Cuban economist Orlando Plá Tomás proposes a radical metaphor to describe the situation in Cuba: the island is a bankrupt company, and those who take on the risks and provide the resources must take control, just as happens in any corporate merger. He presented this thesis in an interview with journalist Tania Costa for CiberCuba, where he analyzed possible solutions to the Cuban economic crisis.
Plá, based in Mexico and an expert in fiscal policy and tax administration, made his argument bluntly: "(Cuba) is a bankrupt enterprise and we need to consider whether to take it or not." He urged to set emotions aside — "with the pain of all Cubans and no one should let their emotions interfere" — in order to assess the country objectively.
To illustrate his reasoning, the economist referred to the example of a client whose company was acquired by American Express. He explained that the company came in, took control, and determined which executives could stay and which had to leave for failing to adapt to the new direction. "American Express comes in, takes the company, and says these and these executives can function here, and the rest are leaving because they don't have the capacity to integrate into the new line of work that we are going to implement," he described.
Translating that framework to Cuba, Plá suggested that the process does not necessarily require a formal political annexation (to the United States). It would be sufficient, he said, to have a strictly economic scenario. "It is also possible that, for example, the United States might say: hey, if you want, stay there and appear on television when you can, but from now on you will not make any economic decisions at all, nor will you have control over the National Bank or the controls of the country's economic and financial structure."
For the economist, that scenario of external economic control —without formal political displacement— would open up real possibilities: "If that happens, there would be options for a solution."
The analysis occurs at a time of profound crisis. CEPAL projected at the beginning of the year a 6.5% decline in Cuba's GDP in 2026, with a cumulative contraction of around 26% since 2020. The Food Monitor Program reported that nearly 97% of respondents on the island did not have adequate access to food.
In that context, the National Assembly approved in June a package of 176 economic and social measures, presented by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz as the most ambitious reform attempt since the Special Period. The measures include the authorization of private banking, the removal of the ceiling on workers for small and medium-sized enterprises, and the possibility of bankruptcy for state-owned companies.
However, economist Pedro Monreal described that package as a "monster" or "deformed hybrid" for failing to substantively acknowledge the right to private property or establish a framework for macroeconomic stabilization. Plá shares this skepticism: in a broader interview, he maintains that the entire political and economic infrastructure of the regime "is designed and built, by the way, very well, to maintain power. That is the only objective and the only purpose."
Meanwhile, the conversations between Cuba and the United States show no significant progress, as acknowledged by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez himself in June. Washington conditions any progress on deep structural reforms and a genuine shift towards a market economy, precisely the type of change that Plá deems essential but that the regime, according to his assessment, is unable to implement from within.
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