Editing Economy of Cuba (section)

===1968-1990===
{{Main|Revolutionary Offensive|Rectification process}}
In 1970 as part of the [[Revolutionary Offensive]] economic campaign, Fidel Castro attempted to motivate the Cuban people to harvest 10 million tons of sugar, in Spanish known as ''[[Zafra (agriculture)|La Zafra]]'', to increase their exports and grow their economy.<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|pages=37–38}} Despite the help of most of the Cuban population, the country fell short and produced only 7.56&nbsp;million tons.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=amgQBMT0UjkC&q=7.56+million+tons+of+sugar&pg=PA98|title=The International Sugar Trade|last1=Hannah|first1=A. C.|last2=Spence|first2=Donald|date=17 July 1997|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-19054-7}}</ref> In July 1970, after the harvest was over, Castro took responsibility for the failure, but later that same year, shifted the blame toward the Sugar Industry Minister saying "Those technocrats, geniuses, super-scientists assured me that they knew what to do to produce the ten million tons. But it was proven, first, that they did not know how to do it and, second, that they exploited the rest of the economy by receiving large amounts of resources&nbsp;... while there are factories that could have improved with a better distribution of those resources that were allocated to the Ten-Million-Ton plan".<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-castro-failed/|title=How Castro Failed|work=[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]|access-date=29 March 2017|archive-date=2 April 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402145803/https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/how-castro-failed/}}</ref>

During the Revolutionary period, Cuba was one of the few developing countries to provide [[foreign aid]] to other countries. Foreign aid began with the construction of six hospitals in Peru in the early 1970s.<ref name="Monitor2">{{cite web|url=http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1989/04/eckstein.html|title=Cuba Today|website=Multinationalmonitor.org|access-date=11 June 2015}}</ref> It expanded later in the 1970s to the point where some 8000 Cubans worked in overseas assignments. Cubans built housing, roads, airports, schools, and other facilities in [[Angola]], [[Ethiopia]], [[Laos]], [[Guinea]], [[Tanzania]], and other countries. By the end of 1985, 35,000 Cuban workers had helped build projects in some 20 Asian, African, and Latin American countries.<ref name="Monitor2"/>

For [[Nicaragua]] in 1982, Cuba pledged to provide over $130&nbsp;million worth of agricultural and machinery equipment and some 4000 technicians, doctors, and teachers.<ref name="Monitor2"/> Over the course of the 1980s, Cuba provided approximately 90,000 tons of oil to Nicaragua per year to support the [[Nicaraguan Revolution|Sandinista revolution]].<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|page=58}}

In 1986, Cuba defaulted on its $10.9&nbsp;billion debt to the [[Paris Club]]. In 1987, Cuba stopped making payments on that debt. In 2002, Cuba defaulted on $750&nbsp;million in Japanese loans.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://news.investors.com/123008-455491-communist-cuba-50-years-of-failure.htm|title=Investor's Business Daily|website=Investor's Business Daily|access-date=6 March 2016}}</ref>