Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) has called the President of Cuba, Miguel Diaz-Canel, “desperate” after the leader announced governmental reforms allowing private investment into the island.
“He no longer knows what to invent to prolong his political agony,” Congresswoman Salazar wrote on X.
Salazar called out the dictatorship’s contradictory efforts to “save itself” through these new reforms, referencing the “decades of persecuting entrepreneurs and expelling millions of Cubans from their own land.”
The Congresswoman also berated the country’s attempts to be in the U.S.’s good graces and prevent potential U.S. intervention, as it fails to serve its own people.
“While it tries to save itself, the people go hungry, live through blackouts of up to 30 hours, and face a harsher reality every day,” she argued. “The only thing that can save Cuba is the end of the dictatorship and the return of freedom.”
Miguel Diaz-Canel Announces Changes To The System
Rep. Elvira Salazar’s comments come in response to Díaz-Canel’s recent speech before the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
In his speech, Diaz-Canel outlined several “reforms” to previous dogmatic policies such as generalized price controls.
“We are going to correct a policy that did not produce the expected results,” the president shared. “In practice, price caps failed to contain inflation. They often led to product shortages, diversion into illegal markets, higher prices, lower tax revenues, and an impossible race between real prices and administrative decisions that always arrived too late.”
According to the Havana Times, the Cuban government’s initiatives include “23 strategic areas and 176 proposals.”
One of the most significant reforms, is the authorization of direct foreign investment into the private sector.
What was once only allowed for investment in the public sector will now be facilitated “with clear rules regarding ownership, repatriation [of their own funds], reinvestment, and dispute resolution.”
These initiatives mark a historic shift in the Caribbean island’s power structure, as the communist-led nation works to apply policy measures once considered incompatible with the island’s system.
