you confused me there, playacaribe. i always thought that when you have large outstanding dollar debts the way to pay them off was by revaluing your currency, so that it takes less of your money to buy dollars.
While that strategy can be employed by a normal fully integrated first world economy, it would not work well for the DR.
By that I mean, if the DR were to strengthen its currency, your scenario is accurate. But because the economy is reliant on tourism and exports, those industries would be devastated in a scheme to strengthen the currency....and here is why.
Tourism is basically a price point business. Too high a price....and mass market tourism, which is the DR's stock in trade, is off to a better price alternative. That in turn gives you less dollars....not more....net net.
Same thing for exports. If you strengthen your currency to require more dollars to buy Dominican avocadoes, suppliers simply find another source of avocadoes....and exports suffer and your income of dollars declines.
On the other hand, if you keep your currency weak or weaken it further, you attract tourists/dollars or exports/dollars as you are more competitive against other tourist destinations and other countries exports.
And while that is a somewhat simplistic explanation, it pretty much explains how the DR needs to currently operate to keep dollars coming in.
While the outstanding debt under Petrocaribe is large...it is spread out over a long period.
And this in no way ends Petrocaribe.....but it should certainly be a clear signal to the DR....that absent some miraculous change in Venezuela...the end is certainly in sight.
Respectfully,
Playacaribe2