Dark times for Cuba’s economic experiment

Summary

Podcast Summary: Planet Money – "Dark times for Cuba’s economic experiment"

Date: April 2, 2026
Hosts: Erica Barras & Nick Fountain

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Overview

This episode of Planet Money explores Cuba’s deepening economic crisis amidst crippling blackouts, shortages, and a collapsing private sector. The show follows stories of everyday Cubans and examines the decades-long push-and-pull between communist ideals and flirtations with capitalism. With U.S. sanctions tightening and allies withdrawing support, the episode asks: How did Cuba get here, and what comes next?

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Current Crisis: Cuba in the Dark

• Widespread Power Outages ([00:23])

  • “Cuba is in crisis. Since January, the US has been preventing almost all oil from reaching the island.” — Nick Fountain
  • Buses, hospitals, and supply trucks aren't running; cell service and internet are unreliable.
  • Blackouts can last more than a day, affecting every facet of life.

• Voice Notes from Cubans ([01:09–04:48])

  • Yasser Gonzalez Cabrera, a bike tour entrepreneur, shares he can rarely use his phone and hasn’t had a paying customer all year.
  • Casamiro, a farmer, and Namedos Garcia, a hotel manager, describe coping strategies (e.g., only opening the fridge during blackouts, cooking when power returns—sometimes in the middle of the night).
  • Yasser on the daily struggle: “I always used to see a lot of potential for my work in Cuba. But now he doesn't see any future.” ([04:11])

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2. A Brief History of Cuba’s Economic Experiment

Communism, Compadres, and Rationing ([08:09–11:00])

• Pre-1959: U.S.-owned enterprises dominated Cuba’s economy.
• The 1959 Revolution led to a fully communist system:
  • “Everyone was employed by the government. The government appointed people to jobs, it set wages, and it owned and controlled everything.” — Erica Barras ([08:50])
  • The Soviet Union supported Cuba with overvalued purchases and cheap oil.
• “Even the poor in Cuba, they had the basics covered…sufficient food, education, and healthcare were accessible and free.” — Ricardo Torres ([09:44])

The ‘Special Period’ & First (Reluctant) Steps Toward Capitalism ([10:04–12:26])

• 1991: Collapse of the USSR devastates Cuba.
  • GDP drops by 35%; food and goods become scarce.
• “We just had now bad luck. We were abandoned…But we'll figure it out and we'll go back to that period of well being.” — Ricardo Torres on the lingering faith in socialism ([11:00])
• By 1993, necessity pushes Cuba to open a tiny private sector. Referred to as “Caribbean Communism, but with a teeny, tiny capitalist exception.” — Erica Barras ([11:55])
  • Highly limited; less than 1% of jobs are private; family-only employment rules
  • State continues to control prices and critical business decisions.

New Friends: Venezuela and China ([13:44–14:45])

• China supplies millions of bikes; Venezuela provides preferred oil trade in exchange for Cuban services (teachers, doctors, coaches).
  • “Venezuela took the role that the Soviets had played.” — Nick Fountain ([14:48])
  • This lifts Cuba’s GDP, bringing hope.

Loosening Up: Raul Castro and Economic Reform ([15:39–17:16])

• Raul Castro expands the list of allowable private businesses, allows hiring outside the family, and promotes tourism.
  • “We want the private sector as long as it is a complement to state activity, but it cannot become more important than the state sector.” — Ricardo Torres ([17:05])

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3. The Private Sector ‘Boom’ and American Thaw

([17:29–19:56])

• Obama’s normalization attempts spur tourism and optimism.
  • “Luxury fashion house Chanel just staged its very first show in the Cuban capital…the Rolling Stones held a monster concert…” — Erica Barras ([19:10])
• Yasser’s bike touring business, Citicleta, flourishes; hundreds of tourists monthly.
  • “Big groups riding their bikes through the streets of Havana with him… general good vibes.” — Erica Barras ([17:55])

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4. Bust: Economic Shocks and Growing Inequality

Triple Blow to Tourism-Based Growth ([22:17–23:44])

1. Venezuela’s Collapse (2016): Less oil to Cuba.
2. Trump Administration (2017): Reinstates sanctions, blocks U.S. tourism.
3. The Pandemic: Tourism dries up almost instantly.

