LatinNews Daily - 17 July 2026

*Cuba’s council of state, the state’s highest decision-making body, has approved two new decrees in line with the package of sweeping economic reforms announced last month. The reforms were approved as part of efforts to appease the US, which is piling unprecedented pressure on Havana to push for its economic and political opening. One decree seeks to regulate the general principles of the organisation and functioning of the state business system in order to transform and develop it, under the national institute of state-owned enterprise assets (Inaee) which was created on 29 June to overhaul the state business model. The other decree includes new regulations on agricultural cooperatives. The latest decrees follow other recent measures announced earlier this month such as plans to simplify the process for granting land under usufruct (the right to use and profit from another person's property).