Report: Cuba Has Purchased over $8 Billion Worth of Food from the U.S. Since 2001

Cuba’s communist regime, which regularly rants about the purported U.S. “embargo” hurting its economy, has purchased over $8 billion worth of agricultural and food products from the U.S. since 2001, the Madrid-based outlet Diario de Cuba reported on Monday.

For decades, the Cuban regime and its allies around the world have incessantly presented a false narrative that the United States’ “embargo” on Cuba is the one and only cause of all of Cuba’s shortcomings — and not the decades’ worth of failed communist policies, brutal repression, and gross mismanagement of the country’s infrastructure that has pushed the island-nation to the brink of complete ruin.

In reality, the “embargo” is a series of measures that mildly limit economic activity between the two countries yet does not hinder nor prevent the shipping of medicine or humanitarian supplies, especially in emergency situations, nor does it prevent Cuba from importing food from the United States.

Diario de Cuba explained that food purchases from the United States, which started as a “timid acquisition” during the rule of late dictator Fidel Castro, is now one of the “main markets for essential goods for Cuba.”

The outlet — citing statistical data from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, a private, non-profit, membership-based corporation — Cuba has so far spent $8 billion in food purchases from the U.S. since December 2001 when Fidel Castro authorized an initial $4.31 million purchase.

According to the data cited by Diario de Cuba, Cuba consistently spent hundreds of millions of U.S dollars every year in food purchases since that initial December 2001 purchase, something the outlet described as the “increased dependence” of Cuba on U.S. food. According to the data, 2008 stands as the year with the most dollars spent by Cuba on U.S. food purchases at over $710 million.

The organization noted that the data does not itemize “transportation charges, bank charges, or other costs associated with exports,” as the Cuban regime “reports unverifiable data that includes transportation charges, bank charges, and other costs.”

“Despite complaints from the regime that it has to pay for such imports in advance, given the absence of credit mechanisms between the two countries and the decades of debt accumulated by Havana, even with its allies, the millions needed to make the payments have not been lacking,” Diario de Cuba wrote.

Between January and September 2025, Diario de Cuba reported, the communist regime spent over $359 million purchasing food from the United States. This included increases of between five to eight percent between August and September, respectively. The amount represents a 15.58-percent increase from the roughly $310.96 million that Cuba reportedly spent during the first nine months of 2024.

Diario de Cuba stressed that, despite the million-dollar purchases, both the Castro regime and its state media avoid making mention of them while “playing the victim and blaming Washington for the shortages suffered by the island’s inhabitants.”

“Cuba imports food, medicine, and humanitarian goods freely, which is allowed by the embargo. In just the last year, U.S. exports to Cuba increased by 16%, with $585 million USD flowing into the island in 2024,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs explained in an October media post in both English and Spanish.

The State Department’s post was part of a broader social media campaign reminding its users that the “embargo” is not the cause of Cuba’s collapse but, rather, the result of the Castro regime’s disastrous communist policies.

The campaign was launched by the State Department in the days leading to this year’s quasi-traditional vote at the United Nations on a resolution condemning the United States’ “embargo” on Cuba and demanding its end. Unlike past editions of the yearly resolution, the 2025 edition saw the United States attract an unprecedented number of supporting countries against the resolution. Argentina, Hungary, Paraguay, North Macedonia, and Ukraine joined Israel, which has historically stood with the U.S. against the resolution, in voting against it.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.