28 July 2025
Speeches and interventions made during the recently ended meeting of Cuba’s National Assembly and an earlier plenary session of the Central Committee of Cuba’s Communist Party suggest that the island may be entering a period of increased economic uncertainty, that government may struggle to deliver its economic objectives, and could find it hard to satisfy citizens’ concerns.
In particular, remarks made by the Minister of Economy and Planning (MEP), Joaquín Alonso, to National Assembly members made clear the enormity of the economic challenge government must overcome to recover past economic performance and restore growth.
In his detailed and often frank remarks, made during both full and working sessions, he set out the depth of the problems that must be addressed in the coming months and their interconnected nature.
During the four days of meetings the MEP Minister emphasised that now that the country’s fiscal deficit has been reduced, managing, controlling, and allocating foreign currency and earning more from exports will all be essential if the country’s deteriorating energy supply, insufficient food production, and its weak manufacturing output are to be addressed.
To this end, Alonso told delegates, the economy and its management “must now evolve and adapt,” against a background of the “persistence of a complex economic warfare scenario, in which risks are heightened, threats, and tensions are intensifying.”
Moving forward, Cuba’s Economy and Planning Minister said, now means doing everything possible to increase exports and foreign currency earnings and remittances, finding new sources of foreign direct investment, and identifying innovative sources of financing, “while containing current expenses and postponing non-essential investments.”
The goal now, he said, “is to boost the country’s foreign currency generation through all possible channels; continue to promote productive activities, with an emphasis on domestic food production and greater utilisation of all industrial capacities; and to strengthen the development, management, and monitoring of territorial food balances.”
All of which, Alonso stressed, must be delivered at the same time as other actions are being introduced “to extract excess national currency in circulation, and influence monetary, fiscal, and price control.”
Whether Cuba can achieve this and maintain the unity and commitment necessary to turn the economy around is less certain.
In his closing speech to the Communist Party’s Central Committee plenary held on 4-5 July, President Díaz-Canel made clear that under the leadership of the Communist Party, Cuba would continue to pursue its present economic and political path in a largely unrevised form as Cuba, he said, is now “a country at war.”
His promise, a twenty first century Cuban version of Winston Churchill’s 1940 message of an outlook that promises only ‘blood, toil, tears, and sweat,’ in the near term, sought to engage cadres – the politically committed – to work with the very many Cubans who are uncertain about the future to encourage hope.
His remarks suggested real concern exists at the level of the Central Committee of the Communist Party about losing the support of the young, and the need to do more politically to retain and increase their support. Other lines in his closing remarks indicated fear of an externally engineered social break down this summer, and the need to constantly rethink in practical terms the Party and government’s response to complex interrelated economic problems at a time of significantly diminished resources.
There was also an implied concern that the accelerating breakdown of international norms could mean that almost any action may now be possible against Cuba by the US and the Cuban leadership’s much-hated opposition in exile; unease that the Cuban people will blame the Communist Party rather than Washington for the present economic crisis; anxiety about the Communist Party’s ability to communicate hope in a much changed country, especially to the younger generation; and apprehension that it will lose its moral authority unless its cadres are successfully revitalised.
A hot summer of energy outages, shortages of water, transport, food, and other necessities now threaten. In recent months, street protests have been sporadic, small, and localised. However, government is clearly concerned that if Cubans’ legitimate concerns are not addressed and are fanned by external actors, a much wider breakdown of social cohesion and national unity is possible.
In the past, Cuban’s deep-rooted sense of nationalism has overcome such doubts. However, the more recent pivot to repression has created disenchantment about the future especially among those born long after Cuba’s conservative historic generation.
When Díaz-Canel addressed the Central Committee plenary he recognised that almost all the solutions now lie in achieving self-sufficiency. Cuba’s Communist Party and government must do much more to deliver “what the people are expecting from us” through “concrete and immediate actions that will help overcome the profound economic crisis” the island is facing, he stated.
The inference is that if Government and Cuba’s political leadership fail to rapidly create opportunity and a modern vibrant economy that encourages hope, the nature of future change could become unpredictable.
This issue provides more detail of the breadth of the economic challenge facing the island.
Detailed coverage of the recently held ninth Cuban Communist Party Plenary providing the political context to the National Assembly meetings can be found in Cuba Briefing 14 July 2025. Coverage of the principal speeches made during the 16-18 July plenary session of the National Assembly can be found in Cuba Briefing 21 July 2025.
Highlights in this issue:
- Minister of the Economy sets out key economic challenges government must address
- Visitor arrivals fall by 25% in first half of 2025
- Power outages described as a sensitive political issue for the Communist Party
- Legislators warn of need to speed up provincial approval of new non-state MSMEs
- Vietnam expresses concern about Cuban business environment
28 July 2025, Issue 1290
The Caribbean Council is able to provide further detail about all of the stories in Cuba Briefing. If you would like a more detailed insight into any of the content of today’s issue, please get in touch.