“One can make the argument that the economic trouble Cuba is currently facing is worse than the Special Period in the 1990s,” fellow at Defense Priorities Dan DePetris tells the New York Sun.
“Back then, the Cubans were still able to receive fairly standard rates of fuel from the likes of Mexico, which viewed Cuba’s economic collapse at the time through a humanitarian lens. Today, those shipments are essentially cut off due to United States policy, which means that everything from food delivery to hospital operations is severely impacted.”
Since 2021, more than one million Cubans, roughly 10 percent of the population, have left the island, most of them working-age adults. The hollowing-out compounds every other crisis: fewer workers, fewer remittances, fewer people left to sustain what little economic activity survives the blackouts. Mr. DePetris says the regime has deep experience in muddling through, and will try to preserve what little cash it has “to keep various elite constituencies on-side, even as the Cuban population suffers.”
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