Why Cuba Is Protesting

Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s Latin America Brief.

The highlights this week: Cubans protest amid an economic crisis, Brazil investigates Chinese imports, and Mexico says it won’t cooperate with a new Texas immigration law.

Cuba on the Brink

Last weekend, demonstrators filled the streets of at least four Cuban cities in rare protests. They called for food and electricity provisions amid widespread shortages throughout the country. Some shouted “patria y vida,” or “homeland and life,” a chant that emerged during the last major anti-government marches in July 2021.

Authorities cracked down hard on the 2021 demonstrations, and many protesters remain jailed even today. The current protests saw an unconfirmed number of demonstrators arrested, according to human rights groups. On Sunday, officials distributed rice, milk, and sugar in one of the cities that saw demonstrations, perhaps an acknowledgment that participants’ complaints were legitimate. It is unclear whether the protests will continue.

Cuba’s economy has not fully recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and in fact has dramatically worsened since the 2021 protests. Currency reform that year led to continually high inflation, and communist Havana has stumbled in attempts to open its controlled economy to the private sector.

The Biden administration has also maintained some Trump-era economic restrictions on Cuba and delayed plans to build links between the Cuban and U.S. private sectors amid congressional opposition. Meanwhile, Cuba’s historic economic sponsors—including Venezuela, China, and Russia—have been unable or unwilling to sweep in with bailouts.

The result is that Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the years following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, its then-sponsor. The ongoing turmoil has spurred mass emigration: In the two-year period ending in September 2023, more than 4 percent of Cuba’s population either arrived in the United States or applied for asylum in Mexico, according to the Washington Office on Latin America.

Cuba’s government often blames its economic troubles on U.S. sanctions. In 2018, a United Nations agency estimated that the U.S. embargo on Cuba—imposed in 1962—had cost Cuba’s economy some $130 billion. The Trump administration took further punitive steps, restricting remittance flows between Cuba and the United States and designating Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, which complicated the country’s integration in international markets.

The fresh demonstrations show that Havana’s role in the economic crisis has become more central in the public eye, University of Miami historian and Cuba expert Michael Bustamante told Foreign Policy. “Cuban citizens, more and more, don’t buy the Cuban government pointing its fingers outside, and they are looking squarely at their own officials to take ownership and responsibility,” he said.

Whether negative public opinion can lead to political change is another question. U.S. proponents of economically isolating Cuba have long argued that misery on the ground could bring down the communist government. But if the post-Cold War shock of the 1990s is any indication, Cuba’s political system may be able to ride out the current conditions.

Cuban policymakers have for decades resisted loosening the state-controlled economy, only moving slowly to do so in recent years. Last December, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz admitted that Havana had not allowed the economy to diversify sufficiently. But he did not present a vision for how this diversification would occur and instead simply removed price controls. That move ultimately worsened household suffering.

U.S. President Joe Biden, for his part, has yet to fulfill the campaign promises he made on Cuba policy. In 2020, Biden pledged that he would roll back the Trump-era policies “that inflicted harm on Cubans and their families.” Yet he has only partially followed through. The president’s changed stance is apparently aimed at appeasing Cuba hawks, whether in the U.S. Congress or the electorate.

The Biden administration’s approach to Cuba stands in contrast to its policy on Venezuela, where the United States has lifted sanctions that were part of Trump’s so-called maximum pressure strategy. Although other factors—such as major oil reserves and upcoming elections—were at play in Venezuela, administration officials also recognized the harm that sanctions caused to civilians.

Latin American leaders have called on Washington to fully reverse Trump-era restrictions in Cuba, too, but have so far been unsuccessful. Cuban policymakers continue to be key drivers of citizens’ economic pain. But Washington also bears responsibility, Bustamante said. Current U.S. policy “has fed a mass migration that you’d think the Biden administration would be doing everything to try to stop.”

Upcoming Events

Saturday, March 23: Bolivia conducts a census.

