HAVANA (AP) — The Observer on Friday announced a new policy for Cuba. free market reform It will be the most sweeping economic reform of the island’s communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as former president Raul Castro’s grandson said in an interview that Cuba must try to move its economy forward.
The purpose of the 176 measures is to Further decentralizing Cuba’s state-run economyhas been stifled by a tightening embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the island’s current economic model, the government primarily decides what is produced, who produces it, how much goods are sold for, and how the country’s resources are allocated.
The plan includes more space for private companies, imports and exports without state intermediaries, free employment, licensing of private banks, and investment by Cubans abroad. Fast food chains are also allowed to set up shop on the island.
Luis Carlos Batista, a Cuban-American political scientist, lawyer, and doctoral candidate at the University of Salamanca, said that “elements that had been enumerated for decades as the pillars of the revolutionary economy, such as state monopoly on foreign trade and the centralization of productive power, have been dismantled.”
Cuban leaders such as former President Raul Castro, who still wield significant power on the island, have previously tried to push for more limited reforms to the Cuban economy, but their efforts have run into bureaucratic hurdles. Upon passing the reforms, Cuban authorities warned that implementation could be delayed and said the measures would become unworkable unless the United States lifted the energy and financial embargo on the island.
Since January, Cuba the harsh energy and financial blockade imposed by the United States; The crisis had already worsened over the past five years, effectively cutting off Cuba’s supply of fuel, its main source of energy. Power outages can last up to 20 hours per day, limited access to medical services; transportation and education.
US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have acknowledged that they are. Maintain maximum pressure policy It is about changing the island’s political and economic system, which has endured for 60 years despite pressure from the United States. They have not ruled out the use of military force.
Castro’s grandson says Cuba is not a threat to the US ‘in the slightest’
in me Interview published on FridayWriting in the United Arab Emirates-based National newspaper, Raul Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, the revolutionary leader’s grandson, reiterated that Cuba is “not the slightest threat” to the United States.
Rodriguez Castro said in a video interview that the Cuban government is seeking an economic model that is “very Cuban.”
“Our country has to find a path to economic development, and we necessarily need to diversify our economy, diversify the way we do business, and diversify the way we invest,” he said.
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel He said the proposed measures are based on an analysis of the models of Vietnam and China, communist countries with market economies.
Lee Schlenker, a researcher at the Quincy Institute in Washington, said U.S. sanctions against Cuba are likely to be a significant barrier.
“These new measures, along with other measures that may be considered in the future, will only be truly effective if they are complemented by the gradual lifting of broader U.S. bans and sanctions,” he said.
Schlenker and other analysts said that if sanctions are not lifted, many of the proposed measures will no longer apply, especially because of the restrictions and prohibitions imposed on potential investors who are penalized in the U.S. financial system if they do business with Cuba.
There are many other obstacles that could prevent significant reforms, from mistrust from potential investors to what Cuban-American analyst Batista calls a “slow and inefficient” bureaucracy.
Paolo Spadoni, an associate professor in the School of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia, said that despite these obstacles, the Cuban government has a short time frame for results.
“If Cuba’s leaders are to survive this unprecedented crisis and pressure from the United States, they must move quickly to implement reforms and achieve tangible results,” Spadoni said.
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