Díaz-Canel's Claim on Cuba's Private Sector Sheds Light on Trump's Policies

In April 2021, Miguel Díaz-Canel encapsulated the Cuban regime's true stance on private enterprise with a telling statement: "The non-state sector is ours."

This wasn't a slip of the tongue. During a meeting with private entrepreneurs, cooperatives, and state enterprise representatives, the leader asserted that the "Revolution will not hand over the non-state sector to the enemy," making it clear that private initiatives would only be tolerated as a "supplement to the state economy."

Viewed through today's lens, this phrase clarifies the intent behind recent Trump administration measures targeting financial channels linked to Cuban entrepreneurs. Washington's actions don't seem aimed at squashing small private businesses but at challenging a model where the regime has morphed the "non-state" sector into a controlled extension of its own system.

Understanding Washington's Stance

Díaz-Canel bluntly declared that this sector wasn't for the citizens, a free market, or independent entrepreneurs. It was "ours," meaning it belonged to the political project that authorizes, restricts, exploits, and punishes it—in other words, the so-called "revolution," or more accurately, the regime itself.

The official narrative paints recent U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) measures as Washington's attempt to "strangle" Cuba's economy. However, this narrative skips over key developments. In May 2024, during Biden's administration, the Treasury Department expanded authorizations to support independent Cuban entrepreneurs, including banking facilities and payment platforms.

Under Trump, channels also opened for exporting fuel and other petroleum products to eligible Cuban private entities and individual consumers. Reports this year highlighted fuel shipments to the private sector and commercial operations targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

The Internal Control Trap

Cuba's reality complicates things: an SME might be privately registered but operates within a state-controlled framework that manages licensing, banking, customs, ports, importers, storage, distribution, permits, oversight, and currency access.

The fuel industry exemplifies this. While purchases could be formally made by a private actor, operations within Cuba must navigate authorized importers, state infrastructure, and distribution networks overseen by the regime.

This "gray area" concerns Washington: operations meant to bolster the private sector risk inadvertently channeling commissions, logistical control, foreign currency, or indirect advantages to the state.

The Reality of Controlled Openings

The 176 economic and social measures announced by Havana in 2026 reinforce this perspective. The package included private banking, foreign investment in the non-state sector, a wider scope for imports and exports, the removal of the 100-worker limit, and private participation in previously state-reserved structures.

The regime avoids the term privatization, opting instead for "selective opening," "new economic actors," "co-responsibility," or "necessary transformations." The underlying reality is clear: private capital, foreign currency, imports, logistics, and services are needed as the state can no longer provide them.

This doesn't contradict Díaz-Canel's 2021 statement. It updates it. The "non-state" sector remains "ours," now essential for importing, selling, collecting, funding propaganda, and filling social gaps.

Connections and Influence

Independent media have documented how a segment of the most visible or favored private sector links to powerful surnames, former officials, state institutions, or propaganda spaces.

CiberCuba reported on Gaia Mercado, a food SME attributed to Lisa Titolo Castro, daughter of Mariela Castro and granddaughter of Raúl Castro, operating in the sensitive food sector and capturing payments from abroad for family purchases in Cuba.

CubaNet investigated other businesses tied to the elite's descendants or associates, as well as enterprises transitioning from state structures to SME operations. This pattern doesn't prove every entrepreneur is a front but dismantles the image of a homogeneous, independent sector.

Moreover, some SMEs serve as propaganda fronts. CiberCuba noted Cubamodela's advertising in official media like Cubadebate, later revealing that Ideas Multimedio, encompassing Cubadebate and other outlets, earned significant advertising revenue from SMEs.

Private Enterprises as Regime Showcases

This subordination extends to certain businesspeople becoming functional figures in the official narrative. The case of Dofleini S.R.L. and its director, Carlos Miguel Pérez Reyes, highlights the intersection of private enterprise, political institutionalism, and alignment with regime campaigns. Díaz-Canel visited this tech SME, showcasing it as a model, while its director serves as a national assembly deputy and holds positions within official structures.

The message to the sector is clear: growth, visibility, and access to official spaces are possible, provided the venture doesn't translate into autonomy.

From Private Ventures to Social Auxiliaries

The control isn't solely economic or propagandistic—it's also social. In 2024, CiberCuba reported the regime's efforts to involve "new economic actors" in its social policies, particularly in areas like care, poverty, support for vulnerable groups, elder care, and community assistance.

The term "co-responsibility," used by officials, reveals the state's retreat. After decades of promising that "no one would be left behind," the regime shifts part of this burden to SMEs, private entrepreneurs, and freelancers.

Thus, new economic actors integrate into a political utility logic: when the state needs foreign currency, they're allowed to import; when propaganda is needed, they're showcased; when covering public policy failures, they're called to be "co-responsible."

