Is It Rational to Demand Economic Independence from Cuba?

I tend to be perplexed when some dilettantes in political science demand that Cuba become an economically independent country. That is, a nation capable of solving its own food needs and—generally speaking—reproducing its material conditions of life without relying on the outside world.

As if we did not live in a globalized world, where even the wealthiest countries depend on one product or another, or on some essential service, from abroad. Complete economic self-sufficiency is an almost unattainable ideal. For example, a recent study published in Nature Food found that more than one-third of the 186 countries surveyed are not self-sufficient in more than two of the seven basic food groups. Only Guyana appears to have achieved absolute food sovereignty in formal or statistical terms.

And this is only about food. The thing is that some countries need cement, others need nickel, and others need oil. And then there is the chronic inability of less-developed economies to process their own raw materials into higher-value goods.

So, in the Cuban case, I am convinced that the country could be in considerably better shape if its authorities governed with sound statecraft. But I would like to see any country—even a strong economy—function under the conditions of extreme economic suffocation that Cuba has experienced since the first Trump administration. Here is one example. In statements to Axios, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently said: “What we're trying to teach [Cuba's authorities] is there are no escape valves.”

And he went on: “Every time they create a new mechanism in which they try to get out of the noose, we just close it off. They certainly can't wait us out," and "[t]his isn't going to go away for the next 2½ years,” he added. A Cuba-U.S. relations expert quoted in the same piece described Trump's policy as having produced “the most effective sanctions program against a target country than any of [his] predecessors.”

Rubio himself claimed: “For the first time in Cuba's history, Cuba lacks two things they've always relied on: an outside sponsor and the U.S.'s lack of attention on it as a top priority.” Here in Cuba, we have a saying: más claro no canta un gallo—roughly, “it could hardly be any clearer.” This is blunt, crude language. It makes little effort to conceal the degree of economic pressure being brought to bear on the Cuban economy.

And that pressure inevitably reaches ordinary people. We live under power outages that routinely extend well beyond 24 hours, water-service schedules that have progressively lost any semblance of legitimacy, and an inflation rate that gallops ahead, liquefying and mercilessly destroying the already meager incomes of ordinary Cuban workers.

The supposed targets of Rubio's sanctions are individuals who, because of their senior positions, tend to be relatively well protected economically, and companies that, yes, are connected to the Cuban military but that ultimately generate spillover effects and provide goods, services, and relief to those ordinary citizens like me. The Cuban state is not merely unable to pursue meaningful growth. It struggles to satisfy even 30–40% of the population's most basic needs.

Let us return to Rubio's words: “Every time they create a new mechanism in which they try to get out of the noose, we just close it off.” The chronic deterioration of tourism, the decline of professional-service exports, and the collapse of the nickel-and-cobalt sinter extraction operations in Moa are examples of the brutality of this strategy.

So perhaps the question is not whether Cuba should be expected to become economically independent. The more serious question is whether it is fair to dream that the Island achieve such independence under these conditions, and without any friend or ally ready enough to confront

Source for the cover image, via X.