Cuba’s communist government loosened restrictions on the country’s private sector as it looks to fend off a growing humanitarian crisis, though experts questioned whether the measures will make a substantial difference.
Living conditions in the Caribbean island — long among the worst in Latin America — have deteriorated sharply since Washington tightened its embargo on the country, part of the Trump administration’s “Donroe Doctrine” to exert greater US influence over the region.
Though regional leaders have criticized the policy’s wider tough-on-crime approach, including numerous military strikes on alleged drug traffickers, Washington sees it as necessary to defend the Western Hemisphere from “hard-left regimes that enabled narco-terrorists,” a top US defense official wrote in Americas Quarterly.