Foreign Affairs

Cuba Begs For American Exile Money As Communist Regime Faces Crisis

[Wikimedia Commons/Public/Knomrm]

Cuba’s economic czar is begging for American exiles to invest as the country faces its largest economic crisis since its independence.

Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said the country is “open” to an economic relationship with American companies and Cubans living in the United States in an interview with NBC on Monday. Fraga told NBC the United States’ blockade “is undoubtedly an element that affects the development of these transformations.”

“The blockade deprives us of access to financing, access to technology, access to markets and in recent years, it has specifically been aimed at depriving our country of access to fuel,” Fraga said during the interview.

Extensive blackouts alongside energy and food shortages, led to protesters throwing rocks at and setting a fire outside a Communist Party headquarters in the city of Morón on Saturday.

The island nation’s communist regime has reportedly not received a shipment of oil in three months, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a Friday address.

Díaz-Canel also confirmed reports that the Cuban government has been in contact with American diplomats.

President Donald Trump said the regime was in “its last moments of life” in an address at the Shield of the Americas Summit on March 7, claiming the country doesn’t “have any oil” or “any money” following the U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January.

Cuba is heavily reliant on external energy sources, importing 66% of its energy supply in 2023 according to the International Energy Agency.