HAVANA - Analysts on Friday described Cuba's fresh free-market steps as the broadest economic restructuring of the island's communist system since the revolution, while the grandson of former President Raúl Castro remarked in an interview that Cuba needs to advance its economy.

The 176 steps seek to further spread out Cuba's state-controlled economy, already strained by a stricter embargo under President Donald Trump. In the current setup, the government mainly decides what gets made, who makes it, the sale prices of goods and how national resources get distributed.

The plan opens more room for private firms, direct imports and exports without state involvement, free staff hiring, approval for private banks and investment from Cubans overseas. It even allows fast-food chains to set up operations on the island.

Features that for years counted as core parts of the revolutionary economy, including the state hold on foreign trade and the central control of production, have been taken apart, said Luis Carlos Battista, a Cuban-American political scientist and lawyer pursuing a doctorate at the University of Salamanca.

Cuban officials such as former President Raúl Castro, who retains strong influence, have tried earlier to advance narrower economic changes, yet these faced bureaucratic blocks. When approving the reforms, authorities warned that rollout may proceed slowly and added that the steps cannot work unless the U.S. ends its energy and financial embargo.

Since January, Cuba has faced a strict energy and financial embargo from the U.S. that cuts off fuel supplies, its chief energy source, and worsens a crisis that has grown over the past five years. Power outages have stretched to 20 hours daily and limited health care, transport and schooling.

U.S. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio confirmed they continue a maximum-pressure approach to alter the island's political and economic order, which has lasted six decades under U.S. actions. They have left open the option of military steps.

In an interview released Friday in the United Arab Emirates-based The National, Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, grandson of the revolutionary leader, repeated that Cuba does not pose even a minor threat to the U.S.

Rodriguez Castro stated in the video interview that Cuba's leadership seeks a very Cuban economic model.

Our nation must find a route to economic growth that requires us to broaden our economy, broaden our business methods and broaden our investment approaches, he said.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel noted that the suggested steps drew from reviews of the Vietnamese and Chinese models, both communist nations with market economies.

A major hurdle is likely to come from U.S. sanctions on Cuba, said Lee Schlenker, a research associate at the Quincy Institute in Washington.

These new steps, plus others probably under review, will deliver real impact only if paired with the gradual removal of U.S. bans and sanctions overall, he said.

Absent any lifting of sanctions, Schlenker and fellow analysts said many of the listed steps will stay unusable, mainly because of limits and bans placed on possible investors who face U.S. financial penalties for dealings with Cuba.

Other barriers could also slow major reforms, from investor doubts to what Battista, the Cuban-American analyst, termed slow and inefficient bureaucracy.

Even with these hurdles, the Cuban government has a brief period to deliver results, said Paolo Spadoni, associate professor in the Department of Social Sciences at Augusta University in Georgia.

If Cuban leaders aim to endure this unmatched crisis and U.S. pressure, they must act fast on reform rollout and visible gains, Spadoni said.