The Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas, president of the Cuba Study Group, stated in an interview with CiberCuba that Cuba meets most of the conditions that generally favor the dollarization of an economy, but he warned that this path involves a significant political and economic cost: losing monetary sovereignty.
"One option is to dollarize. This has both negative and positive consequences. If we look at the conditions that generally favor the dollarization of an economy, Cuba meets most of them, but not all," noted Saladrigas. The businessman, aged 77, born in Havana and emigrated to Florida in 1961, has been advocating for the economic opening of the island since 2001.
Saladrigas was direct about what adopting the dollar as the official currency would imply: "The reality is that dollarizing means we lose sovereignty because we lose the ability to manage our own currency." He explained that this loss includes the inability to use monetary policy to control inflation or facilitate credit, which are key tools in any economic rebuilding process.
As an alternative, the businessman proposes to stabilize the Cuban peso with external financial support, citing the precedent of the loan from the United States to Argentina. "There are ways, there are other ways that need to be studied and implemented to stabilize our currency, but it's going to require a lot of work and money. There we need financial backing from an International Monetary Fund or someone to help us stabilize," he said.
The underlying problem, according to Saladrigas, is that Cuba lacks a functional banking system. No one will deposit dollars in a Cuban bank if they don't have assurances of being able to withdraw them when needed, he warned. This lack of institutional trust complicates any path to stabilization, whether with a national currency or the dollar. The banking collapse in Cuba had already been evident since late 2025, with long lines outside branches unable to meet the demand.
The debate about the Cuban currency takes place in a context of unprecedented monetary collapse. In December 2025, the regime approved the Decree-Law 113/2025, which legalized internal transactions in dollars and euros for selected sectors such as exporters, small and medium-sized enterprises, and cooperatives, although the government insists that the measure is "temporary" and denies any intention to dollarize the economy.
That same month, the peso experienced the largest devaluation in its history: from 120 to 410 pesos per dollar in the floating official rate, a 242% increase, while the informal market priced the dollar at 440 pesos. The average Cuban salary today amounts to less than 10 dollars per month.
Saladrigas frames the monetary discussion within a broader transition plan that he outlines in three phases: a stabilization phase lasting between two and four years with an estimated cost of between 6.000 and 10.000 million dollars, a reconstruction phase for infrastructure lasting approximately an additional five years, and a strategic vision stage in which Cuba could become a financial hub of the Caribbean. "We want to be a Singapore or we want to be a combination of Singapore with Israel or with the Baltic countries," he stated.
Regarding the origin of these resources, Saladrigas was emphatic: "Cuba has no oil. Our money, the money needed for the transition, will not come from beneath the earth. In other words, we Cubans have to earn it hard." The geopolitical context also plays a role: the negotiations between Trump and Cuba have reignited the debate about Washington's role in any economic opening process for the island.
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