A Caribbean island nation ruled by the Communist Party for more than six decades. Its president is Miguel Díaz-Canel.
According to several Western officials, Cuba drew in a paltry $9bn in foreign income in 2025, about a quarter of what was earned by Honduras, a regional peer with a similar population. Exports, in 2022 dollars, fell by at least 75% between 2000 and 2025. Agriculture accounted for just 15% of exports in 2025, down from 52% in 2000. Sugar exports, once the state's mainstay, fell by 90% in the two decades to 2010 as a million Cubans emigrated.
Cuba's economy is 15% smaller than it was in 2018. The United States normalised relations in 2015 under Barack Obama, and tourism had started to grow, but the covid-19 pandemic crushed the recovery. Cuba has become, in the words of Ricardo Torres, a Cuban-born economist at American University in Washington, "an economy that is essentially unable to produce anything." Tourism has fallen by 50% from pre-covid levels and harvests have been poor, leaving the country with an unsustainable budget deficit—at least 10% of GDP in 2025, one of the highest rates in the world. The government predicted GDP growth of 1% in 2025, contradicting most outside assessments that the economy is in recession. The economy minister admitted in July 2025 that the economy had shrunk by 11% since 2019. A survey of labour productivity in Latin America and the Caribbean by ECLAC, a UN research outfit, put Cuba at rock-bottom of 28 countries, below even Haiti.
Russia forgave 90% of Cuba's debt in 2014, but $3.5bn remains outstanding. Cuba's inability to repay its debts is chronic; foreign business partners have often been expelled.
Cuba was once one of the world's leading sugar exporters; in 1989 output reached 8m tonnes. Fidel Castro once ordered the sugar-millers to hit an annual target of 10m tonnes. In the 2024-25 harvest a derisory 150,000 tonnes were achieved—the lowest in over a century—so the country must now import sugar. Tourism, once a pillar of the economy, collapsed after the covid-19 pandemic and never recovered; big hotels are largely empty.
Cuba's largest single source of foreign currency is the export of its doctors. The programme earned roughly $4bn in 2025. Cuba had some 20,000 medical staff working in countries from Italy to Jamaica at the start of 2026. Foreign hospitals must pay the Cuban government directly, with a pittance returned to the doctors as a salary. Marco Rubio has labelled the practice human trafficking and pressed at least 15 countries to expel their Cuban medical missions, threatening sanctions and revocation of visas. Italy and Qatar, where an entire hospital is staffed with Cubans, have so far resisted. Poorer places like Jamaica, Honduras and Guatemala have conceded.
Cobalt, nickel and zinc exports were worth at least $600m in 2025. Sherritt, a Canadian company, is the sole Western mining firm on the island.
The official average monthly wage is 6,506 pesos (equivalent to $14.46 at the informal exchange rate). Lower-paid workers such as cleaners and museum attendants earn around 2,500 pesos, worth barely $5. Yet a carton of 30 eggs costs 2,800 pesos, a kilo of rice 650 pesos and a kilo of beans 300 pesos. According to the Social Rights Observatory, a Spanish-backed think-tank, 89% of Cuban families "live in extreme poverty"; 70% forgo at least one meal a day; only 3% of Cubans can get the medicine they need at pharmacies; and 12% of those over 70 go on working after retirement to survive. The UN's World Food Programme now helps keep Cuban children alive. The peso has dived from around 20 to the dollar in 2019 to around 450, as tracked by El Toque, a platform run by exiled Cuban journalists and bloggers. Inflation, officially measured a year ago at 27%, has hovered at around 15% since July 2025.
Millions of Cubans depend on remittances from some of their 3m-plus relatives abroad.
The state ration card provides two pounds (1kg) of rice per person, a pound of sugar, a small bread bun each day and four packs of filterless cigarettes (which many sell on the black market). Meat and fish rations began disappearing in 2023. Cooking oil, once heavily subsidised, is mostly obtained from approved private businesses; in remote eastern areas it can reach $5 a litre. Begging has become prevalent and rough sleeping, unheard of until recent years, is a fairly common sight. Cubans old enough to remember the "special period" following the collapse of the Soviet Union say that conditions are now worse.
