Cuba Is Running on Empty

Havana targets foreign-company profits as it shrinks public bread rations

By Mary Anastasia O’Grady. Excerpts:

"it’s turned to confiscating dollars and euros from foreign businesses on the island. It may get a few million."

"while medicine, housing and fuel are in short supply. Inflation is galloping. Parents find it hard to feed their children. In September the government cut back bread rations to 60 grams a day from 80 grams. In December, after more than six decades, it finally said it will eliminate the ration book"

"“transportation by ground, sea and air in Cuba” fell by 19% in 2024"

"The infrastructure, from roads to electricity, has collapsed."

"18% of the population emigrated between 2022 and 2023."

"Over the lifetime of the Cuban revolution the regime has borrowed an estimated $50 billion to $100 billion. It’s hard to calculate the total because Havana’s reckless sovereign lending has been forgiven so many times." 

"Outstanding debt is now about $40 billion"

"the country’s foreign direct investment remains paltry."

"foreign companies operating on the island [have been told] that they could no longer take their profits out of the country."

"An April 10 headline in the Spanish outlet EFE read, “Cuba blocks the repatriation of foreign currency to foreign companies based in the country.”"

" In 2011-12 English architect Stephen Purvis spent 18 months in Cuban dungeons after Raul Castro decided he wanted to take over the British expat’s business on the island. Mr. Purvis told his chilling tale in a 2017 memoir titled “Close but No Cigar.”"