Cuba is passing unprecedented free market reforms in an effort to stave off economic collapse

Cuban lawmakers on Thursday approved nearly 200 historic reforms to the free market aimed at rescuing the communist island. from great difficulty exacerbated by the US oil embargo.

In a historic speech to the National Assembly, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero presented 176 measures aimed at restoring the role of the state in the economy and attracting investors in everything from banking to tourism and agriculture.

Under these changes, foreign investors are no longer required to do business with the government, large private businesses will be authorized, and Cuban and foreign investors will be allowed to acquire shares in state-owned companies.

These and other major changes are coming as the United States it is endlessly oppressive on the island, with President Trump apparently considering taking over the Caribbean nation 90 miles from Florida.

Daniel Torralbas, a Cuban economist based in London, described the changes as “the most profound” since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro.

They were greeted with a standing ovation by lawmakers at a meeting that ended with President Miguel Diaz-Canel reciting Castro’s famous revolutionary slogan: “Live or die!”

Marrero did not give a time frame for the changes but Diaz-Canel on Wednesday denied the need for “urgent change” to avoid economic collapse.

The oil embargo imposed by Mr. Trump in January, after he was fired for dealing with Cuba Nicolas Maduro in Venezuelacaused the collapse of the island’s economy, which forced the Communist Party to enter into agreements it considered renegade.

Although the Havana culture has been blaming its woes on the US trade embargo for more than sixteen years, and more recently the oil embargo, Diaz-Canel admitted that there are “barriers that do not come from outside, or blockades.”

In liberal language, he called “slowness, bureaucracy and norms that hinder those who want to produce” and “decisions we have reversed.”

“Their backs are against the wall like never before,” Michael Bustamante, chair of Cuban studies at the University of Miami, told Agence France-Presse.

“They are in an uncomfortable position to make changes in their economic model, it seems because of the pressure they are facing from the United States.”

A defiant Diaz-Canel insisted that the government is “not doing this because of pressure from the Yankees,” but to “maintain” social harmony.

Only one oil tanker, a Russian one, has docked in Cuba since the beginning of the year.

Power outages, sometimes lasting more than 30 hours, have become common, and food, fuel, drinking water and medicine are in short supply.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has warned that “children are dying” in Cuba due to a lack of medical supplies and medicines.

Victor Hierrezuelo, a 63-year-old banker, told AFP on Thursday that, if there are no changes, “the revolution will collapse!”

It is not clear, however, whether these changes will satisfy Mr. Trump, who wants a change in Cuba’s leaders as well as its economic approach.

Asked on Thursday if Cuba is now in the hands of Mr.

“We’re actually talking to the Cuban government right now about how they can change their ways to change that,” he added.

The US has put a lot of pressure on the Cuban leadership lately. Last month, the US former Cuban President Raúl Castro was chargedthe brother of the late Fidel Castro, for charges related to Cuba’s decision to shoot down two civilian planes flown by a humanitarian group in 1996.

Before that trial, in early May, CIA Director John Ratcliffe he went and went He did not meet with senior Cuban officials, where he signaled that the US is open to expanding political dialogue between the two countries. On that trip, however, multiple sources told CBS News Ratcliffe came with him a military leader who participated in the American mission to capture Maduro.

Many disillusioned locals, exhausted after weeks of power outages, causing food to rot, dismissed the changes as too little, too late.

But the country’s growing small business sector has embraced these changes.

“They give hope,” said Mario Gonzales, a 32-year-old restaurant manager in Havana’s historic old town, who hopes for a tourism revival.