Miami's Role in the Scheme

The gray area extends beyond Cuba, reaching U.S.-based companies, particularly in South Florida, operating as commercial, logistical, or financial bridges to the island.

In 2026, Miami-Dade launched a comprehensive review of thousands of businesses potentially conducting Cuba-related operations without required federal documentation. This action targeted a broader ecosystem than a few isolated operations.

Notable cases include Katapulk Marketplace LLC and Maravana Cargo Inc., Miami-based companies linked to Cuban exports. Reports revealed the revocation or questioning of federal licenses for vehicle exports due to condition breaches.

The Vanguard Energy case, based in Coral Gables, was even more illustrative. The company reached an agreement involving fuel shipments and sales in Cuba, but operations involved CUPET's sanctioned state-owned storage facilities. Miami-Dade ultimately revoked its local business license.

The Remittance Front

The remittance sector exhibits a similar mechanism. When FINCIMEX, linked to GAESA, faced sanctions, Orbit S.A. emerged as a new money transfer processor to Cuba.

Investigations later revealed Orbit's control by GAESA through CIMEX. The U.S. eventually sanctioned Orbit, leading companies like Western Union and Cubamax to suspend or be affected by this link.

The scheme is familiar: a sanctioned route closes, prompting the emergence of a formally distinct structure to occupy the same space. The name changes, the facade shifts, but control remains.

OFAC's Focus on Indirect Transactions

OFAC's measures, effective September 30, 2026, target this intermediary zone. Washington revoked authorization for U.S. banks to open or maintain accounts for independent Cuban private entrepreneurs, ordered the blocking of affected accounts unless specifically licensed, eliminated U-Turn financial operations related to Cuba, and expanded restrictions on indirect transactions with entities on the Cuba Restricted List.

The keyword is "indirect." OFAC isn't just looking at whether a transfer explicitly names GAESA, CUPET, FINCIMEX, CIMEX, or a military company; it's examining whether benefits could reach these structures through intermediaries, private businesses, third-country operators, banks, payment platforms, or Havana-authorized companies.

Thus, the measure isn't merely a crackdown on entrepreneurship. It's a strategic adjustment in response to a model where the regime has shown its ability to use the private sector as a mask.

The Misleading "People" Argument

The official reaction was swift. Díaz-Canel, Bruno Rodríguez, MINREX officials, state media, and aligned accounts attempted to push the narrative that the U.S. isn't targeting the government but the Cuban people.

The propaganda operation is evident. The regime portrays SMEs as synonymous with the populace, although in reality, most Cubans don't access these businesses as a stable solution to their basic needs.

SMEs offer products often unavailable in the state market but at prices unaffordable for the average Cuban salary or pension. Many people rely on remittances to purchase from these businesses or are simply excluded.

The population doesn't control imports, sign contracts with CUPET, open companies in Miami, process remittances through Central Bank-authorized structures, advertise in official media, or decide which private actors can thrive.

The "people" argument is an emotional tool for the regime, not the primary beneficiary of the model.

Not All SMEs Serve the Regime

The conclusion shouldn't be oversimplified. Not all SMEs serve the regime. Not all entrepreneurs are fronts. Thousands of Cubans strive to survive and work amid blackouts, inflation, taxes, inspectors, legal insecurity, state restrictions, and arbitrariness.

However, the opposite narrative can't be accepted: that the Cuban private sector is a free, autonomous space separate from power.

In Cuba, any private actor reaching a certain scale, handling foreign currency, importing goods, accessing fuel, operating with banks, using ports, negotiating with state entities, or connecting with foreign companies, depends on regime permits, structures, and decisions.

This dependency is the crux of the issue.

When Díaz-Canel stated "the non-state sector is ours," he described a control framework. Subsequent reforms, cases of SMEs linked to power, official propaganda, social "co-responsibility," Miami business operations, and financial facades have only confirmed it.

The Trump administration's new measures don't stem from abstract hostility towards private enterprise. They arise from a political and practical recognition: in Cuba, the private sector can be exploited by the regime as economic lifeline, commercial facade, financial channel, propaganda tool, and sanction-evasion mechanism.

That's why Havana insists Washington is attacking the people. Because the real discussion places it in a worse position: if the non-state sector is "theirs," as Díaz-Canel claimed, it can't suddenly be presented as entirely independent when sanctions hit.

The 2021 statement has become an unintended confession. The regime wants the world to treat Cuba's private sector as autonomous in the face of Washington, but within Cuba, it controls it as part of its political project.

This insight helps explain OFAC's shift: not to punish the small entrepreneur, but to close the channels through which the Cuban totalitarian power could continue disguising as private what it never ceased to consider "ours."