Latin American Economy & Business - January 2017 (ISSN 1741-7430)

For Cuba, 2016 hardly finished on an auspicious note, with the death of Fidel Castro, the looming inauguration of Donald Trump as US president and, in late December, the announcement that the economy had contracted sharply in the second half of the year. This raises significant uncertainty about the outlook for 2017. In President Raúl Castro’s (pledged) last year as president, he may struggle to return the economy to growth and stabilise relations with the US, which could complicate the transition to a new leadership in early 2018.