The issue of allowing emigrants to invest in island businesses is a sensitive one for Cuba, which has long viewed an often hostile segment of the exile community with suspicion. Cubans living on the island have been allowed to open and operate private businesses since 2021, but nationals living off the island were excluded. Paolo Spadoni, an economist with Augusta University and author of the 2014 book Cuba’s Socialist Economy Today, called the policy shift “pragmatic”, but said Cuba should have initiated it years ago on its own, rather than now, under “maximum pressure” from the US. “We have reiterated on several occasions that Cuba’s doors are open to investment from the Cuban community residing abroad. He said Cuba was especially interested in investment in agriculture, similar to the way Vietnamese companies have been producing rice in Cuba, albeit under conditions of usufructuary, meaning title to the land would remain in state hands. More than 1 million Cubans have emigrated from the island since 2021, the largest exodus since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, and a source of potential investment still largely untapped.