In 2025 Cuba suffered five nationwide blackouts. The electricity grid is feeble and was already stretched to breaking point in the winter of 2024-25, when demand was lower. By summer 2025, most residents of Havana counted themselves lucky to have power for more than a few hours a day. Electricity goes on the blink for at least four hours a day in most places, and in some areas most of the time. Blackouts, already measured in hours, have stretched longer under Trump's oil embargo; charcoal stoves have reappeared to cook food and many streetlights are no longer turned on at night. The aged electricity grid collapsed three times in March 2026, blacking out the nation and silencing its telecommunications. Cuba produces barely enough fuel to cover 40% of the power it needs. Interlocking crises of health care, food, communications and transport are becoming dire.
Cuba has been building out solar power at record pace, fuelled by Chinese imports. According to Chinese export data compiled by Ember, a think-tank, in the 12 months to April 2025 Cuba's imports of Chinese solar panels grew by a factor of 34—faster than anywhere else in the world. In March 2024 the government announced a plan to build two gigawatts of solar power plants by 2028, depending heavily on China for funding, construction and the panels themselves. On February 11th 2026 the government claimed its new solar plants generated almost a gigawatt during the lunchtime peak, enough to meet a third of the country's electricity needs. The government aims for renewables to provide 24% of Cuba's electricity by 2030, up from roughly 5% in 2024. Cubans are also importing Chinese batteries and Chinese electric vehicles at a furious pace. A home-solar kit from Copextel, a state retailer, costs around $5,000—far out of reach for most families. Cuba's persistent failure to pay its debts may be starting to discourage the Chinese from financing new panels; Trump's aggression is making them more hesitant still. The government has allowed duty-free imports of solar panels, electric-vehicle chargers and other renewable-energy equipment for personal use.
Cuba's population has fallen dramatically, driven by emigration. The last census cited a total of 11.2m. By some calculations around a quarter of the population has left in the past five years. A leading Cuban demographer, Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, reckons 2.75m have left since 2020, including around 788,000 in 2024. According to the Social Rights Observatory, 78% of Cubans still want to leave or know someone keen to do so. The fertility rate has slid to 1.29 children per woman. Much of the professional class has departed: the number of family doctors fell by more than half in 2024, and even the corps of the national ballet has been halved by the exodus. A Western diplomat says that "Most Cubans with get-up-and-go have got up and gone." Some 80% of those who left were between 15 and 59 years old, making Cuba the oldest country in the Americas. Most of the leavers are young, stifling economic activity and increasing the burden of caring for the quarter of the population aged over 60.
On January 29th 2026 the Trump administration placed an effective embargo on foreign-oil shipments to Cuba, saying it would impose tariffs on any country caught sending fuel. Tourism has slumped further; airlines can no longer refuel in Havana; tour buses sit idle. The price of food has shot up along with the cost of transport. Petrol, officially priced at $1.10 a litre, is rationed via an app; on the black market a litre fetches 4,000 pesos ($8). Embassies receive fuel quotas based on size, car fleet and friendliness (Russia enjoys a generous allowance). The government has tried to economise: several large hotels owned by GAESA, the military conglomerate, have been shut to concentrate remaining visitors and conserve fuel; bureaucrats have been told to work from home. The state has also allowed private firms to start importing their own fuel, if they can get it, easing GAESA's monopoly. Late in February 2026 Trump said he would allow exports of fuel to private firms, as long as it does not end up in the hands of the state. There are only about 30 state-run petrol stations that regularly have fuel (when there is electricity to run the pumps); rental cars may take just 20 litres per visit and must pay in dollars at the government rate of $1.30 per litre via foreign-issued credit cards. Black-market petrol prices spiked from about 2,000 pesos per litre to as high as 6,000 in early 2026. Cuba meets 40% of its fuel needs with its own heavy, sulphurous crude. On February 8th Cuba's government notified airlines that aviation fuel would run out within days; several airlines suspended flights. The regime declared an emergency, instituting a four-day working week and reducing school hours. The United States was reported to be considering sending small quantities of fuel to the island—gas for cooking and diesel to keep water infrastructure running—which would give Marco Rubio even greater sway over the island.