• Only about 10,000 private businesses survive ([23:44]).
• Inequality grows: “There'd be a blackout… but in some richer neighborhoods in Havana, people would still be partying. They'd have lights on, eating lobsters.” — Erica Barras ([24:13])
• Widespread protests erupt as ‘moral reserves’ (faith in the system) are depleted.

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5. Mass Emigration and Present-Day Desperation

• “Nearly 3 million people have left since 2020, a quarter of the population.” — Nick Fountain ([24:53])
• Ricardo Torres, now in the U.S., reports:
  • “Cuba’s rich are getting richer…you see Teslas and Escalades. But Cuba’s poor are getting poorer…beggars…trash was piling up.” ([25:14])

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6. The U.S., Oil, and Vulnerability

([25:39–26:45])

• 2026: The U.S. captures Venezuela’s president, stopping Cuban oil imports from its last major ally.
• The U.S. warns other suppliers (Mexico, Russia) with tariffs; for months, no oil reaches Cuba.
• “The oil embargo has exposed all the vulnerabilities of Cuba at once.” — Ricardo Torres ([26:21])
• Tourism collapses; aid wanes; blackouts become perpetual.

Only a Negotiated Way Out

• “The only way out for Cuba is through a negotiation with the United States.” — Ricardo Torres ([27:04])

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7. Enduring Work and Flickers of Hope

([27:04–28:04])

• Yasser continues to hold free bike gatherings for locals:
  • “He wants people to think of [bikes] as a way to engage and interact with the world, a way to be together, something that can bring joy even during this very difficult time.” — Erica Barras ([28:04])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “I always used to see a lot of potential for my work in Cuba. But now he doesn't see any future.” — Yasser, via Erica Barras ([04:11])
• “Moral reserves in a way that, okay, socialism does work. We just had now bad luck. We were abandoned…But we'll figure it out and we'll go back to that period of well being.” — Ricardo Torres ([11:00])
• “We want the private sector as long as it is a complement to state activity, but it cannot become more important than the state sector.” — Ricardo Torres ([17:05])
• “Cuba’s rich are getting richer… you see Teslas and Escalades. But Cuba’s poor are getting poorer…beggars…trash was piling up.” — Ricardo Torres ([25:14])
• “The oil embargo has exposed all the vulnerabilities of Cuba at once.” — Ricardo Torres ([26:21])
• “The only way out for Cuba is through a negotiation with the United States.” — Ricardo Torres ([27:04])
• “He wants people to think of [bikes] as a way to engage and interact with the world, a way to be together, something that can bring joy even during this very difficult time.” — Erica Barras ([28:04])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [00:23] – Cuba’s crisis and blackouts begin
• [01:09–04:48] – Daily struggles: voice notes from Cubans (Yasser, Casamiro, Namedos)
• [08:09–12:26] – Cuba’s economic history: revolution, rationing, special period
• [13:44–14:45] – Shift to Venezuela and China as economic partners
• [15:39–17:16] – Raul Castro’s reforms, expansion of private sector
• [17:29–19:56] – Obama-era thaw, tourism boom
• [22:17–23:44] – Triple blow to economy: Venezuela, Trump, pandemic
• [24:40–25:33] – Emigration, poverty, and growing inequality
• [25:39–26:45] – U.S. sanctions, lost oil, Cuba’s vulnerability
• [27:04–28:04] – Yasser’s free bike gatherings, community resilience

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Conclusion

This episode of Planet Money presents a vivid, human-centered narrative of Cuba’s ongoing economic unraveling. Through historical context and personal accounts, the hosts illustrate how decades of oscillation between communism and limited capitalism—now compounded by U.S. sanctions, pandemic, and the withdrawal of allies—have left Cuba in a precarious position. The show closes with a glimmer of hope as ordinary Cubans like Yasser continue working for their communities, even amidst darkness.

Transcript

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[Erica Barras]

This is Planet Money from npr.

[Nick Fountain]

Cuba is in crisis. Since January, the US has been preventing almost all oil from reaching the island.

[Erica Barras]

Doctors can't get to the hospitals where they work. Many buses aren't running. Trucks can't deliver food and medicine where they're needed. People's lives are in danger because there are frequent and long blackouts in the last few weeks.

[Nick Fountain]

On more than one occasion, the entire country has lacked power. In one case for more than a full day.

