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While the economy of Latin America is making uneven progress, Cuba once again finds itself at the bottom of the rankings. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the island is expected to experience a GDP contraction of -1.5% in 2025, making it, along with Haiti, one of only two countries in the region expected to decline this year, in contrast to an average regional growth of 2.4%.
The data, included in the Preliminary Balance of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, confirms a trend that is already heavily impacting the daily lives of millions of Cubans: as production declines, so do incomes, leading to a sustained deterioration in the standard of living in a country marked by inflation, blackouts, and chronic shortages.
According to EFE, CEPAL maintained its regional growth forecast at 2.4% for 2025 and 2.3% for 2026 this Tuesday, warning that Latin America remains caught in a "low growth dynamic" in an uncertain international context.
"It would complete a four-year sequence with rates close to 2.3%, which confirms that the region remains in a low-capacity growth trap," the organization noted in its report presented in Santiago, Chile.
In that already bleak landscape, Cuba stands out as a negative anomaly. While countries like Venezuela (6.5%), Paraguay (5.5%), Argentina (4.3%), and Costa Rica (4%) lead in growth, the Cuban economy is declining, even overtaken by nations facing severe structural crises.
A fall that doesn't come as a surprise
The contraction of the Cuban GDP does not come as a surprise. Weeks prior, CEPAL itself had ranked Cuba below Haiti in export performance, according to the report Perspectives of International Trade in Latin America and the Caribbean 2025.
The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal warned that the island is among the three countries in the region without growth in the value of goods exports, hindered by the disastrous sugar harvest and the decline in international nickel prices, two traditional pillars of the national productive sector.
Monreal also warned that the simultaneous contraction of exports and imports worsens the situation due to the country's high reliance on imports, a factor that ultimately impacts both economic growth and domestic supply.
The government itself admits the collapse
This context is joined by an unusual admission from the top levels of power. The leader Miguel Díaz-Canel recently acknowledged that the Cuban GDP contracted by more than 4% by the end of the third quarter, accompanied by soaring inflation, a halt in production, an energy crisis, and shortages of basic food supplies.
Despite this acknowledgment, the official discourse refocused on blaming the U.S. embargo and external factors, while promising economic reforms that do not result in real improvements for the population, which is increasingly affected by precarious conditions and exodus.
According to what the executive secretary of ECLAC, José Manuel Salazar-Xirinachs, explained to EFE, the trap of low regional growth already has visible consequences. "Today's per capita GDP is barely higher than it was ten years ago, poverty has stopped decreasing, and job creation remains weak," he said.
In the case of Cuba, this diagnosis translates into a deep social crisis, with devastated salaries, collapsed services, and a currency that is practically worthless in the informal market.
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