Cuba depends on subsidised oil from Venezuela. Since the 2000s Venezuela has been Cuba's most important foreign backer, supplying discounted oil in exchange for Cuban doctors and security personnel. The flow was enough not just to power Cuba's electricity grid but to generate hard currency through resale. As Venezuela's production collapsed, shipments to Cuba fell by almost three-quarters between 2021 and 2025, to roughly 30,000 barrels a day. Cuba produces just 40,000 of the approximately 100,000 barrels it needs daily; the rest has come from a patchwork of Mexican exports, Russian shipments and spot-market purchases.
Cuban intelligence helped Nicolás Maduro ramp up a purge of suspected opponents within the Venezuelan armed forces before his capture by American forces in January 2026. After his capture, no other country appeared willing to step in to replace Venezuelan supplies. Oil-rich neighbours Colombia and Brazil would act only with American blessing. Russia and China have been silent. Private traders consider it too risky to ship oil to Cuba.
Mexico has helped prop up the Cuban regime by sending it subsidised petrol. Between May and August 2025, according to MCCI, an NGO, Mexico sent more than $3bn-worth of cheap fuel to Cuba—triple the amount sent under the administration of López Obrador—despite the deteriorating finances of Pemex, Mexico's state oil company. Since 2018, when Morena came to power, Mexico's support for Cuba has become more overtly ideological and material. In 2024 and early 2025 Mexico was sending around 22,000 barrels per day of oil to Cuba and had hired more than 3,000 Cuban doctors. Financial and political pressures bar any increase. If the United States induces both Mexico and Venezuela to cut off aid, Cuba will be in a truly dire predicament. Trump and Rubio have implied that the regime is so weak it is likely to collapse without any intervention from America.
There are some 2.5m Cuban-Americans in the United States. South Florida alone has three Cuban-American members of Congress. Under the Cuban Adjustment Act (CAA), passed in 1966, Cubans in the United States can apply for permanent residency after a year—a privilege no other nationality enjoys. Between 1962 and 1974 the Freedom Tower in Miami served as the Cuban Refugee Centre, through which around 400,000 people passed after the 1959 revolution. Cuba's government still chooses whom it will accept for deportation, making forced returns difficult.
Most imports must now pass through a free-trade zone at Mariel, a western port far from most of the country, adding significant transport costs for businesses outside the west.
In the late 1990s, amid a deep recession prompted by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the regime grudgingly permitted limited self-employment for taxi drivers, barbers, entertainers and others. A change in the law in 2021 to allow the creation of 11,000 small and medium-sized firms has been a game-changer. Private firms, with a permitted maximum of 100 workers, now account for 55% of the retail trade and employ a third of the workforce. Wages in the private sector, almost entirely dollar-denominated, are usually at least eight times those paid by the state. The Castro brothers both despised private business, but it has become crucial in keeping Cubans alive. Yet private businesspeople are frustrated by the government's persistent suspicion of free enterprise and lack of clarity in interpreting the law. Above all, the government is terrified that if the private sector spreads its wings and lets in foreign capital, the system will be overwhelmed, first economically, then politically.
