Since 1959, when Fidel Castro seized power, Cubans on the island have endured navigating a system defined by scarcity, surveillance and state control. Today, that system is under a level of strain not seen perhaps since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, when the island lost its primary economic lifeline.
Now, as Havana calls on Cuban exiles to invest in the island, many in the United States are rejecting the offer outright, viewing it as a desperate move by a government under mounting pressure.
Earlier this week, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and minister for foreign trade and investment who is also a great-nephew of Fidel and Raúl Castro, said in a televised appearance…