The nickel extracted from the Cuban mines of Moa and Punta Gorda, in Holguín, by the Canadian company Sherritt has an open path to the large electric car factories in the United States thanks to a series of measures taken by the Joe Biden Administration in the past January. With its decision to restrict the extraction of minerals in its territory, to satisfy the environmental lobby, the US will have to import certain products with Cuban content, despite the embargo, he assures William Pittone of the heirs of the Pitt-Wasmer family, whose mines were expropriated by Fidel Castro in 1960.
The prohibition decreed by Washington has paralyzed the project of exploitation of the enormous mineral reserves, especially copper, nickel and cobalt, of the Duluth Complex company, in the state of Minnesota. By losing access to this raw material, which is needed in large quantities to manufacture electric vehicle batteries, the US will have to look for suppliers outside its borders.
Two commercial situations, the so-called “cobalt swap” – with which Cuba will pay Sherritt a debt of 362 million dollars – and the measures approved by Biden, fit the Cuban government like a glove, he explained to 14ymedio Pitt. Now he will be able to “sell and export the nickel and cobalt from my family’s mines in Moa and Punta Gorda, and launder the money through another country,” he laments.
The prohibition decreed by Washington has paralyzed the project of exploitation of the enormous mineral reserves, especially copper, nickel and cobalt, of the Duluth Complex company
According to the businessman, Sherritt has already sold Cuban minerals to the Panasonic company, which manufactures batteries for electric vehicles. In turn, he says, Panasonic sold its batteries to Tesla, the automaker run by Elon Musk. “Supposedly, Musk broke off that business when he found out that the minerals came from the Island,” Pitt says, although he adds that neither Panasonic nor the other companies in Europe and Asia have suspended the purchase of minerals from Sherritt.
As for the United States, an article in the Wall Street Journal published At the end of January, he gave an account of the political benefits that the blockade of Minnesota’s mineral resources, one of the most important and unexploited deposits of copper, nickel and cobalt in the country, will have for the Joe Biden government. However, the White House has promoted the circulation of electric vehicles, for the production of which these metals are essential.
The solution, announced by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland, will be to “protect” resources, which will “preserve the subsistence lifestyle” of Minnesota’s Native American communities and, incidentally, give Biden a popularity boost among the environmentalists. But, as the pace of production of electric cars must be preserved, the metals will have to be imported from countries where it can be negotiated with greater “flexibility”, such as Russia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines and probably – thanks to the deal with Sherritt – Cuba.
“Cuba is advancing towards an economic model similar to the Russian one,” says Pitt, “so that millionaire oligarchs will soon emerge who will control all sectors of the economy, including mining.”
The businessman fears that the Cuban government will take advantage of his deal with the Canadian Sherritt – to which it has just paid a portion of its million-dollar debt with 760 tons of cobalt, valued at 27 million dollars – to send minerals to the United States. the resources that were taken from his family are constantly extracted.
“As in Russia, any industry that depends on natural resources, such as tourism, sugar, fishing, medicine, transportation, etc., will fall into that system and will be controlled in Cuba by the oligarchs, just like in Russia,” he says. “Ironically, the result will be that electric cars in the US will be powered by batteries made of Cuban metal.”
The deal with Sherritt set a “dangerous precedent” for the regime’s international negotiations, as well as draining one of the island’s few remaining valuable resources.
In Pitt’s opinion, the Cuban regime will always opt for the “exchange” method to settle its debts, since it does not have -as was demonstrated in the trial for non-payment he recently faced in London – the financial ability to bring his accounts up to date. This type of “exchange” is not an uncommon proposal from the countries that offered the loan to the debtor states, and Cuba has often used this method.
In addition, as he already warned this newspaper last December, the deal with Sherritt set a “dangerous precedent” for the regime’s international negotiations, in addition to draining one of the few valuable resources that the island has left.
Another issue is the total impunity with which the Cuban government manages the Pitt-Wasmer resources. “They have to figure out how to pay us, the owners of those mining properties, before they can redeem them for payment of their debts,” he insists. The family has initiated a legal process for the confiscation of the Holguín mines, which adjoin those of another company, the Moa Bay Mining Company, a former property of the Rockefeller family also usurped by Castro.
The conduct of the Cuban government, which seeks a new thaw with Washington to guarantee its economic survival, translates into a geopolitical strategy that consists of “selling pieces of the country.”
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