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Last month, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz declared that 158 new economic and social measures, out of an original package of 176 approved in July by the Cuba’s National Assembly, were being implemented and backed by 197 legal decrees. The measures include allowing private business to import medicines and other goods, loosening restrictions on private tourism, and authorising privately owned banks — under Central Bank supervision — on a regulatory basis equivalent to state banks. Adding to these measures, the National Assembly for the first time permitted foreign capital to invest directly in Cuban private businesses instead of having to operate exclusively through state-controlled structures. Private companies also will no longer be restricted to a maximum of 100 employees.

According to Daniel Torralbas, a London-based Cuban economist, the National Assembly’s new measures are “the most profound economic reform programme … since the 1959 revolution.” Headed by Fidel Castro, the government in Havana between the mid and late 1960s nationalized a vast array of U.S.-owned businesses that controlled major shares in key industries such as public utilities, mining, railways and infrastructure, and land and agriculture.

Mauricio Alonso, a 68-year-old former nuclear engineer who lives in Havana and now runs an Airbnb rental, is embracing the government’s new economic measures.

“On a personal level this is going to benefit me,” says Alonso, “because it’s going to allow, for example, me — since I’m self-employed — to partner with foreigners, to team up, to be part of a larger organization, and to carry out actions with my lodging business, and so on.” Working with travel agencies, in Alonso’s view, will now be made easier with the lifting of restrictions. “If I qualify, if I get accredited as such,” says Alonso, “I can carry out the work of a tour guide without any kind of problem.”

During the 1980s, Alonso worked at the Central Electronuclear de Juraguá, near the city of Cienfuegos, which was being built with the aid of the Soviet Union to become Cuba’s first nuclear power station. Alonso says that, “when the Soviet Union collapsed in late 1991, work on the plant came to a halt in 1992.” Although Alonso continued working in the nuclear sector until 1995, he “realized that the project couldn’t go on — due in part to [the] intense pressure from the U.S. government.” At that point, he decided to “switch to the private sector and start renting out rooms” after inheriting a large apartment from his mother.

Trump’s Brutal Blockade on Cuba Harkens Back to the Days of US Invasions

Had Cuba’s nuclear power station become operational, it is doubtful the island would be facing its current energy crisis.

Despite a small recovery between 2021 and 2022, after Cuba’s GDP in 2020 contracted by 10.9 percent as COVID-19 effectively shut down international tourism, the island’s economic crisis has been worsened by the Trump administration’s fuel embargo. When U.S. President Donald Trump began to take action against Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba in 2025, which approximated 26,500 barrels per day, Cubans saw a serious reduction of fuel on the island. On January 29, the Trump administration formalized the oil sanctions on Cuba by signing Executive Order 14380, which did not simply add another sanction on the island, but instead, created a mechanism to penalize third countries that supply oil to Cuba. Should a country provide crude oil or petroleum products, then the United States government can impose further tariffs on that country’s goods entering the U.S.

For Amalia Díaz Pérez, a 21-years old recent graduate in philosophy from the University of Havana, the Trump administration’s oil embargo disrupted her final year of study. Speaking to Truthout, she said:

The total blockade of fuel imports — with only one ship arriving in nine months — caused public transportation to disappear and reduced daily electricity availability to a minimum. Consequently, my study conditions and most of my daily recreational activities were affected. Compounding this situation, household chores became increasingly difficult due to the strain of the nationwide fuel shortage placed on water and food supplies.

The total blockade of fuel imports — with only one ship arriving in nine months — caused public........

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