Cuba's Communist Party has approved an emergency package of far-reaching economic reforms that mark a dramatic departure from the socialist model the Caribbean island has maintained since 1965. The measures, endorsed by the party's Central Committee and sent to the National Assembly — where passage is all but certain — would expand private enterprise, open the finance sector to private banks, allow private real estate development, and permit state-owned companies to be converted into private ventures with shares and equity stakes. Foreign investment, including from the millions of Cubans who have emigrated abroad, would also be actively courted.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in a nationally broadcast address to the Central Committee, made his most candid acknowledgment to date that Cuba's crisis is not solely the result of external pressure. While the United States has maintained a trade embargo on Cuba for more than six decades — and the Trump administration since January has intensified that pressure by blocking fuel deliveries to the island — Díaz-Canel pointed equally to domestic failures. He cited