Cuba

On 3 and 4 September, Decree-Law 128/2026 and Decree 325 made it optional for foreign firms to recruit Cuban staff through the state employment agency. The change removes one barrier for investors seeking to employ workers directly.

On 18 June, Cuba had already legalised private banks, dollar accounts and non-bank payment institutions as part of a wider reform package. The hiring change extends that opening, but the state agency still controls exit permits and currency conversion, so Cuba retains decisive control over the workforce foreign firms depend on.

For Cuba, the 3 September US Treasury action put its state trade-finance bank under sanctions, alongside Fidel Ernesto Castro Calis and four traders in fuel and mining. The action reached trading intermediaries that help connect Cuba's state economy to external suppliers and payments.

On 4 June, Washington had also designated President Miguel Díaz-Canel, his family members and the armed forces ministry. For Cuba, the accumulating measures raise the cost of maintaining foreign commercial links, even where a counterparty is not itself named on a sanctions list.

On 27 August, Cuba faced a fault at the Felton power station disconnected eastern provinces from Holguín to Guantánamo and contributed to a forecast 2,060-megawatt deficit against 3,200 megawatts of demand. The outage showed that regional failures can still disrupt much of the island.

On 2 August, a Havana substation fault triggered Cuba's sixth full blackout of 2026 after seven generating units were already offline. For Cuba, recurrent failures constrain daily life, industry and tourism while leaving little operational reserve for repairs or new shocks.