[Erica Barras]

We wanted to understand what it's like for people trying to make their way in Cuba right now, what it's like to try to work or to run

[Nick Fountain]

a business, because even though Cuba has a communist government, at times, it's also had a pretty thriving private business sector.

[Erica Barras]

But recently, these blackouts have become so frequent that it's hard to even charge your phone. Cell service and Internet are spotty, so. So I've been talking to people through voice notes, like this farmer lady Casamiro, who says she can only use her phone for about two hours a day and never knows when.

[Nick Fountain]

She also told us right now she has no gas, so she can't get to the other farmers she works with. Hola, Erica. Buen dia. Buen dia.

[Erica Barras]

A hotel manager Namedos Garcia told me, when the electricity's out, you have to keep the fridge closed, try not to open it, and then when the electricity comes back on, you jump into action.

[Nick Fountain]

A lot of people said that if the power comes on in the middle of the night, that's when they cook. That's when they work on their computers, use their phone.

[Erica Barras]

Like this guy who runs a bicycle business.

[Ricardo Torres]

Hola, Erica Gonzalez Cabrera.

[Erica Barras]

Yasser Gonzalez Cabrera was up for sending more than just a few messages. So I said, okay, I'll record my questions and you record your answers. And that's what we've been doing. In one of his earliest messages, he told me things have been bad in Cuba for a while, but the recent oil embargo and the resulting blackouts, it's affecting every aspect of life.

[Ricardo Torres]

La vida, the basic life, no?

[Nick Fountain]

In some messages, his voice sounds normal. You can hear the birds in the background. Sometimes he's walking down the street in a Savannah neighborhood, or he's in his kitchen cooking. Sometimes music is playing back, but then sometimes he records these voice notes. And it sounds like he's just sitting by himself in the dark.

[Erica Barras]

He tells me he worries about his parents being because the electricity situation for them is even worse because they both live in more rural areas and the government is prioritizing cities.

[Nick Fountain]

Says his mom. She just goes to bed at seven now when the sun goes down.

[Erica Barras]

Yasser is the bike guy in Cuba. And you'd think with so little electricity across the island, maybe bikes might actually be a good business at this moment in time, except to make any money

[Nick Fountain]

he needs tourists, which Cuba used to have. Because even though Cuba was once a 100% strict communist state run economy, at one point, not that long ago it had a small but vibrant private sector. At the height of Yasser's business, he was running bike tours for like 400 tourists a month. But last year he only had about 25 customers total all year. And now with everything going on, it's even worse. He says he hasn't even had a paying customer this year.

[Erica Barras]

You can hear in his voice how hard things are. He said not only is it hard to live like this, it's stressful and it makes him sad. He told me I always used to see a lot of potential for my work in Cuba. But now he doesn't see any future. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Erica Barras.

[Nick Fountain]

And I'm Nick Fountain.

[Erica Barras]

The long and winding economic experiment that is Cuba has an extremely uncertain future.

[Nick Fountain]

Yasser's parents grew up in communist Cuba where the state was in charge of everything.

[Erica Barras]

Then Yasser came of age in a much looser, some might even say capitalist, ish Cuba, where he could start his own business.

[Nick Fountain]

And now Yasser can't even plan for a phone call, much less run a business today.

[Erica Barras]

On the how did Cuba get here? For more than 60 years, Cuba has survived on two seemingly contradictory economic strategies. Leaning on its communist and socialist compadres and flirting with its frenemy capitalism. And right now it seems like the US is making both strategies impossible.

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[Erica Barras]

When I asked Yasser, how did all this happen? How did Cuba go from this mini boom to near failure? Was it because of the US oil embargo over the last few months? I'm guessing he listened, rubbed his temples, and was like, where do I start? In his message back, he told me, what's happened the last few months is an intensification of what's been happening for a long time.

[Nick Fountain]

It's complicated, he said.

[Erica Barras]

So for help with my complicated questions, I also contacted an economist. So you are Cuban?

[Ricardo Torres]

I am Cuban, born and raised.

[Erica Barras]

But you're not in Cuba now.

[Ricardo Torres]

I'm not in Cuba. I left Cuba almost five years ago.

[Nick Fountain]

This is Ricardo Torres, an economist who we can speak with on the phone right now because he does have regular Internet and cell service. He's in Washington D.C. he works at American University.

