Cuba, the lethargic crisis

Buenos Aires"Havana is sad," admits Lina, 27, upon returning from her native Cuba to Buenos Aires, where she migrated almost three years ago. She escaped for two weeks to see her mother, brother, grandparents, and two best friends, who, for now, still live on the island. She explains that "at seven or eight in the evening, people shut themselves in, there's no atmosphere on the streets like before, it seems like the time of the pandemic." She says this with a sad look, shaking her head, until she smiles: "But Havana is so beautiful," she says. "It's the most beautiful city in the world."

It's difficult to pinpoint the starting point of the crisis Cuba is currently experiencing. Some might say that it all began in a bad way, starting with the coronavirus pandemic; Others date it back to July 11, 2021, when thousands of people took to the streets across the country in an unprecedented social uprising, demanding electricity, food, and "freedom." The wave of repression by the security forces was so strong that everyone was devastated, not just by the police. Others must place the turning point in the so-called Special Period of the 1990s, when, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the Caribbean ally was left helpless. And some may go straight to January 1, 1959, when Fidel Castro, Ernesto Che Guevara, and other "bearded men" entered Havana proclaiming the triumph of a workers' and peasants' revolution.

Much water has passed under the bridge, and Cuba has experienced periods of greater and lesser prosperity, stability, and openness to the outside world, but above all, it has fluctuated in the collective and shared sense of a Revolution that, to this day, its rulers claim not as something of the past, but as the living context of the present. A Revolution that, in the midst of 2025, many Cubans find difficult to see reflected in their daily lives, in a context of total disparity between the cost of living and wages, fuel shortages, mass exodus, and constant power outages. However, Juan Alejandro Triana, director of the Center for Cuban Economic Studies (CEEC), doubts that "there is a general political disaffection," although he acknowledges that popular support for the government and the current president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, "has diminished compared to the times of Fidel or Raúl [Castro]."

"The monarchy," Basilio quips in the newspaper ARA, via WhatsApp audio. Basilio is a 64-year-old farmer who lives in a small town in the south-central part of the island, in the province of Cienfuegos. He considers himself "one of the many survivors of that thing that no longer has a name," he says, "because this is no longer communism or anything." He currently receives a retirement pension of 1,700 Cuban pesos, about $14, while a state salary is around $5,300 and a basic food basket is $5,500 (about $45). With his current income, Basilio can buy a bottle of oil, a pack of coffee, and a pumpkin or two or three yuccas. The so-called "ration books"—with which state-run grocery stores had once distributed rice, chicken, coffee, sugar, eggs, oil, and yogurt, among other foods, at very low prices—have been dwindling in supply.

The emergence of the "freely convertible currency" (MLC) shortly after the pandemic allowed foreigners to deposit foreign currency into Cuban bank accounts, which converted dollars into the national currency and with which food could be purchased—at dollarized prices—in what was popularly known as an incipient dollarization. de facto which, according to Triana, "hasn't worked" and has now become a full-blown dollarization: since last January, and for the first time in Cuba since 2004, it has been possible to buy and sell with US dollar bills. This marks the end of a prohibition Fidel Castro established when he invented the Cuban convertible peso (CUC) to restrict the movement—but not the possession—of the dollar on the island, and a change the government today justifies as a necessary source of foreign currency to stabilize the macroeconomy.

Life between goodbyes and blackouts

Like so many Cubans living in the countryside, Basilio has long cooked with firewood or coal, due to the intermittent electricity. The national electricity system has collapsed four times in the last six months, due to a lack of maintenance of the facilities over the last few decades and a "very high level of obsolescence," says Triana, who adds that access to fossil fuels is limited, due to current international market prices and the current sanctions. In this regard, the economist assures that the government has become "creative" and is considering solutions such as investment in photovoltaic energy through agreements with allies like Russia and China. But until this happens—and the expert himself doesn't believe it will be soon—it seems that blackouts will continue to be a part of Cubans' daily lives: in Havana, they last between four and six hours a day, as in the home of Miguel, a 32-year-old cook who lives with his partner and who says he feels "hatred and helplessness."

Cuba is experiencing the largest exodus in its history, with Nearly 900,000 people (registered) arriving in the United States alone between 2022 and 2024, and more than 200,000 asylum seekers. In addition, during this time, more than 100,000 people have benefited from the words Humanitarian, a Biden-era administrative process through which US residents could claim legal entry for their Cuban, Venezuelan, Nicaraguan, or Haitian relatives, having demonstrated they could financially support them for 24 months. Donald Trump's arrival at the White House has ended this option, within the framework of the new anti-immigration policy. "This exodus is the saddest thing that can happen to us," laments Miguel: "Those who migrate do so out of necessity, and that separates couples and breaks up families."

Having children, a luxury

Basilio's only daughter, 34, immigrated to Barcelona three years ago. She was recently able to complete the paperwork for her 15-year-old son to join her. "Family is very important," says the father, who has a sister also in Catalonia and another in the United States. "But I think the family will become extinct in Cuba, because young people leave, and having children here now is a luxury." The low birth rate and an aging population are two major demographic problems: according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), the only population group that is growing is the elderly, who are expected to reach more than 25% of the total population by 2025.

Lina's grandfather suffers from Alzheimer's, blindness, and deafness. Her mother takes care of them, and with the money her daughter sends whenever she can from Argentina, she buys medicine—if she can find it, and at "absurd prices"—and pays the nurses who care for her at night. Lina knows that, all things considered, they are "privileged" because part of the family lives abroad and can help those on the island. "But living with this in mind makes me very sad," she admits. "Sometimes I have to choose not to think, just ask my mother how everything is going, and ignore the answer."