A restriction on US dollar cash deposits in Cuban banks was unexpectedly lifted on Monday.
Cubans couldn’t deposit cash into bank accounts for almost two years.
“Continuing challenges created by the ongoing US embargo” prompted the 2021 Cuban ban.
Cuba is experiencing its greatest economic crisis in decades.
Cubans are waiting in huge lines for food, medicine, and gas due to shortages.
On Monday, Cuba’s Official Gazette published the BCC’s resolution, which takes effect immediately.
The prohibition was lifted due to tourism growth and the “gradual revival of the service industry and the productive sector,” not Cuba’s economic issues.
The resolution also said that “economic pressure” from the US, which led to the embargo, continued and that “the source of the problem” had not been handled.
Cuba has been under US sanctions for over 60 years, but the Trump Administration reinforced them.
Cuba’s Central Bank struggled to locate international banks to accept dollars from the Communist-run country due to restrictions.
While President Joseph Biden has maintained Trump-era sanctions, Cuban and US officials have been meeting to discuss the increasing number of Cubans wanting to come to the US.
After a record 220,000 Cubans were caught illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in 2022, the two countries want “a safe, orderly, humanitarian, and regular migration between Cuba and the United States.”
Wednesday’s “high-level meeting” in Washington will examine migration between the two nations.
