The Cuban Foreign Ministry spread a quote from the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel this Saturday on social media, explicitly addressed to the international community, following the approval of a package of 176 economic reforms in the National Assembly.
“Cuba designs and proposes sovereignly the changes that must be implemented to overcome the crisis imposed by external aggression and internal shortcomings, with no permission other than that of its people,” said Díaz-Canel.
The phrase, accompanied by the hashtag #CubaEstáFirme, summarizes the official stance of the regime. Díaz-Canel and his government insist that the reforms are not a concession to external pressures—particularly from the United States—but a sovereign decision.
In the same closure of the Third Extraordinary Session of the National Assembly, held on June 18 at the Convention Palace in Havana, Díaz-Canel added, "Cuba will not ask for permission to exist nor will it give up its sovereignty."
The message to the outside contrasts with what the ruler himself acknowledged two days earlier, on June 17, during the Extraordinary Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.
"There are obstacles that do not come from outside or from blockades. There is slowness, bureaucracy, regulations that hinder those who want to produce, and decisions that we have postponed."
That duality is at the heart of the tension in the official discourse: internally, the regime acknowledges its own responsibility for the crisis; externally, it shifts the blame to "external aggression."
Díaz-Canel went further in his internal self-criticism by stating that "these are not new ideas; they are decisions that the country discussed and approved years ago" and that "the mistake was not in raising them, but in having postponed them."
The 176 measures approved include the authorization of private banking, the conversion of state-owned enterprises into joint-stock companies, the elimination of the cap of 100 workers for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes), the opening up to foreign direct investment in the private sector, and the reduction in the number of ministries from 27 to between 20 and 21.
Raúl Castro participated via videoconference in the PCC plenary and signed the proposal document, although he warned that "just as important as the approval of these transformations is their proper and timely implementation."
Analysts received the reforms with skepticism. Economist Pedro Monreal described them as "late pragmatism" and warned that Cuba "has missed the train of the reforms of China and Vietnam."
The researcher José Raúl Gallego pointed out that the measures do not affect the Cuban socio-political system, which means they do not address the structural cause of the crisis.
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