Cuba's Economy Slows

The Cuban government reduced its 2018 growth projection from 2% to 1% (here is a longer article in Granma about the Council of Ministers meeting, where the low projection is buried among a load of other things). The Minister of the Economy and Planning did not elaborate beyond saying the state was not receiving as much with regard to the harvest (zafra), tourism, and minerals. But hurricanes have hurt the economy, not to mention Hurricane Trump.

I assume many will take this as vindication of rolling back some of the changes made during the Obama administration. This depends on your goals. If you want simply to punish Cubans, this can be seen as successful. If you want regime change, this does not seem like such a good thing, especially when viewed in historical perspective. To put it mildly, there is no evidence that U.S. sanctions encourage state actors in Cuba to do anything you want them to.

I am not saying anything new here but there is no harm in repeating it. Clubbing Cuba over the head has not worked before.