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Cuba’s Urgent Reform and Its Risks

For too long, the Cuban economy has functioned under a combination of scarcity, prohibitions, ineffective controls, and delayed decisions that have pushed millions of people into precariousness, informality, or emigration.

Editorial from Joven Cuba

HAVANA TIMES – Cuba is not facing just another reform, but a critical turning point. The government announced one of the most profound package of economic and social transformations in the country’s post-1959 history, at a time when it no longer has any room to keep managing the crisis with temporary fixes, slogans, or delays.

Many of these measures have been recommended time and again by economists of various perspectives. The fact that they are finally being heard is a positive sign, but it also confirms how much time was lost before reaching this point.

Today, Cuba is facing one of the most severe socioeconomic crises in its recent history, marked by an energy situation that has had a devastating impact on daily life, production, services, family care, mental health, and people’s ability to maintain a dignified existence. Added to this is the real, profound, and growing impact of the United States’ unilateral coercive measures, which have intensified in recent years and are aimed at cutting off sources of financing, external revenues, access to fuel, international operations, and economic room for maneuver.

However, recognizing that impact cannot serve to erase internal responsibilities. On the contrary, precisely because the island faces such severe external pressure, the government had even less right to waste time, less room for improvisation, and a greater obligation to make the necessary changes to build a stronger economy.

This is one of the paradoxes of the current moment. The economic war makes reform riskier because it must be implemented under conditions of extreme scarcity, institutional deterioration, low social trust, and widespread impoverishment. Yet it is also difficult not to conclude that this pressure indirectly helped force a transformation that had been postponed over and over again. Many of the measures now presented as indispensable could have been adopted during the opening promoted by the Obama administration, when the international environment was less hostile, domestic wealth was greater, and society was less exhausted.

The outcome of this process will not depend solely on internal decisions. The role of the United States, as well as powers with strategic ties to Cuba such as China and Russia, will be an important factor in determining the success or failure of these transformations. If the reform manages to send credible signals of openness, legal certainty, and economic rationality, it could help stimulate foreign investment and partially reduce the country’s financial isolation. But if unilateral coercive measures remain in place or intensify, and if international allies limit themselves to political support without significant economic commitments, the reform’s room for success will be much narrower. Cuba needs to do its part, but the international environment can greatly........

© Havana Times