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The Cuban regime has accumulated an unpaid debt of 676 million dollars to Brazil for infrastructure works financed by the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES), and the Brazilian government acknowledged that there is no prospect of recovering that money, as reported by CNN Brasil.
The Ministry of Finance of Brazil responded to the news outlet with a statement that leaves no room for hope: "There is no forecast for the regularization of these payments," the ministry noted, adding that the government continues to collect the credits through bilateral negotiations and engagement in international forums, without concrete results.
The main project funded in Cuba was the Port of Mariel, built by the company Odebrecht in partnership with the Business Administration Group (GAESA), the conglomerate controlled by the Cuban Armed Forces.
The contracts were signed between 2009 and 2013 for a value of 641 million dollars, and the total cost of the project is estimated to be between 682 and 800 million dollars.
When Cuba stopped paying, BNDES activated the Export Guarantee Fund, a Union instrument that covered the deficit and transferred the loss to the Brazilian taxpayer.
The guarantee that the bank had accepted for the loan for the Port of Mariel was, in itself, a warning sign: the revenues from the Cuban cigar industry, a decision that the Union Court of Accounts of Brazil later classified as "fragile" and inadequate for the size of the loan.
The history of Cuban defaults is long and well-documented. In October 2018, the Cuban government promised to settle its debt with Brazil, but just two months later, part of that debt went into default. In December 2019, the then-president of BNDES, Gustavo Montezano, warned that the interruption of Cuban payments would incur million-dollar losses for the institution.
In February 2023, President Lula da Silva expressed optimism: "I am confident that in our Government those countries will pay because they are all friendly countries of Brazil and they will certainly repay the debt they owe to BNDES," he stated then regarding Cuba and Venezuela. Three years later, his own Ministry of Finance contradicts that optimism.
The debate was reignited when Lula enacted Law 15.359/2026 on March 24, which reinstates funding from BNDES for the export of engineering services and allows Brazilian construction companies to resume carrying out large projects abroad.
The regulation prohibits new transactions with defaulting countries and requires the bank to publish detailed information about its loans, but it does not resolve existing debts.
Experts consulted by CNN Brasil are explicit: "Certainly, it is not wise to undertake projects in countries that do not have the capacity to repay those loans," one of them warned, pointing out that it is unlikely that Cuba or Venezuela will meet the obligation at any point, and that the money should be considered lost.
The financial situation of the Cuban dictatorship makes any future payments unlikely. The public debt of the island reached 108.8% of GDP in 2024, with an inflation rate of 42% and a fiscal deficit of 11% of GDP.
The economist Pavel Vidal Alejandro, a former official of the Central Bank of Cuba, summarizes it accurately: "The Cuban state will never be completely solvent as long as it continues to preserve and subsidize the monopoly of an inefficient state-owned business sector."
Cuba is not alone in the ranks of debtors.
Venezuela has accumulated a debt of over 1.2 billion dollars with Brazil for the Caracas and Los Teques metros and the National Steelworks, all projects executed by Brazilian construction companies with financing from BNDES.
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