Cuba also said it was removing obstacles to U.S. companies and other foreign investors.
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Published March 17, 2026
Cuba is inviting Cuban-Americans living abroad and other exiles to invest and own businesses on the island, saying its “doors are open” to communities that have traditionally campaigned for tough economic sanctions against the communist government.
Cuba also said Monday it was removing obstacles to U.S. companies and other foreign investors, but noted that U.S. law still impedes trade and investment under a long-standing economic embargo aimed at punishing the Havana government.
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“There are no restrictions,” Cuba’s Deputy Prime Minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, who is also head of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, said in an interview on state television.
Cuba desperately needs to rebuild its shattered economy, but a U.S.-imposed oil blockade and sanctions have worsened its plight, resulting in prolonged power outages and shortages of fuel, food and medicine.
The policy shift shows flexibility days after Cuba acknowledged it had begun talks with the United States, and officials from President Donald Trump’s administration privately told reporters that the United States was seeking to open its economy as part of a bilateral agreement.
The issue of allowing immigrants to invest in the island’s businesses is a sensitive one for Cuba, which has long viewed hostile sections of the exile community with suspicion. Most defectors are long-standing supporters of the embargo.
Cubans living on the island were allowed to open and operate private businesses starting in 2021, but Cubans living outside the island were excluded.
Paolo Spadoni, an economist at Augusta University and author of the 2014 book “Cuba’s Socialist Economy Today,” called the policy change “realistic,” but said Cuba should have initiated the change on its own years ago, rather than now under “maximum pressure” from the United States.
“Although significant obstacles remain, this change could be the catalyst for deeper economic ties between the United States and Cuba, and could present significant opportunities for American companies,” Spadoni said. “Even so, this is an important and potentially fruitful first step.”
“Open to investment”
Pérez Oliva Fraga, who previously revealed some details of the plan in an interview with NBC News, said that “depending on the scope of the business,” Cubans living abroad could “fully participate in different areas of the country’s development.”
“We have reiterated several times that Cuba’s doors are open to investments from the Cuban community living abroad, and when we say that, we are not referring only to small ventures, but also to the possibility of investing in larger projects,” said Pérez Oliva Fraga.
He said Cuba was particularly interested in investing in agriculture, similar to how Vietnamese companies produce rice in Cuba, albeit under usufruct rights, which mean ownership of the land remains in state hands.
More than 1 million Cubans have emigrated from the island since 2021, the largest exodus since Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959, and potential investment sources remain largely untapped.
President Trump has halted oil shipments from Venezuela to Cuba and threatened to impose tariffs on countries that sell oil to Cuba, hurting already depressed production and investment.
President Trump has made a series of statements in recent weeks that Cuba is on the brink of collapse or is eager for a deal with the United States. He escalated his remarks on Monday, saying he expected the “honor” of “involving Cuba in some way” and that he “can do whatever he wants” with the neighbor.
