Cuba Crisis: Meliá Books US$8.7 Million Loss on Exit, Bahamas Drops 31 Cuban Teachers as US Aid Flies In

CUBA · ECONOMY

The Cuba crisis is now showing up in corporate balance sheets and foreign payrolls: Meliá has booked a €7.5 million loss on its exit from the island, the Bahamas is sending 31 Cuban teachers home, and US aid is arriving — but only through the Catholic Church.

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Meliá Counts the Cost of Three Decades in Cuba

Meliá Hotels International lost €7.5 million (about US$8.7 million) in the first half of 2026, a sharp reversal from the €75.4 million (about US$87.4 million) profit of the same period last year. The cause is a single item: a €79.4 million (about US$92.1 million) provision for the definitive closure of its Cuban operations, effective 24 July.

The write-off is accounting, not cash. Without it, recurring net profit stood at €83.5 million (about US$96.8 million), roughly in line with 2025, while consolidated revenue grew 7.1 percent to €1,047.4 million (about US$1.21 billion). Consolidated net profit including minority interests fell 95.4 percent to €4.1 million. Euro figures here are converted at the ECB reference rate of 31 August (EUR 1 = US$1.16).

“The strength of our operations and the sustained improvement in our recurring profits are the best foundation to compensate for this effect and continue generating value for our shareholders,” said chairman and CEO Gabriel Escarrer. The company said the provision does not touch liquidity, investment capacity or future dividends.

The exit had been telegraphed. In June, Meliá had already stopped operating 15 of the 34 hotels it managed on the island, as first-quarter tourist arrivals ran 48 percent below the same period of 2025. Its subsidiary Ilha Bela decided between June and July to end all activity, citing “severe operational, legal, economic and financial difficulties.” Ceiba Investments, a Cuba-focused fund, said it expects only a “minimal” additional impact from Meliá’s termination of its remaining contracts.

The Bahamas Sends 31 Cuban Teachers Home

The government of the Bahamas will not renew the contracts of 31 Cuban teachers for the 2026-2027 school year, The Tribune reported. The teachers, who worked in short-staffed technical fields such as welding and agriculture, learned of the decision at a meeting in the Breezes resort shortly after arriving for the new term.

“Our priority remains the recruitment and hiring of qualified Bahamian educators,” the Ministry of Education said, while leaving the door open to foreign hires where no local candidates exist. Frazette Gibson, the member of parliament for Central Grand Bahama, criticized the way the decision was communicated and warned of damage to running programs.

Cuban medical staff face the same uncertainty. The Public Hospitals Authority has stopped extending contracts except for Cubans with their own legal status or married to Bahamian citizens; only 35 Cuban health professionals remained in the country as of July. Health Minister Michael Darville confirmed that talks with US officials are ongoing and that he met Cuban ambassador Juan Carlos Marcof Sánchez to discuss next steps. Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell declined to say whether Washington’s pressure drove the decisions.

That pressure is documented. Washington says Havana retained between 83.9 and 91.6 percent of what the Bahamas paid per doctor — up to US$12,000 per month per specialist, of which the professional received only US$990 to US$1,200. In July the United States sanctioned Cuba’s minister of public health over the scheme, which it classifies as forced labor; in April the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recommended that regional governments withdraw from the programs. Cuban medical personnel abroad have fallen to between 15,000 and 18,000 in 51 countries, from about 24,000 in more than 58 countries in early 2025 — missions in Honduras and Jamaica ended earlier this year.

US Aid Arrives — Through the Church, Not the State

A cargo plane carrying 18 tonnes of humanitarian aid flew from Miami to Havana on 21 July, the first shipment of a US$100 million program announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in May. The cargo — hygiene kits, food, flashlights and water-purification tablets — covers 700 households in a first phase, with a total target of 196,000 families.

The condition is the channel: neither the Cuban government nor its military may handle distribution. Priests and parish members of the Archdiocese of Havana deliver the goods directly, with Caritas and other faith-based partners — a model Rubio had already discussed with Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican in May. The State Department’s Amanda Roberson said the program comes on top of US$9 million for victims of Hurricane Melissa, which prompted a first series of church-partnered relief flights in January.

Havana accepts the aid while rejecting its framing. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Cuba would receive it “without ingratitude,” and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez countered: “If they truly had humanitarian concerns, they would lift the energy blockade.” A telling detail: the US charter carried its own fuel for the return flight, since none is reliably available on the island.

What It All Says About the Cuba Crisis

The Cuba crisis has deepened relentlessly since 30 January, when Washington’s executive order 14380 cut off fuel supplies to the island — weeks after its main oil patron, Venezuela‘s Nicolás Maduro, was ousted. The result: the sixth nationwide blackout in early August, provinces down to four hours of electricity a day, and a tourism industry that had been Cuba’s last reliable source of hard currency now losing its flagship foreign operator.

Meliá’s departure after more than three decades is a milestone: the largest Western hotel brand in Cuba has judged the country unmanageable even at book-value cost. Labor exports, long the other pillar of state revenue alongside tourism, are shrinking under US visa pressure and sanctions, from the Bahamas to Honduras and Jamaica.

Washington, meanwhile, is combining the squeeze with an outstretched hand that bypasses the state — US$100 million in church-distributed aid, satellite internet offers and quiet contacts, including a May visit to Havana by CIA Director John Ratcliffe. For ordinary Cubans, the immediate arithmetic is stark: less fuel, less light, fewer tourists, and aid that arrives by parish.

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