In recent months, the headlines of influential media outlets have repeatedly launched a strong idea: “serious migratory crisis in Cuba”. Being undoubtedly the large migratory flow that the country is experiencing, most of the analyzes have not addressed with sufficient rigor a phenomenon that for its correct understanding requires taking into account the multiple edges that condition it.
According to the data of the last year provided by the US Customs and Border Protection On the Mexican border, the number of Cubans who were trying to cross into US territory was more than 200,000 people, a number much higher than the more than 38,000 the previous year and the 13,000 in 2020. For their part, the Guard coastal intercepted to more than 5,000 Cuban nationals trying to reach Florida by sea, a number only reached in 2016 and in the 1990s.
The increase in flow is very significant, so it is necessary to identify the reasons for such an increase. In the first instance, it must be emphasized that various variables are combined, some of an internal order and others of an external nature. Some of the latter are not present in the migratory movements of the rest of the Latin American countries towards the US and, furthermore, in the Cuban case they are of transcendental importance, which is why we will address them first.
Covid and US lockdown
When we talk about external order variables, we are referring to two types: on the one hand, those of a global nature and, on the other hand, those that depend on Washington. The global ones have been two, fundamentally. First, the consequences of the covid pandemic and, subsequently, the inflationary spiral resulting, among other issues, from the war in Ukraine.
The other external variable that has a large-scale impact and that the rest of the neighboring countries do not suffer from is the US blockade and, especially, the hardening of this as of early 2017 during the Trump administration. The more than 240 new measures approved by the former US president marked a radical change with respect to the opening process opened by Obama and, above all, with the passage of time (5 years to date) they have achieved their main objective, to forcefully hit the already fragile Cuban economy and, consequently, have intensified the migratory trend.
All the aforementioned measures have been aimed at causing the economic collapse of the country, trying to affect two strategic areas: on the one hand, the main Cuban economic sectors and, on the other, basic services. a group of measures It has been aimed at suffocating the three great economic engines (medical services abroad, tourism and remittances) in order to drastically reduce the country’s foreign exchange earnings.
The results of this policy have been successful for the US strategy, since the aforementioned sectors have recorded substantially lower revenues than in previous years. Medical services abroad have been suspended in some countries due to pressure exerted against their governments by the White House.
Remittance sending has fallen
The amount of remittances to family members sent from the US has also fallen significantly as a result of the limit imposed by Trump in 2019. Tourism, in addition to the pandemic, has been affected by the fines imposed by US courts on different companies that do business in Cuba.
The other flank, as we mentioned before, has been that of basic services. Punitive measures against fuel supply companies stand out, which has restricted the country’s energy capacity, impacting not only industries, but also public transport and electricity service, thus punishing the population with long lines and innumerable blackouts.
At the same time, US sanctions have also affected –more than usual– the arrival of medicines, medical supplies and inputs for food production, further increasing citizen discouragement.
Break with Cuba of several companies
To understand the magnitude of these measures, it is necessary to highlight the effect they have had on countless companies in many countries, which have decided to suspend their commercial and financial relations with the island. Two of the new measures (the reinclusion of Cuba in the list of “state sponsors of terrorism” and the activation of title III of the Helms-Burton Act) serve as an example to understand the break with Cuba of companies that, even despite the blockade, had historically had economic relations with the country.
As regards internal order variables, some of the latest economic reform measures have been identified as important reasons for widespread social unrest. We are referring to the incorporation into the free market of some basic products in the shopping cart that were previously protected. This has also happened in a context of high inflationAs a result, the purchasing power of the most vulnerable population groups has been substantially reduced and, in turn, there has been an increase in social inequality in a society in which the egalitarian imaginary still has great weight.
To conclude, it is difficult to make forecasts, since the Democratic administration headed by Biden was supposed to annul a good number of Trump’s measures, however, to date it has not.
On the other hand, it is clear that the new young generations, in a country with a high level of educational training, will continue migrating in search of better material living conditions, just like their peers in the vast majority of countries in the region. The difference could come if the current privileged treatment of the United States towards Cuban migration, thanks to the validity of the Law of Adjustmentwould end with the repeal of the aforementioned law and, much more, if the blockade against the country ended (a horizon that began to be glimpsed with Obama).
This, obviously, would not suppress the migratory flow, but at least it would make it necessary to analyze Cuban migration with standards more similar to those of Latin America as a whole.
Luis Miguel Uharte Pozas, Associate Professor. Social Anthropology Department. University of the Basque Country, University of the Basque Country / Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea
This article was originally published on The Conversation. read the original.
