towards Cuba, and critical articles in Soviet newspapers soon emerged. Although Havana could not afford to upset Moscow, its main ally, Castro in February 1989 led a small expulsion of Soviet diplomats at the Soviet embassy and banned the sale of Soviet publications and news outlets, He stated, "We could not hesitate to prevent the circulation of Soviet publications in Cuba." In his visit to rekindle ties with Cuba in April 1989, Gorbachev attempted to convince Castro to take a more positive attitude towards the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was only the second Soviet leader to visit Latin America, and rather than resolve the increasing tensions between the two nations, the visit was mostly a symbolic gesture since Castro had declared the Soviet-Cuban alliance as void 24 hours before the visit. Despite Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze declaring the meeting to be a "milestone in Soviet-Cuban relations," relations rapidly declined after Gorbachev's return to Moscow. 1989–1991 By 1990, Moscow had found it increasingly difficult to meet its economic responsibilities to Havana. In 1985, it had paid over eleven times the world price for Cuban sugar, but in 1989, it paid only three times the world price. As the economy continued to decline, members of the Soviet elite grew more critical of the unequal terms of trade. For many, "it seemed contrary to the nature of perestroika to continue to prop up an inefficient Cuban economy while struggling to reform the Soviet economy." That forced the Cuban government to search elsewhere for foreign investment and trade. In what was called a "zero-option approach," the Cuban government in 1990 and 1991 established tariff-free trading agreements to boost imports and exports, gave foreign entities more autonomy and generous tax incentives, and began to diversify the economy by focusing more on the pharmaceutical industry and tourism. More fundamental change in Soviet-Cuba economic relations came with a new one-year trade agreement (as opposed to the previous five-year trade agreements), which was signed in late 1990. The agreement set sugar at world market prices with the intent to reduce Cuban dependence on the Soviet Union. In June 1991, the Soviets disbanded the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA), which had been a huge basis for the alliance. That further strained the Cuban economic situation. In the international sphere, Gorbachev's "new thinking" attempted to remove Marxist ideology from east–west relations. His new foreign policy took on a new