ABU DHABI, 21 June. - (ANA) - In an interview published Friday, in the United Arab Emirates-based The National, Cuba/US Castro, grandson of the revolutionary leader, reiterated that Cuba “doesn’t even slightly represent a threat” to the U.S.

 

Rodriguez Castro said in the video interview that Cuba’s government was seeking a “very Cuban” economic model.

 

“Our country must seek a path to economic development where we must inevitably diversify our economy, diversify the way we do business and diversify the way we do investments,” he said.

 

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the proposed measures were based on an analysis of the Vietnamese and Chinese models, communist countries with market economies.

 

What is likely to pose a significant barrier are U.S. sanctions on Cuba, said Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute in Washington.

 

“With these new measures, along with others that are likely on the table, they will only have a true effect if complemented with the gradual lifting of U.S. prohibitions and sanctions more broadly,” he said.

 

Without sanctions being lifted, Schlenker and other analysts said many of the presented measures will be inapplicable, especially due to the limitations and prohibitions imposed on potential investors, who are penalized in the U.S. financial system if they do business with Cuba.

 

Beyond that, there are a number of other obstacles that could stymie significant reforms, ranging from mistrust from potential investors to what Battista, the Cuban-American analyst called “slow and inefficient” bureaucracy.

 

Despite these obstacles, the Cuban government faces a short window for obtaining results, said Paolo Spadoni, associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia.

 

“If Cuban leaders hope to survive this unprecedented crisis and the pressure from the United States, they must move quickly with the implementation of reform and the achievement of tangible results,” Spadoni said.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/21 June 2026 - - -