This issue of Cuba Economic Review opens with Quick Takes: July’s surge in U.S. fuel exports to Cuba, with puts U.S. exports to the island on track for a second year; January–August inflation running at twice the pace of the same period in 2025, capping the worst summer for prices since the 2021 Tarea Ordenamiento; tourism sinking to roughly 30,000 visitors a month; and the opening of Cuba’s first private currency exchange house (ADT 64, in Santa Clara). By the Numbers shows the peso depreciating nearly twice as fast in 2026 as in 2025. The informal dollar has risen 72% in nine months, the official floating rate trails it by one to two weeks, and prices follow about two months later. In Deep digs into 534 daily reports from the Unión Eléctrica (UNE): blackouts got worse even as demand fell. The culprits are a fuel shortage, a thermoelectric fleet running at less than half its installed capacity, and solar parks losing a quarter of their potential output. Recommended Readings covers OFAC’s September 29 update, which rolls back a 2024 bank opening for Cuba’s private entrepreneurs that never actually got off the ground.
