Cuba’s economic czar is begging for American exiles to invest as the country faces its largest economic crisis since its independence. Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said the country is “open” to an economic relationship with American companies and Cubans living in the United States in an interview with NBC on Monday.

While the war marches on in Iran, exiled Cubans in South Florida are keenly waiting, watching and wondering when the U.S. administration will turn its full attention south.

Cuban exile leaders have criticized reports of a possible agreement between Washington and Havana that could ease some U.S. restrictions while allowing members of the Castro family to remain on the island.

A deadly shootout in Cuban territorial waters is also reminiscent of the early 1960s, when Cuban exiles, trained and armed by the CIA, tried to infiltrate Cuba to conduct acts of sabotage and assassinate the leaders of the Cuban Revolution.

The Cuban immigrants sailed from the Florida Keys and wound up in a gunfight off Cuban shores. They were anti-Communist militants from fringe groups.