[Erica Barras]

But before all that, Ricardo lived and studied economics and in Cuba. So he was the perfect person to talk to us about Cuba's decades long economic experiment going between its communist compadres and its frenemy, capitalism. Starting with the 1959 revolution, which Ricardo learned about in elementary school when his teachers would tell him the heroic story of the great revolution led by their beloved leader Fidel Castro.

[Nick Fountain]

Before 1959, Cuba was run by a dictator and American companies ran most of Cuba's sugar fields and refineries, railroads, hotels, casinos. Then Cuban rebels overthrew the government and made Cuba into a socialist communist country.

[Erica Barras]

Cuba is just 90 miles from the US and this was the Cold War. These two countries became the opposite of compadres. So the US imposed what soon became the mother of all embargoes on Cuba. Nothing from the US could be exported to Cuba.

[Nick Fountain]

So at the outset, Cuba's economic strategy was lean on its communist friends, its compadres.

[Erica Barras]

At this point, Cuba was 100% fully communist. Everyone was employed by the government. The government appointed people to jobs, it set wages, and it owned and controlled everything.

[Nick Fountain]

The government gave people little ration books, little paper books that told them how much of what kind of food a person or a family could get in a given month at a given store.

[Erica Barras]

The Cuban government now owned the Tobacco and sugar industry. And to get the other things it needed, especially oil, it relied on its most powerful communist compadre, the Soviet Union. The Soviets bought Cuban goods for more than they were worth and sold Cuba oil for less than it was worth.

[Nick Fountain]

They also got access to an island 90 miles away from their mortal enemy, the United States.

[Erica Barras]

And for a few decades, yeah, it worked. Cuba was poor, but collaboration with the Soviets kept it going.

[Ricardo Torres]

Even the poor in Cuba, they had the basics covered.

[Erica Barras]

Like shelter.

[Ricardo Torres]

Yeah, like shelter. Like through the rationing book and sufficient food. And then you could always send your children to school and you were taken care of if you got ill. Because healthcare was accessible and free of charge.

[Erica Barras]

With help from the Soviets, Cuba developed a strong healthcare and education system. But in 1991, Cuba lost its key compadre. The Soviet Union broke up and stopped being communist.

[Ricardo Torres]

I mean, the Soviet Union disappeared when I was 10, right?

[Nick Fountain]

And those post Soviet countries stopped paying top dollar for Cuban exports and sending Cuba cheap oil.

[Erica Barras]

And this was devastating for Cuba. This period in the early 90s was called the special period, which makes it sound good special, but was actually terrible. There was less food. Cuba's GDP sank by 35%. People were suffering, fleeing some people, even making rafts out of whatever they could find and trying to float to the us.

[Nick Fountain]

But Ricardo says many Cubans still believed in the revolutionary dream. They didn't have material reserves, but they did have faith, what he calls moral reserves.

[Ricardo Torres]

Moral reserves in a way that, okay, socialism does work. We just had now bad luck. We were abandoned. We were left behind by these countries, traitors, as they would put it in Cuba. But we'll figure it out and we'll go back to that period of well being.

[Erica Barras]

By that time, Ricardo had gotten his hands on an old Soviet economics textbook that extolled the virtues of communist countries and highlighted the inequality of capitalist ones. But young Ricardo was wondering, okay, well, why did the Soviet Union break up and ditch communism if it was so great?

[Ricardo Torres]

Well, perhaps reality is a little bit different from what I saw in the book.

[Nick Fountain]

And this, this was a moment where maybe Cuba had to reassess its strategy. Like, are we going to survive sticking only to this communist compadres crowd?

[Erica Barras]

So a few years after the Soviet Union broke up and Cuba no longer had its help, Cuba, for the first time in decade, begrudgingly tried, basically hanging out with some capitalist frenemies. In 1993, Cuba started its first experiment in capitalism since the revolution. I'm gonna call it Caribbean Communism, but with a teeny, tiny capitalist exception. Ricardo says this was supposed to be

[Nick Fountain]

temporary, but it was a big deal.

[Erica Barras]

Yes, before everyone was employed by Cuba, but now Cubans could be self employed, have their own businesses in the US this made big news.

