Last week, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro (Raulito), the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, announced the reforms, saying that Cuba must seek to move its economy forward.
The 176 measures aim to further decentralize Cuba's state-run economy, which has been left gasping by a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump.
Under the island's current economic model, the government largely determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold, and how the country's resources are allocated. The new plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, and authorization for private banks and investment by Cubans abroad.
It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.
In response, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday that her country wants to restart oil shipments to Cuba soon, potentially providing much-needed relief as the island's crises deepen given a lack of petroleum.
But Humberto Fontova, who fled Cuba in 1961 and has written two books on the regime, is skeptical the reforms will lead to lasting change.
"They've done this before," he notes. "Whenever they get desperate, they … open up the economy and invite foreign investors, and then as soon as things start getting kind of back on track … they clamp down, confiscate their money, their investments, and slap some of them in jail."
He tells AFN those investors have no recourse.
"What you've got to look at is if they're going to have an independent judiciary," he says. "You've got to have the rule of law and an independent judiciary, one that is not beholden to a totalitarian regime. There is no political liberty, and there is no independent judiciary, so, nothing really is going to change dramatically in Cuba."
Meanwhile, the Trump administration continues to pressure Cuba's communist government.
In recent years, U.S. officials have sought intelligence and diplomatic channels to assess the regime's stability. In 2023, for example, CIA Director William Burns made a rare visit to Cuba, where he reportedly met with officials amid concerns over China's expanding presence on the island and Cuba's role in regional security.
The visit underscored Washington's continued focus on the island more than six decades after Fidel Castro's revolution brought a communist government to power.
On Tuesday, the U.S. hit Cuban companies with new sanctions.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said they target five entities, including three linked to Grupo de Administración Empresarial S.A., a business conglomerate run by Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces.
Best known as GAESA, it is believed to command nearly 40% of Cuba's gross domestic product.
Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, accused "regime elites" of using GAESA to "steal the island's few resources, diverting them for repression, anti-American subversion and spying instead of schools, power plants, and basic necessities for the Cuban people."
Fontova doubts President Trump will take military action to topple the struggling regime, but analysts expect the sanctions will spook foreign investors and deepen a severe economic crisis.
