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The columnist José Andrés Rojo published on Thursday in El País an opinion piece titled "The Cuban Revolutionaries" in which he ironically dismantles the regime's discourse regarding the announcement of the package of 176 economic measures, portrayed as a defense of socialism while opening the door to private banking, individual shareholders, and the elimination of universal subsidies.
Rojo opens the text in the Spanish newspaper with overt sarcasm: "Let no one panic, the plan is still on track," and describes the words of Miguel Díaz-Canel as "full of truth and optimism." He then reproduces, without additional commentary, the leader's quote: "We have reached a moment of maturity, of reflection, typical of the debate that has developed over all these years, which is telling us that we have to continue defending socialism, but building it with some transformations."
The contrast pointed out by the columnist is hard to ignore: while Díaz-Canel proclaims that the reforms do not imply "a renunciation of the revolution," the very journalist from El País, Carlos S. Maldonado, described the 176 measures approved on June 19 by the National Assembly as "drastic," which include the creation of private banks, the transformation of state companies into joint-stock companies, the opening to foreign investors, and the depreciation of the currency.
The government described the package as an effort to "do what is necessary to preserve the essentials," a phrase that Rojo captures and returns to the reader with an implicit question: what exactly does the regime mean by "essentials"? "For a long time now, no one really knows what kind of socialism the authorities inheriting the Revolution are referring to," the columnist notes.
To illustrate the long tradition of demanding unconditional enthusiasm while repressing, the columnist refers to two episodes of cultural repression that have marked the history of the dictatorship. The first is the case of Guillermo Cabrera Infante, persecuted by Fidel Castro for his "tendencies towards celebration, joy, irony, and even wordplay." The second is the infamous Padilla case: in 1971, the poet Heberto Padilla was forced to confess before the Union of Writers that he had expressed pessimism, disenchantment, and criticism of the government. Rojo cites some verses that the State Security officials themselves used against the poet: "Does not join the game / Does not express enthusiasm / Does not clarify his message / Does not even consider the miracles."
Rojo's irony points to a historical continuity: the same regime that punished any lack of enthusiasm for decades now asks that no one interpret its market reforms as an ideological surrender.
The popular reaction in Cuba to the new measures was one of widespread skepticism. On social media, Cubans responded with phrases like “the same dog with a different collar” and “does anyone believe them?”, amid a crisis that has seen a GDP contraction of over 26% since 2020, blackouts lasting between 20 and 40 consecutive hours, informal inflation close to 70%, and an average salary of barely 15 dollars a month.
The economist Pedro Monreal was more technical yet equally devastating in his analysis: he described the 176 measures as "a monster (perhaps more of a deformed hybrid)" and pointed out that the verb "to allow" appears 29 times in the document, reflecting a logic of revocable concession — "I let you have" — rather than of guaranteed rights. Monreal also warned that there is no substantial recognition of the right to private property in any part of the text.
The United States, for its part, remained unconvinced. The State Department described the reforms as "superficial smoke signals" and the Trump administration announced new sanctions on June 24 against five entities linked to the military conglomerate GAESA, including the International Financial Bank and Almacenes Universales S.A. Since January 2026, Washington has imposed more than 240 sanctions against Cuba under Executive Order 14404.
Rojo's column ends with a question that encapsulates all its irony: we will have to see what Donald Trump considers "necessary" to do on the island to "preserve" what the U.S. president understands as "essential." "We will know soon," concludes the columnist, leaving an unanswered question that the Cuban regime itself, caught between its socialist rhetoric and its market reforms, also seems unable to address.
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