{"id":718073,"date":"2026-06-21T22:09:37","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:09:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/718073\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T22:09:37","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T22:09:37","slug":"trumps-cuba-sanctions-force-the-islands-biggest-economic-shift-since-castro-towards-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/718073\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump’s Cuba sanctions force the island’s biggest economic shift since Castro: towards capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Observers on Friday called Cuba\u2019s new\u00a0free-market reforms<\/a>\u00a0the most sweeping economic overhaul of the island\u2019s communist economy since the Cuban revolution, as the grandson of former President Ra\u00fal Castro said in an interview that Cuba must seek to move its economy forward.<\/p>\n

The 176 measures aim to\u00a0further decentralize Cuba\u2019s state-run economy<\/a>, which has been left gasping by a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump. Under the island\u2019s current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold and how the country\u2019s resources are allocated.<\/p>\n

The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.<\/p>\n

\u201cElements that for decades were listed as pillars of the revolutionary economy, such as the state monopoly on foreign trade and the centralization of productive forces, have been dismantled,\u201d said Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American political scientist and lawyer who is a doctoral candidate at the University of Salamanca.<\/p>\n

Cuban leaders like former President Ra\u00fal Castro \u2013 who still wields significant power on the island \u2013 have sought to push forward more limited reforms of Cuba\u2019s economy in the past, but efforts have run into bureaucratic hurdles. In passing the reform, Cuban authorities cautioned that implementation could be slow, and noted measures will not be viable if the U.S. does not lift the energy and financial embargo on the island.<\/p>\n

Since January, Cuba has been under a\u00a0harsh energy and financial embargo imposed by the U.S.,<\/a>\u00a0effectively blocking Cuba off from fuel, it\u2019s main energy source, and deepening the crisis had already been deteriorating for the past five years. Blackouts have lasted up to 20 hours a day and have\u00a0restricted access to health services,<\/a>\u00a0transportation and education.<\/p>\n

U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that they are\u00a0maintaining a policy of maximum pressure<\/a>\u00a0to change the island\u2019s political and economic system, which has endured for six decades despite U.S. pressure. They have not ruled out the use of military force.<\/p>\n

Castro grandson says Cuba not even \u2018slightly\u2019 a threat to U.S.<\/p>\n

In an interview published Friday<\/a>, in the United Arab Emirates-based The National, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of the revolutionary leader, reiterated that Cuba \u201cdoesn\u2019t even slightly represent a threat\u201d to the U.S.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez Castro said in the video interview that Cuba\u2019s government was seeking a \u201cvery Cuban\u201d economic model.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur country must seek a path to economic development where we must inevitably diversify our economy, diversify the way we do business and diversify the way we do investments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cuban President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel<\/a>\u00a0said that the proposed measures were based on an analysis of the Vietnamese and Chinese models, communist countries with market economies.<\/p>\n

What is likely to pose a significant barrier are U.S. sanctions on Cuba, said Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith these new measures, along with others that are likely on the table, they will only have a true effect if complemented with the gradual lifting of U.S. prohibitions and sanctions more broadly,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Without sanctions being lifted, Schlenker and other analysts said many of the presented measures will be inapplicable, especially due to the limitations and prohibitions imposed on potential investors, who are penalized in the U.S. financial system if they do business with Cuba.<\/p>\n

Beyond<\/a> that, there are a number of other obstacles that could stymie significant reforms, ranging from mistrust from potential investors to what Battista, the Cuban-American analyst called \u201cslow and inefficient\u201d bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

Despite these obstacles, the Cuban government faces a short window for obtaining results, said Paolo Spadoni, associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Cuban leaders hope to survive this unprecedented crisis and the pressure from the United States, they must move quickly with the implementation of reform and the achievement of tangible results,\u201d Spadoni said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Observers on Friday called Cuba\u2019s new\u00a0free-market reforms\u00a0the most sweeping economic overhaul of the island\u2019s communist economy since the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":718074,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,24713,3668,101],"class_list":["post-718073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-capitalism","tag-cuba","tag-economy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=718073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718073\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/718074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=718073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=718073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=718073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}