The Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas, president of the Cuba Study Group, issued a public warning about the risks of betting on privatizations in Cuba that could turn into opaque processes benefiting only a few, both within the island and from the diaspora abroad. He stated this on Monday, during an interview with CiberCuba in which he analyzed the economic reforms announced by Díaz-Canel last Friday.
In response to a question from Tania Costa about whether it is time to liquidate state-owned companies and sell what can be sold, Saladrigas acknowledged that privatizing state enterprises "is a complex process" and used the Russian privatization of the 1990s as a paradigm example.
"We have seen in all transitions where all those privatizations occurred—let’s take Russia as an example—it was like a piñata. A piñata from which only a few benefited, and those few benefited a great deal, they benefited deeply, but the country didn’t necessarily gain," he stated.
The businessman went further and warned that he is already seeing concrete signs that the same pattern could repeat itself in Cuba.
"Among the threats posed by these processes we are facing at the moment, one of them is whether we will create piñatas both from there and from here. And I, with my years of experience, am already seeing them begin to take shape. The efforts to create piñatas from both sides," he declared.
Saladrigas emphasized that transparency is a non-negotiable condition for any privatization process on the island.
"All privatizations in Cuba must be carried out to benefit the country, not individual pockets. They must be done to benefit the people, the nation," he stated.
The businessman warned that opaque practices would have lasting consequences: “Behind-the-scenes transactions, under-the-table deals, transactions in the shadows will be terrible for the future of Cuba.”
According to Saladrigas, if the process starts off in a corrupt manner, Cuba will not achieve a healthy market economy but rather "some type of oligopoly formed by oligarchic groups, by groups politically benefitted on one side or the other."
This warning occurs in a context where analysts have described the measures presented on Friday by Díaz-Canel as insufficient, late, and lacking a solid legal foundation, while Decree-Law 114/2025 —which regulates associations between state-owned and private enterprises— has been criticized for maintaining state discretion and allowing room for opaque practices.
In the same segment, Saladrigas addressed the sanction against CUPET announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio last Wednesday, and the blockade of a shipment of 250,000 barrels of fuel from a company in Miami to Cuba.
"It surprised and worried me because I saw there an immediate solution to the fuel problem," she said about the case, pointing out that the shipment would have facilitated the movement of food, the creation of jobs, and the growth of small businesses on the island.
The State Department denied having authorized Vanguard Energy, a company based in Coral Gables, to sell fuel to Cuba, and the company's business license has been revoked.
Saladrigas acknowledged that he is unaware of the details of what happened: "You know there are many speculations about what occurred and what was behind the scenes. Something happened, but we don’t know what."
"After 67 years of suffering, I believe Cuba deserves something much better," Saladrigas concluded.
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