5 days ago
Cuba's deepening crisis: blackouts, tourism crash, exodus. Will Cubans rise up?
Amid President Trump's threats to start a global trade war, invade Greenland, seize control of the Panama Canal and annex Canada, this story has gone virtually unnoticed: Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades — maybe since the 1959 revolution.
Before we get into whether we're likely to see any massive street protests like the ones that shook the island in 2021, let's look at the disastrous situation Cubans are facing today.
Recent months have seen Cuba virtually paralyzed by blackouts. By the regime's own admission, power outages averaged 18 hours a day in May.
'We are going through a critical situation,' Cuba's dictator, Miguel Diaz-Canel, conceded in his May 29 podcast. The Cuban economy 'is hurting, diminished, almost paralyzed,' he added, according to the EFE news agency.
This rare admission confirmed what Cubans have been saying for years — especially since blackouts started worsening late last year. The regime blames everything, as usual, on the U.S. trade embargo, claiming Washington's sanctions block Cuba from earning the hard currency it needs to buy foreign oil.
But experts dismiss this as a tired excuse because Cuba can trade with every country except the U.S. The real culprits: decades of neglected electricity infrastructure, lack of investments in alternative energies and dwindling oil shipments from Venezuela and Russia.
'There's an average of 18-hour-a-day blackouts,' said Alfredo Lopez, head of Cuba's state-run Electric Union company, in the same May 29 podcast. He blamed 66% of the power outages on fuel shortages.
Tourism, a major source of the island's income, is collapsing. Many Canadian, European and Latin American tourists are choosing other Caribbean destinations. Who wants to vacation where the lights go out at night?
According to the latest figures from Cuba's National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), foreign tourism plunged nearly 30% in the first three months of this year. This comes on top of a previous decline in the number of foreign visitors.
Last year, foreign arrivals had already fallen to 2.2 million, down from 4.7 million in 2018. The pandemic, the 2021 anti-government protests and now the blackouts are crippling Cuba's once thriving tourism sector.
Sugar production, once one of Cuba's economic pillars, is in crisis: Cuba is now importing sugar. The Reuters news agency reports that the state-run Azcuba sugar company may produce just 165,000 tons this year, down from 8 million in the 1980s.
Rum, a top export, is threatened by sugar and alcohol shortages. 'Lack of sugar throws Cuba's rum industry into crisis,' read a May 30 headline in the British daily The Guardian.
In recent conversations with foreign diplomats and Cubans living on the island, I asked them whether they expect new protests this summer. Most anti-government demonstrations in recent years happened in summer, when people are most angry over the power outages that keep them from using their fans or — if they are lucky — air conditioners.
Most of the people I talked to said they would not bet on new mass protests, in part because of the regime's brutal repression after the 2021 street demonstrations. At least 700 peaceful protesters were arrested, and many got up to 30-year prison sentences.
But the bigger obstacle to a new eruption of anti-government rallies may be that Cuba has become an island of old people, several Cuba residents told me. Mass emigration since 2021 has drained the island of young people — the ones most likely to protest.
Indeed, official data show that more than 1 million Cubans — 10% of the population — have left since 2020. Most were young.
Because of emigration and low birth rates, Cuba now has Latin America's oldest population, Cuban economist Pedro Monreal wrote on his X social media account recently.
To be sure, the latest mass exodus of Cubans has given the regime a reprieve by removing potential protesters. But if the current crisis continues, I wonder whether it will be enough to prevent a new wave of social unrest.
Many economists agree that the current economic situation is worse than the 1990s 'special period' that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. And President Trump's anti-immigration crusade, including his June 4 partial travel ban on people from 12 countries, including Cuba, will close Cuba's emigration escape valve.
To make things worse for Cuba's dictatorship, Diaz-Canel is a colorless bureaucrat with zero charisma, and the country's ultimate behind-the-scenes-ruler, Raúl Castro, is 93. It's unclear for how long Cuba's ruling elite will hold together once Castro dies.
So don't be surprised if Cuba is back soon in the headlines. Barring a sudden increase in foreign aid — say, if Russia decides to ramp up its oil shipments to Cuba in response to escalating tensions with the United States over Ukraine — Cuba's crisis could bring about unprecedented challenges to its decrepit regime.
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