HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s government and independent online news site El Toque exchanged blows this week after state-run media accused the website of manipulating the black market currency exchange rate to impoverish Cubans and stoke unrest on the Caribbean island.
The El Toque site (eltoque.com) has enraged the administration of Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel by publishing a rate in Cuban pesos for the greenback far higher than the two official levels set by his government.
Cuba’s state-run media this week ratcheted up its long-running criticism of El Toque, claiming the site’s currency tracker – by far the most widely used on the island – amounts to “financial terrorism.”
“El Toque is secretly financed by the United States and establishes a false value of the peso in relation to the dollar,” said a story in the state-run media outlet CubaDebate. “The strategy aims to foment (large-scale) protests in Cuba.”
The U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the allegations.
The spat over the currency tracker comes as Cuba’s peso currency has lost nearly half its value against the dollar in 2024 alone, according to El Toque, a devastating freefall that has slashed the buying power of Cubans already rattled by economic crisis, inflation and shortages.
Cubans covet increasingly pricey dollars as a safe haven against currency shocks, as well as for migration and purchase of food and fuel on an island increasingly dependent on the greenback.
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