Cuba has approved an emergency 176-point reform package that abandons more than six decades of tightly centralized economic management, as the island faces a worsening energy crisis and an almost complete collapse in tourism. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz presented the plan to the National Assembly, saying the overhaul is meant to rebuild the country’s economic foundations, while insisting it does not mean the end of Cuban socialism.
The new policy will, for the first time in generations, allow private and foreign investment in real estate, banking, gas stations and restaurants. Officials said the opening is broad enough to give international fast-food chains, including American brands such as McDonald’s, access to the Cuban market. The move is intended to pull the country out of what the article describes as an existential financial spiral.
The turnaround comes after U.S. sanctions and shifting geopolitical alliances intensified Cuba’s crisis. In January, after Washington moved against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, U.S. authorities halted oil supplies to Cuba, dealing a major blow to the power grid. With no steady fuel imports and no adequate local reserves, rolling blackouts became routine. In summer heat above 30 degrees Celsius, failures in water pumps, air conditioning and refrigeration have made daily life increasingly dangerous.
Tourism, long Cuba’s main source of foreign currency, has also collapsed. U.S. sanctions targeted the military conglomerate Gaesa, which controls most hotel infrastructure through Gaviota, the country’s biggest hotel operator. Cuba’s attempt to replace Western tourists with Russian visitors failed badly, with only 250 Russians arriving in March 2026, down from more than 11,000 a year earlier. The Canadian market has also nearly disappeared because fuel shortages prevent regular flights. The economic squeeze has hit small private entrepreneurs and tourism workers especially hard, while Havana also faces pressure from President Donald Trump, a U.S. Justice Department indictment against Raul Castro in May, and the late-May deployment of the USS Nimitz off Cuba’s coast.