Tuesday, March 26, to Thursday, March 28: French President Emmanuel Macron visits Brazil and holds a bilateral meeting with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

What We’re Following

Brazil-China trade tensions. In the past six months, Brazil’s industry ministry has opened numerous anti-dumping investigations into China, its top trading partner, the Financial Times reported Sunday. International trade law allows countries to institute protective measures when other countries flood their markets with low-priced goods, a practice known as dumping.

Though Lula generally celebrates Brazil’s economic ties with China, a recent upsurge in imports of Chinese industrial products prompted Brazilian business groups to request the probes. Brazilian steel and chemical producers have called for tariffs on Chinese imports to protect local industry. Brasília could impose such tariffs if the investigation finds that Chinese firms engaged in dumping.

Brazil’s complaints are not unique among emerging markets. Thailand has accused Chinese firms of skirting anti-dumping tariffs, Vietnam has launched probes into alleged Chinese dumping, and Mexico slapped tariffs on goods from countries including China last year.

Ecuador’s war on crime. Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s war on crime is showing early positive results, the country’s foreign minister said last week. She told news agency EFE that the country had experienced a dramatic 60 percent drop in daily homicides since Noboa imposed a state of emergency in January.

That month, Noboa declared that Ecuador was undergoing a state of “internal armed conflict” and deployed security forces to jails and traffic hubs in response to spiraling violence. The president’s approval rating now stands at 80 percent.

Still, Noboa’s administration has not been fully transparent about how it is achieving its results, Ecuadorian journalist Jorge Imbaquingo wrote in Americas Quarterly. Officials have released little crime data since taking office, instead citing disparate statistics to the press.

People dine at a restaurant in Botafogo, a neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro, on March 1.Tiancong/Xinhua via Getty Images

Electric streets. Three roads in Latin America made Time Out’s new list of the 30 coolest streets in the world, released this week: Buenos Aires’s Guatemala Street, Rio de Janeiro’s Arnaldo Quintela Street, and Bucareli Street in Mexico City.

Mexico City’s Bucareli Street won accolades for its architectural highlights and dining scene. Meanwhile, the Buenos Aires accolade speaks to the pull of the restaurant scene in the chic Palermo Viejo neighborhood, even amid Argentina’s economic troubles. Area steakhouse Don Julio received a long overdue Michelin star last November.

In Rio, the prizewinning street only recently became known for its nightlife: Bars and restaurants opened in a few blocks previously home to mostly residences and warehouses as the Rio entertainment industry roared back to life after the pandemic. (Your newsletter writer can confirm that the street is also excellent for people-watching.)

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In Focus: Texas-Mexico Border Sparring

Mexican Foreign Secretary Alícia Barcena participates in a joint news conference with her U.S. counterparts at the State Department in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 29, 2023.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Mexico’s foreign ministry slammed a new Texas law that authorizes state officials to arrest people suspected of being undocumented migrants, prosecute them, and deport them to Mexico, regardless of their nationality. It was not the first time that the Mexican government has spoken up about potential changes to U.S. immigration policy, but it was one of the most direct.

“Mexico will do everything it can to block this anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and discriminatory measure,” Foreign Minister Alícia Barcena posted on X. On Tuesday, Mexico said it would not accept any deportations by Texas state authorities and that it will file an amicus brief in an ongoing legal battle at a New Orleans federal appeals court.

Historically, U.S. deportation decisions are the purview of the federal government. That point was key in legal objections to the new policy, which the Texas legislature passed last year but has since been held up by lawsuits. On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court briefly allowed the law to go into effect but did not decisively endorse its merits, leaving a legal opening for the Louisiana appeals court to weigh in—and block the law later the same day.

Texas Republicans say the law would deter undocumented immigration, while its detractors say it would allow for racial profiling and could separate families and disrupt ongoing asylum applications.

Mexico’s opposition to the law could be a decisive factor in how it can be implemented, regardless of what U.S. courts decide. U.S. authorities cannot deport people to another country if it does not agree to receive them. This point underscores how often U.S. migration policy is shaped by Mexico, too.