[Mint Mobile Announcer]

This is Weekend Edition. I'm Scott Simon. Fidel Castro changed his economic cabinet this week, promoted several ministers considered to be reformers. This is being interpreted as one more sign of Cuba's increasing turn to market oriented reforms as it tries to cope.

[Nick Fountain]

But there were a lot of restrictions on this new private sector. These new private businesses, your employees had to be family members and you could only have so many of them.

[Ricardo Torres]

The reality is that they had little freedom in making important decisions when it comes to production prices and all kinds of things that we would associate with free enterprise.

[Erica Barras]

Basically anything meaningful to a business was not up to you, it was up to the state. So this was a tiny first move. The number of people working in small businesses was really small, less than 1%.

[Nick Fountain]

They tried a few other things, like a first small experiment in tourism, an experiment pegging a second currency to the dollar. But none of that was enough to pull Cuba out of its economic crisis. So Cuba turned back to its old friend group, went to its communist and socialist compadres for help.

[Erica Barras]

Cuba further developed its relationship with China.

[Nick Fountain]

For example, they got a great deal from China on about a million bikes to deal with all those fuel shortages.

[Erica Barras]

But the biggest alliance that Cuba made during this time was with Venezuela, the land of oil.

[Nick Fountain]

There's this famous speech where Hugo Chavez is in Havana praising Fidel Castro, saying US free trade ideals are basically a return to colonialism. And he talks about how Cuba is in the dreams of every Latin American revolutionary.

[Ricardo Torres]

Mucha vesa la jova en latino Americanos ensuenos a Cuba.

[Erica Barras]

Ricardo says in the year 2000, Venezuela and Cuba agreed to their own sort of trade deal.

[Ricardo Torres]

Cuba started providing services to Venezuela, teachers,

[Erica Barras]

doctors, also boxing and baseball coaches.

[Ricardo Torres]

Yeah, and then in exchange, Venezuela is basically sending oil.

[Nick Fountain]

Venezuela sent oil.

[Ricardo Torres]

She's the one thing that Venezuela had

[Nick Fountain]

that Cuba needed, that was the trade. When it came to oil, Venezuela took the role that the Soviets had played. And soon Cuba's GDP was growing faster. Cuba was back from the brink.

[Erica Barras]

In the early 2000s, Ricardo got a job teaching economics in Havana as an academic. He was able to visit Europe and the US and he says he could have left Cuba, but he was like, why leave when I can stay and maybe even influence this giant economic experiment?

[Ricardo Torres]

I say, why not? I mean, this is a good place to be if you want to do Something for your own country.

[Nick Fountain]

The Cuban government has been infamously repressive of dissent. But Ricardo says as an economist, he was able to access and study data and hold public discussions about the Cuban economy.

[Erica Barras]

And that's what he was doing when Cuba started shaking up its friend group again because. Because Fidel Castro, Cuba's original communist leader, got sick and his brother Raul took over.

[Ricardo Torres]

He started talking about our economy is not in good shape and we can trace some of the factors behind that to our economic system. So we need to introduce some changes here.

[Erica Barras]

Stay communist, but get a little more capitalist, open up some more, crank up this capitalism thing, kick this up a notch.

[Nick Fountain]

Raul Castro said, let's expand our teeny tiny private sector. At the time, Cuba's small businesses were basically tiny restaurants run out of people's homes or taxis or people renting rooms out of their houses. And Raul said, let's expand what's allowed. Let's let our small businesses hire outside

[Erica Barras]

of their families and try to bring in more tourists. The government updated a list of jobs people were allowed to hold. Now they had almost 200 options, like a barber. Someone who dresses up an old Havana for a tourist is like a fortune teller or an old school dandy. Specific musical acts for the now medium sized and still growing tourism industry.

[Nick Fountain]

This wasn't like capitalism unleashed, though Ricardo says the government was still wary of the free market taking over.

[Ricardo Torres]

We want the private sector as long as it is a compliment to state activity, but it cannot become more important than the state sector.

[Erica Barras]

Still, Raul is actually talking to the United States. Around this time, President Obama starts to loosen restrictions on trade and travel with Cuba. And Cuba's private sector grows even bigger.

