Cuba invites back the diaspora it once rejected with a high-stakes economic reset.
Under mounting pressure from US sanctions, fuel shortages, and a collapsing state‑run apparatus, Havana has begun courting the very actors it once treated as adversaries: private entrepreneurs, foreign investors, and—most notably—the Cuban diaspora.
Last month, the government unveiled a package of reforms titled “On the Association Between State and Non‑State Business Entities.” Formalized through Decree‑Law 114/2025, the package establishes a new legal structure called the mixed limited liability company (SRL mixta), allowing foreign parties, private local businesses, and state‑owned enterprises to form joint ventures authorized to operate bank accounts, set prices and wages, and manage their own imports and exports.
Separately, the government announced that Cuban nationals living abroad—long excluded from ownership on the island—will now be permitted to open foreign‑currency accounts at Cuban institutions and own or partner with local businesses without the previously mandatory permanent‑residency requirement.
“There are no limitations,” said Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez‑Oliva Fraga, who is also minister of Foreign Commerce and Investment, in a state television interview.
Yet, with the state retaining control over strategic sectors and reserving the discretion to exclude certain ventures, the reforms stop short of a full embrace of market deregulation. Meanwhile, the US trade embargo remains in place, effectively blocking most dollar-denominated transactions unless an act of Congress fully lifts it.
The shift nevertheless marks a dramatic reversal for a state that for decades cast the private sector as a threat and exiles as political enemies. It comes as Cuba grapples with a Trump administration embargo that for months has blocked foreign fuel imports, forcing hospitals to postpone surgeries and plunging cities into rolling blackouts. In the vacuum left by the political leadership, private micro, small, and medium‑size enterprises—which now employ about 30% of the population—have become the island’s primary economic lifeline, supplying essential goods and services.
Whether this tentative opening represents a genuine transformation of Cuba’s economic and political model or a temporary concession by a government gasping for air remains uncertain. But for Trump, who has stated he wants to topple the Cuban government and claim the “honor of taking Cuba,” anything short of regime change may not be enough.
