Economic freedom is the key to other kinds of freedom. Consider what happened when the Obama administration loosened some of the rules on American travel to Cuba as part of an effort to reestablish diplomatic relations. Even with the trade embargo still in place, that slight policy change induced then–Cuban President Raul Castro to relax state controls on private commerce. While accurate figures on Cuba’s economy are understandably difficult to come by, a 2017 Brookings Institution report estimated that “the number of authorized self-employed people (cuentapropistas) rose from some 150,000 in 2008 to about 580,000 in 2017.”

Increasing entrepreneurship reduces Cubans’ reliance on the Communist state. And when people are allowed a little freedom, they tend to want more of it.

Since taking over as Cuba’s president in 2018, however, Díaz-Canel has cracked down on the island’s private sector. Former President Donald Trump inadvertently helped him by reversing some of Obama’s attempts to normalize relations between the two countries and by slapping new economic sanctions on Cuba just before leaving office in January 2021.

Biden could undo those Trump-era policies even without the congressional approval that would be necessary to end the full embargo.