Cuba, the largest Caribbean island, gained its independence in 1898, after more than four centuries of Spanish domination. Since 1959, when the revolution lead by Fidel Castro won, Cuba has been a historical and geopolitical reference for socialist countries and, after the end of the Cold War, still holds a strategic role on a regional level and through all of Latin America.
In the mid-nineties, Cuba embarked on a process of renovation of its economic model and opened its doors to international tourism. Presently, Cuba defines itself as a socialist country. Its new president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, promoted a series of economic reforms which, while maintaining the central role of state-owned enterprises, open up to small and medium private enterprises as elements of diversification of the whole system.
Thanks to a solid structure in the fields of public healthcare, education and biotechnology, Cuba was able to confront the COVID pandemic efficiently and developed (only case in all of Latin America) nationally produced vaccines that ensured protection for its whole population. Undoubtedly, the combined effect of the pandemic, the collapse of tourism and the United States embargo – which intensified under the Trump Administration – determined a critical situation from an economic point of view, with consequences that also reached internal politics.
