Can Cuba survive?

Disillusioned with the revolution after 68 years of US sanctions and a shattered economy, one in four Cubans have left the country in the past four years. Now it seems the Trump administration has the regime in its sights and its future is unclear

- Andrei Netto

HATRI ECHAZABAL ORTA LIVES IN MADRID, Spain. Maykel Fernández is in Charlotte, in the US, while Cristian Cuadra remains in Havana, Cuba - for now. All Cubans, all raised on revolutionary ideals and educated in good state-run schools, they have become disillusioned with the cherished national narrative that Cuba is a country of revolution and resistance. Facing a lack of political openness and poor economic prospects, each of them made the same decision: to leave.

They are not alone. After 68 years of partial sanctions and nearly 64 years of total economic embargo by the US, independent demographic studies suggest that Cuba is going through the world's fastest population decline and is probably already below 8 million - a 25% drop in just four years, suggesting its population has shrunk by an average of about 820,000 people a year.

There are a number of root causes for this exodus, but most experts agree that the blockade, decades of economic crisis, crumbling public services, political repression and widespread disillusionment with the revolution have merged to become a "polycrisis".

The unrest further undermines Cuba at a time when the Trump administration is stepping up its offensive across Latin America, heavily reinforcing US military deployment in the Caribbean, raiding Caracas to capture the Venezuelan president, and stepping up threats against the governments of Panama, Colombia and Cuba.

According to research by Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira, an economist and demographer at the Christian Centre for Reflection and Dialogue in Havana, and Dimitri Fazito de Almeida Rezende at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, the Caribbean nation's population is nowhere near the government's 2015 projection for last year - 11.3 million- and has even fallen below forecasts for 2050.