[Nick Fountain]

It was around this time that Yasser, the guy in Havana who's been answering our questions via voice notes, really got into bikes. He was in his 20s, he was working as a software engineer and he had heard about all this bike stuff that was happening in the US and other places, things like dedicated bike lanes, city run, short term bike rentals. And he was like, we need to have that too. So

[Erica Barras]

he started a company called Citicleta, hosting bike tours in the capital. Big groups riding their bikes through the streets of Havana with him. I've seen all these videos of him leading tourists on bikes. Everyone seems happy. Cuba looks beautiful. There's just, you know, general good vibes.

[Nick Fountain]

And in 2016, President Obama visits Cuba, the first president since the communist revolution to visit the island. It's a historic opportunity to engage directly with the Cuban people and to forge new agreements and commercial deals to build new ties between our two peoples frenemies.

[Erica Barras]

For Yasser's bike business, this was awesome. He was giving bike tours to people from everywhere.

[Ricardo Torres]

Alemania Hollanda, Germany Holland Mucha Personas de Australia, Canada.

[Erica Barras]

His customers were Mexicans and Colombians and tourists from the United States States.

[Nick Fountain]

Cuba was open for business. Luxury fashion house Chanel just staged its very first show in the Cuban capital. Fast and the Furious film. There,

[Erica Barras]

the Rolling Stones held a monster concert in this country where rock and roll had once been restricted.

[Ricardo Torres]

That boom, you know, lots of people wanting to visit Cuba in part was driven by this romantic idea. Well, you know, Cuba is changing so fast, it's no longer going to be a communist country or a socialist country in a few years. So we want to go there and see it before it changes completely. And we have McDonald's in every corner of Cuba like everywhere else. So we want to see it before it ends.

[Erica Barras]

Many hundreds of thousands of Americans and their dollars went to Cuba around that time, including me.

[Nick Fountain]

I was there too, and so was

[Erica Barras]

our producer on the show, Luis Gallo.

[Nick Fountain]

Up until this point, Cuba had oil from Venezuela and tourists from the US and elsewhere. It was boomtastic.

[Erica Barras]

Oil from its friends, tourists from its frenemy. But of course, that all came to an end. That's after the

[Nick Fountain]

foreign.

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[Erica Barras]

So in the heyday of Cuba's flirtation with its frenemy capitalism, the country leaned all the way into tourism. In the 2000 teens, tourism was supposed to be the people's capitalist tourism growth engine.

[Nick Fountain]

Cuba still had state owned industries. It was still exporting sugar and cigars. To fund its government. And it was still getting help from its allies. Cheap oil from Venezuela, cheap solar panels from China. Cubans could also buy sneakers or dishwashers or cosmetics or bug spray from the us.

[Erica Barras]

But to make money, more and more Cubans were going into tourism. People were converting homes into hotels, opening restaurants. Yasser was leading his bike tours. Cuba's economy was growing in large part because of one industry, tourism.

[Ricardo Torres]

Small economies, they tend to be more specialized than big economies. And then if your main industry is affected for one reason or the other, then you are in troubles.

[Nick Fountain]

And trouble did come. For tourism in Cuba, three big shocks to the industry.

[Erica Barras]

The first big shock was sort of a slow moving one. Venezuela's economy started to fall apart. So starting in 2016, the country sent less and less oil to Cuba. The second big shock came when President Trump took office for the first time in 2017. Trump was not on board with the warming relations between the US and Cuba. He cited the country's human rights violations and accused it of spreading violence and instability. Accused Obama of propping up a repressive regime. So Trump brought back many of the economic sanctions Obama had relaxed and heavily restricted travel.

[Nick Fountain]

Again, third shock to this new tourism based growth engine, the pandemic. Travel just stopped from boom to bust.

[Ricardo Torres]

But like without preparation or anticipation of any kind, like in a few months, all gone, almost all gone.

[Erica Barras]

Both frenemies and compadres were giving Cuba the cold shoulder.

[Nick Fountain]

Cuba had a new president by then and he tried to fix the country's ailing economy. He said those small businesses we've allowed, now those can get even bigger. Companies can hire more employees, up to 100.

[Ricardo Torres]

According to government statistics, there were almost 10,000 of those operating in Cuba.

[Erica Barras]

Ricardo said some Cubans made big money. But he says even before this latest venture into capitalism, the loosening of government controls had given rise to a culture of have and have nots. There'd be a blackout across much of the country, but in some richer neighborhoods in Havana, people would still be partying. They'd have lights on, eating lobsters. And Cubans did not accept it.

