On Oct. 28, the United Nations General Assembly is set to vote once again on Cuba’s resolution condemning the American embargo, and it will likely pass. Last year, the resolution passed 165 to 7, with 12 abstentions. It has passed every year for more than three decades, always on the same premise: that Cuba is poor because Washington made it so.
In early September, Cuba’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez, said that, by his regime’s count, the embargo had cost Cuba $8 billion in the year through February. What Havana lies about, as it has for more than 60 years, is the cause.
Cuba is poor because it is not free. That formulation belongs to the late Ghanaian economist George Ayittey, who wrote that “Africa is poor because she is not free.” Cuba is a fully authoritarian, one-party state in which the Communist Party controls the state, the economy and public life. The party owns the economy and plans it from Havana. Private enterprise, which produces about 60% of output in places like China and Vietnam, is estimated to account for roughly 9% in Cuba, according to a 2023 report.
