compliant domestic population who were regularly scared with the prospect of their more ambitious, competitive cousins coming back and eating their lunch.

6. That worked for a long time, aided in strange ways by an increasingly porous US embargo. But given the domestic protests we are now seeing, one has to wonder if even the remaining, more risk-adverse population has reached its breaking point.

7. As for the US embargo itself, my impression was that Cuba's own disastrous economic policies outweighed any opportunities from trade with the US. Even absent the US embargo, trade, business, and investment in Cuba remains extremely difficult and unattractive.

8. Since it was an MBA trip, we had the opportunity to meet with several state-owned companies, foreign investors, and other enterprises in Cuba. I left with the impression they were wholly unprepared to do business with the outside world, and knew it.

9. This ironically bolstered the regime, because they were all the more fearful of being deluged by Miami-based entrepreneurs and investors coming in, buying up, and running everything if the "wall" ever came down.

10. I talked to a wide range of people before and during my Cuba trip. A classmate who had fled a Cuban mission abroad hidden in the truck of a car and came to the US. His family back in Cuba. Die-hard supporters of the regime, both in official roles and at the grassroots level.

11. I did meet a few everyday Cubans, in completely unscripted encounters, who were supportive of the regime, mainly out of national pride (which includes a strong dose of anti-US feeling). Ironically, many were financially dependent on relatives in the US.

12. As for health care, what I was told (again, in unscripted encounters) was this: there are well-trained doctors, but they are mainly sent abroad. You can typically see a doctor, but good luck filling the prescription they give you - there are no supplies.

13. People I met were generally grateful to receive small gifts like shampoo, pantyhose, pens, etc. much like when I visited the Soviet Union in the 1980s. They were especially thrilled to receive a bottle of aspirin.

14. I say "unscripted encounters" because, in sharp contrast to my visits to North Korea - or even the USSR or China in the 1980s - I was allowed to wander Cuba at will, and talk to anyone I liked, which surprised me.

15. A lot of the photos I posted yesterday reflect those encounters with everyday people. I'm sure those people were aware they could be monitored (by local committees), but they were pretty frank in conversation.

16. I am not an expert on Cuba. I had some fascinating conversations with US diplomats there who were - and were far from ideological firebrands. These are just some impressions from a trip there several years ago, that have stuck with me.

17. Some people angry about my take on the embargo and it's relative importance. I came away of two minds on the embargo.

18. On the one hand, it was clear the Castro regime used the US embargo as an all-purposes excuse for its own failures. Taking away that excuse might actually expose the regime.

19. On the other hand, it was equally clear that the only party equipped - and allowed - to engage in trade with the US would be the Cuban government, which would use it as patronage to reward loyalty, rather than opening up the country.

20. So to be honest, I walked away unsure what the best path forward could be.