[Nick Fountain]

There were protests. People said the government wasn't taking care of their needs. Ricardo says that people were running out of that thing he called moral reserves, their faith that the Cuban experiment could ever work.

[Erica Barras]

Ricardo, too was frustrated. In 2021, he was preparing to go to the US for a fellowship. And looking around, he decided that this time when he left, he wasn't coming back.

[Ricardo Torres]

I think I've contributed more than enough and I've sacrificed many things as well. So I said, okay, well, it's time for a new beginning elsewhere. And, well, the US Was that place.

[Nick Fountain]

He was part of the biggest wave of migration out of Cuba yet. According to one estimate, nearly 3 million people have left since 2020, a quarter of the population.

[Erica Barras]

And now when Ricardo goes back to visit, he says it seems Cuba's rich are getting richer. You see Teslas and Escalades on the streets. But he says Cuba's poor are also

[Ricardo Torres]

getting poorer, things that were unthinkable in Cuba before. And I say with sorrow, I'm not. I'm not proud about those, you know, beggars. People like looking for food in trash cans. That's become very common. Trash was piling up.

[Erica Barras]

Ricardo says that's the Cuba he saw the last time he was there in 2025.

[Nick Fountain]

And then at the start of this year, the US captured the president of Venezuela and essentially took over its oil industry. So that lifeline Cuba was getting from its best compadre was yanked away.

[Erica Barras]

The Trump administration told Venezuela no more oil for Cuba. And they told other countries that would have sold oil to Cuba, like Mexico, that if they do, they will get tariffed. Then this week, after several months preventing any oil tanker from reaching Cuba, President Trump changed his mind, decided yes, he would let a tanker from Russia land on Cuba's shores.

[Nick Fountain]

Ricardo says it seems Cuba is at the mercy of the US the oil

[Ricardo Torres]

embargo has exposed all the vulnerabilities of Cuba at once.

[Erica Barras]

US Foreign policy is choking off much of the help the Cuban government gets from its allies. And Cuba's big industry, tourism, requires tourists who either can't or won't visit a country whose antiquated Soviet electrical system doesn't definitely cannot survive a US Oil embargo.

[Ricardo Torres]

So now you are confronting your two real challenges. One is a dysfunctional economy at home, and then the US government 90 miles away. The only way out for Cuba is through a negotiation with the United States.

[Erica Barras]

And the US Is turning out to be a very ferocious frenemy. The voice notes Yasser keeps sending me are sounding pretty hopeless. No one is paying for bike tours. But at the same time, he says he feels a responsibility to keep holding these biking events, just free ones. Teaching Cubans to bike like, even with the blackouts, he recently held a big bike gathering in a park. Me and others grilled food. They had music, And he says people were grateful to have something during these days where they have nothing.

[Nick Fountain]

Yasser says a lot of people around him have this notion that bikes are a tool of necessity, these things that were shipped over from China during Cuba's first oil shortage back in the 90s. He's trying to shake that.

[Erica Barras]

He doesn't want people to think of bikes as just how you get around when there's no gas. He wants people to think of them as a way to engage and interact with the world, a way to be together, something that can bring joy even during this very difficult time. I am so excited that we are going to see you in person on our book tour. I am going to be on stage in Pittsburgh on Wednesday, April 22, and

[Nick Fountain]

I'm going to be in Los Angeles on April 16.

[Erica Barras]

The book is called Planet Money, a guide to the economic forces that shape your life. And we're coming to a dozen cities. Each stop will be unique with different hosts and guests. And if you get a ticket, you can also get a tour exclusive tote bag with your purchase while supplies last. Find the show nearest to you at the link in the show notes or go to planetmoneybook.com and thank you.

[Nick Fountain]

Today's episode was produced by the great, great Luis Gallo. He's headed off to greener pastures and we're going to miss you, bud. You were so good, so good. You were so good at this job. Thank you so much. The show was also edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact checked by Sierra Juarez and engineered by Robert Rodriguez. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.

[Erica Barras]

Thank you to Ader Peralta, Sara Dolty, Margarita Fernandez, Jasper Goldman and Michael Bustamante. I'm Erica Baris.

[Nick Fountain]

And I'm Nick Fountain. This is npr. Thank you for listening.

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