Cuba's top trade official is calling out Washington's sanctions regime as the single biggest barrier to the island's historic free-market reforms — and dismissing reports that businesses tied to President Trump came knocking this year. For ordinary Americans, the question is simple: are decades of embargo policy serving U.S. interests, or just picking winners among connected players?
Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga told Reuters in Havana that neither he nor any other Cuban official met with representatives of Trump-linked businesses. "I have no knowledge of any company directly linked to President Trump having made contact with Cuba," he said.
The denial matters because Trump associates have pursued Cuban business before. In 2016, Trump business associates visited the island and met with top tourism officials to discuss opportunities, according to meeting minutes reviewed by Reuters. The Guardian noted the same denial but framed it as a brief item in a live blog, burying the implications of the double standard.
The bigger story is the squeeze. In June, facing renewed Trump administration pressure — including a January oil blockade that all but eliminated fuel imports from Mexico and Venezuela — Cuba unveiled unprecedented free-market reforms. Perez-Oliva called them the biggest shift since Fidel Castro took power in 1959. But he said the embargo stops progress cold.
"It is not our policy to prohibit US companies from investing in Cuba, trading with Cuba, or conducting business of any kind with Cuba," Perez-Oliva said. "What prevents this possibility is the existence of the trade embargo."
Washington says Havana's reforms don't go far enough and is demanding "free and fair" elections — a familiar bipartisan line that has accompanied the embargo for over six decades with no sign of regime change.
Perez-Oliva, whose maternal grandmother Angela Castro was Fidel Castro's elder sister, accused the administration of playing favorites: threatening Cuba's traditional international partners while carving out exceptions for U.S. investors. He pointed to a State Department policy allowing American companies to export fuel to Cuba's private sector — a move he framed as an attempt to force "colonial-era dependence."
"(The policy) is aimed at forcing Cuba's economic dependence," he said. "We will never again be a colony of any country."
The sanctions aren't just hitting Havana. Canada's Sherritt International suspended participation in a nickel and cobalt joint venture after a May executive order threatened sanctions on mining-related businesses. Australia's Antilles Gold, which holds a copper and gold mine, is also weighing its next move. U.S. investors have reportedly shown interest in both but haven't received exemption permits.
So the pattern is clear: the embargo blocks foreign competitors, dangles permits for American firms, and keeps the leverage in Washington's hands. U.S. News & World Report laid out the architecture; The Guardian touched it and moved on.
The stalemate leaves investors of all nationalities in limbo — and leaves American taxpayers funding a sanctions enforcement apparatus that has failed for over 60 years to produce the regime change it promises. Cuba's government hasn't crumbled, despite severe hardship and Trump's repeated predictions that it would.
The open question: if the embargo isn't working and the only companies positioned to profit are the ones Washington selectively approves, who is this policy actually serving?
