The administration, facing a tough re-election campaign, is avoiding controversial new policy initiatives. Naturally, they like to campaign about their successes.
But a terrifying humanitarian crisis is occurring off the coast of Florida. In Cuba, rampant inflation,sharply decline in wages and serious Food shortage This is causing a large-scale migration outflow.
Many of those left behind have been reduced to just one meal a day, according to Havana residents with families in poorer regions and diplomats who travel around the island I spoke to. Cubans spend hours checking chat groups for information on food arrivals. Desperate Cubans have to wait in long lines to put food on the table for their hungry families.
I recently returned to Havana to update my field research on the island's emerging class of small businesses. Architects, accountants, information engineers, hotel managers and restaurateurs, manufacturers of luxury body lotions and T-shirts: these talented and ambitious young entrepreneurs are Cuba's future. But if the island's economy continues to decline, more people will join the wave of immigrants.
The root causes of Cuba's deepening humanitarian crisis are multiple and complex. cuba agricultureThe country, long plagued by socialist planning, is collapsing and yields of essential goods are drastically reduced.
This agricultural shortage is both a cause and a result of the foreign exchange crisis that has led to the island's decline. Cuban farmers rely on imported oil, imported machinery and parts, imported seeds and fertilizers that they can no longer afford in a dollar-starved economy.
Widespread food shortages and multiple exchange rates (consequences of failure) currency reform) has given rise to a variety of food retail stores. Hungry Cubans must run around the city checking government stores, fruit and vegetable markets (price control), and private distributors (free market prices). There are many “unofficial” black markets.
Famously, socialist governments run a heavily subsidized system. distribution system. Previously, these bodegas guaranteed all Cubans access to basic groceries. These shelves are now mostly empty. When rice, eggs, and cooking oil arrive, lines quickly form until supplies run out.
To shore up foreign exchange, the Cuban government, like many of its Caribbean neighbors, is betting heavily on tourism. But this gamble also ran into trouble.
President Donald Trump tightens the noose on Cuba's economy severely restricted U.S. tourism has turned back the clock on Obama-era relaxations that encouraged U.S. tourism. Then the novel coronavirus arrived, further hurting Cuba's tourism-dependent economy.
Importantly, President Joe Biden, contrary to his 2020 campaign promise, held Many of the Trump-era travel restrictions. As a result, U.S. tourists are not arriving in the numbers seen during President Obama's thaw.
Right now, Havana's tourist district is eerily quiet, with hotel rooms empty, many restaurants shuttered and nightclubs pitch black. It was hoped that there would be an influx of tourism funds that would have financed food imports, but that has not materialized.
Cuban authorities do not release data on malnutrition and may be reluctant to acknowledge a humanitarian crisis in a society built around meeting basic needs. but, international experts There is no doubting the seriousness of the hunger problem in Cuba, especially in the poorer eastern regions.
The Cuban government should have abandoned its grossly inefficient socialist agricultural practices a long time ago. Currently, it is too late for agricultural reform to respond to the pressing emergency in food security.
Instead, the Cuban government has relied on the United States' relatively liberal immigration policies toward Cubans to relieve some of these built-up pressures.Several 450,000 Cubans Have immigrated to the United States in the past two years. Hundreds of thousands more left for other countries. include Spain, Italy, Canada, Mexico.
Most of these immigrants are of working age and send some of their income back to family and friends on the island. The exact amount of these transfers is unknown, but likely amounts to billions of dollars annually. With dollars and euros, Cuban families can use these remittances to import desperately needed food items.
Mass migration therefore has dual benefits. The idea is that the number of hungry consumers on the island will decrease, and foreign currency will sharply increase to pay for imported basic food items. But it's still not enough to feed 10 million Cubans.
Another problem is that remittances are distributed unequally, further increasing inequality on the island. Cubans with access to foreign currency can at least support their families. Countries without foreign-based patrons face chronic food shortages.
Food insecurity in Cuba is a protracted crisis and has been for a long time. As with Cuba's stagnant economy as a whole, investment rates in agriculture are lacking and mismanagement of the entire system is legendary.
However, comprehensive U.S. economic sanctions, many of which have been in place for decades but were tightened during the Trump era and largely maintained by Biden, are the primary cause behind the current state of emergency. There is no doubt about that. In fact, that is precisely the purpose of harsh sanctions: to squeeze Cuba's economy to the brink. Well, there are screams now, but the only screams are the weak voices of starving children.
The Communist Party elites targeted by sanctions remain well-fed. Indeed, those who occasionally appear on public television show no signs of losing weight.
The Biden administration does not want to address the always politically contentious Cuba issue during its re-election campaign. But can we remain indifferent to the mass hunger and malnutrition of millions of people living just 160 miles off the Florida coast? And is the humanitarian crisis partly self-inflicted?
Richard A. Feinberg, professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, recently returned from a week-long visit to Cuba. He is the author of Open for Business: Building the New Cuban Economy (Brookings, 2016).
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