Despite US pressure, Cuba releases new annual economic plan with no major reforms

Nora Gámez Torres, Miami Herald on Apr 1, 2026

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The Cuban government released its annual economic plan Wednesday, which lacks major reforms and signals that Cuban leaders are resisting U.S. pressure to significantly transform their economic model and political system despite the dire conditions on the island.

The plan includes recently announced measures, such as promoting business ventures by “Cubans residing abroad who wish to invest in Cuba” and attracting foreign investment to key sectors of the economy, such as food production.

It also states the intention to create “an attractive legal framework that offers tax incentives and guarantees to foreign investors, particularly in strategic sectors such as biotechnology, energy and food.” A foreign investment law is on the National Assembly’s calendar this year, according to the document.

The plan alludes in its preamble to “different times,” calling for “doing things differently. But from the included images of Fidel Castro to a diagram explaining Cuba’s five- and 10-year central planning, there is little that telegraphs change. Most of its 102 pages are tweaks to goals already stated in its version from last year, along with broad calls to increase production, reduce red tape and expand exports, with no details on how to do so and little connection to the difficult reality the country faces.

The government released the plan at a high-stakes moment, amid talks with the Trump administration, and threats by President Donald Trump that he may “take Cuba.”

Life in Cuba has been upended by a lack of fuel and crippling blackouts due to the country’s crumbling energy grid and a halt to oil shipments from Venezuela and Mexico due to U.S. pressure. On Monday, the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodin started uploading over 700,000 barrels of oil in Matanzas, a temporary relief for an already exhausted population.

Cuban officials have been adamant that political changes are not on the table and that they are planning to resist in case of a U.S. military action. In private conversations, Cuban officials have solicited advice on how to improve relations with the U.S. but have also expressed reluctance to agree to changes in Cuban leadership — in particular, removing the country’s handpicked president, Miguel Díaz-Canel — and have vowed to resist, according to Miami Herald sources who asked to remain anonymous to describe the sensitive discussions.

At its core, the government’s annual economic plan reflects this position and signals an effort to secure the minimum conditions for Cuba’s current political and economic system to survive.

Its No. 1 goal is to “create minimum conditions and prevent further deterioration of the current environment.” Other broad objectives include modernizing and strengthening state enterprises and increasing foreign-currency revenue, including through remittances from Cubans in Miami and elsewhere.

The government also wants to “to design a financial strategy to support exports and circumvent the blockade,” a reference to the U.S. embargo, and identify creditors that would be amenable to swap debt for real estate, according to the document.

Written into the plan are further cuts to the state budget, subsidies for the population and government investments, as well as the creation of new taxes that would likely fall on the island’s emerging private sector, signaling the government is passing to the public the cost of its plan to survive at all costs.

The plan is, in itself, a sharp reminder of the communist system’s convoluted bureaucracy and centralized decision-making.

Several objectives listed in the documents are the kinds of things most governments are not concerned with, such as “achieving, on average, more than 30 pounds per capita of starchy roots, vegetables, grains and fruits.” Others are steps that would have been welcome a decade ago but will make little difference today, such as considering “extinguishing” some of the state companies reporting losses.

Some goals simply reflect how the crisis has moved the country backward, such as “enhancing animal-powered means for land preparation, transport and food distribution.”

On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio offered a blistering assessment of Cuba’s problems and bluntly stated that the Trump administration wants to see economic and political changes go hand in hand.

“Cuba has an economic model that wouldn’t work anywhere in the world,” Rubio told Fox News. “There literally is no economy. And sadly, the people in charge of the apparatus of government there are both incompetent and unable to solve these problems.

“I think Cuba is need of two things — economic reforms and political reform. You cannot fix their economy if you don’t change their system of government,” he added. “They’re in a lot of trouble, there’s no doubt about it, and we’ll have more news on that fairly soon. We’re working on that as well.”

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