GAESA is the armed-forces business conglomerate that controls much of Cuba's economy, run by senior military officers. It owns Cuba's biggest bank, most tourist hotels and its biggest shops. Before America tightened restrictions GAESA had barely a billion dollars in reserves. The conglomerate pumped more than 70% of its investments into tourism in the past decade—a bet that has spectacularly failed as hotels lie empty. Despite rumours of fabulous wealth, accounts suggest its resources are more modest than commonly believed. Cuba's total foreign reserves are a closely guarded secret; several officials estimate the central bank holds no more than $3bn. GAESA is considered one possible source of a successor figure if the regime were forced to negotiate a transition. On May 7th 2026 the US Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) placed sanctions on GAESA; Marco Rubio called it "the heart of Cuba's kleptocratic communist system". Its revenues are thought to be more than three times the state budget; it also controls up to $20bn in illicit assets. Foreign companies have until June 5th 2026 to wind down dealings with GAESA. Germany's Hapag-Lloyd and France's CMA CGM, the two big Western shipping companies maintaining Cuba operations, have stopped accepting orders linked to the island.
Raúl Castro, now 94, holds no official position but wields a veto over the direction of the regime and is said to be adamantly against diluting the Marxism-Leninism enshrined in the constitution. No Gorbachev figure has arisen; occasional would-be modernisers have been dispatched into the wilderness. The regime is ideological and homogenous, unlike the factional and self-interested Venezuelan government under Maduro. Cuba's security forces are "more indoctrinated" than Venezuela's, according to Chris Sabatini of Chatham House. The underground opposition is feeble and fragmented. The permitted press and television are supine. Social-media bloggers and online activists are closely watched and locked up if they become too popular. There is no coherent or credible alternative movement at home or in Miami.
Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, a great-nephew of Fidel Castro, is seen as a reform-minded rising star. Some regard him as a potential successor figure.
The last big anti-government protest, in July 2021, was rapidly crushed, with hundreds sent to prison. A Miami-based human-rights monitor says 1,196 activists are behind bars. Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban diplomat living in Havana, cites a popular adage: "No one can fix this, but no one can bring it down either." Cuba's leaders continue to blame America's decades-old economic embargo for the country's woes, rejecting all advice to change its rigid socialist economic model. The mass exodus in recent years may have eased some political pressure, but with the United States clamping down on Cuban immigration, it could soon build up again.
On March 16th 2026 the power went out across the whole of Cuba for the fourth time in five months. Protests are increasing. On the same day Donald Trump said: "I do believe I'll be having the honour of taking Cuba. Whether I free it, take it, I think I can do anything I want with it." Marco Rubio met regime officials in St Kitts & Nevis on February 25th, saying "Cuba needs to change…and it doesn't have to change all at once." On March 13th Miguel Díaz-Canel admitted publicly to speaking to the Americans.
Trump has coveted Cuba's hospitality market for decades; the Trump Organisation registered its trademark in Havana in 2008 for hotels, casinos and golf courses, and sent executives to scout sites in 2013. The Economist Intelligence Unit forecasts GDP will shrink by 7.2% in 2026.
A deal appears to be taking shape, modelled on the arrangement the Trump administration cut with Venezuela. America has been allowing fuel to be shipped to Cuba since the middle of February, but only via the private sector. Under the proposed deal this arrangement would be expanded; the country would open up to American investment, particularly in energy; political prisoners would be released; and exiles would be permitted to return not just as tourists but as business owners.
The Cubans sent to negotiate in St Kitts included Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Raúl Castro's 41-year-old grandson, who holds no official position but as a trusted former bodyguard has a hot line to his grandfather; Colonel Alejandro Castro Espín, Raúl's son, a key figure in secret Obama-era talks; and Josefina Vidal, a veteran diplomat who once ran the foreign ministry's North America desk. The Castro family and most of the ruling figures around it seem likely to hold on to power. Díaz-Canel holds little real clout but may be ousted to satisfy Trump and protect the Castros. The regime has survived for 67 years with the world's most powerful nation, just a hundred miles away, bent on its destruction.
After striking Haiti and Jamaica,, Hurricane Melissa hit eastern Cuba in late October 2025 as a category-three storm, its winds only slightly blunted by Jamaica's mountainous terrain. It flooded towns and forced more than 700,000 people to take refuge in government shelters.
Why bother building any more nuclear warheads until we use the ones we have?