With Cuba lying roughly just 300 miles from Miami, the United States should be a much more important trade partner for Cuba. However in 2020 Spain was Cuba’s largest importer. Two years after the Cuban Revolution, in 1960, the United States of America placed Cuba under a straight economic embargo, since referred to as the ‘Cuban Blockade’. During the Cold War, Cuba relied on extensive trade agreements with its economic and ideological allies in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON) In 1987 COMECON amounted for 86.4% of Cuba’s trade. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and thus the trading blocs that came with it, Cuba has managed to claw its way through the last three decades. The determination of the Cuban people remaining ever strong in the face of American imperialism.
Figure 1: Cuba’s 2020 Imports
Figure 2: Cuba’s 2020 Exports
Figure 1 composes Cuba’s 2020 imports mainly advanced goods and supplements to its poor food crop. As can be seen, in figure 2: Cuba’s export economy is mainly composed of the export of raw goods, especially, tobacco and sugar.
There was hope for Cuba during the Obama administration, with the policy known as the ‘Cuban Thaw’, an attempt to relax the embargo and tensions overall. However, Obama’s Cuban thaw was swiftly renounced by the Trump Administration.
In 2021 Biden’s Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, announced that Cuban’s attempting to reach the US by boat would not be welcomed and would be turned away at the border. Instead they sought to reopen the US embassy in Havana, after being shuttered since 2017.
The Biden Administration did lift some sanctions, importantly the removal of restrictions on remittances to Cuban families. However this can mostly be seen as an attempt to supplement Hurricane Ian aid. Remittances being received by 25% of Cubans living in Cuba.
Cuba has also been struggling heavily with its economy in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in October 2022, its outlook looking worse and worse as its situations worsen. Cuba has dealt with blackouts since. Cuba’s already struggling food resources going as Cuba’s already diminished food resources rot in unpowered refrigerators.
In November of 2022 the Biden Administration voted against a UN general assembly resolution, calling for an end to the embargo opposed only by the US and Israel with Brazil and Ukraine being the only members abstaining. This was the 30th time the General Assembly has passed a resolution calling for the end to the embargo. To most nations the embargo is an affront to international law.
The words of Cuba’s Representative to the United Nations rings true: “If the United States government was really interested in the welfare, human rights and self-determination of Cubans, it could lift the blockade.”
In an attempt to circumvent the economic effects of the blockade and stimulate economic growth, Cuba has initiated a wide range of economic reforms. While Cuba was able to make it through the COVID-19 pandemic fairly unscathed due to its strong healthcare and logistics systems, its economic effect was different. With the Cuban economy relying on two major sources, firstly international tourism to cities like Havana and Santiago de Cuba, and secondly “a decline in remittance flows”.
However as writes Jose Antonio Alonso & Pavel Vidal “Despite the severity of the crisis, the reform process is biased by a ‘patchwork approach’.” Cuba’s political elite is reluctant to embrace any significant reform.
The implemented reforms have transformed both the macro and micro-economies of Cuba. It has experienced significant sovereign debt relief, and small self-employed businesses are flourishing. However these reforms have also led to some of the worst of the capitalist system, namely that of a significant increase in the level of inequality in the country. Cuba is changing from a country in which social equality was one of its proudest achievements to having to embrace capitalist class systems in order to survive under the blockade. These economic reforms strive “to adapt the Cuban model to a world in which the predominant economic logic is not aligned with Cuba’s ideological and social orientation.”
In 2021 Raul Castro stepped down as President of Cuba, finally putting an end to the Castro-era. The current political elite of Cuba did not fight in the revolution, and have always lived under the blockade. Cuba is also increasingly seeing itself isolated in Latin America, with increasingly further right-wing governments in Colombia and the Venezuelan crisis, not to mention the Brazilian administration of Bolsonaro.
The Biden Administration must choose its outcomes carefully, and must embrace Cuba’s reforms the best it can.