In Cuba, Trump’s Reversal Could Hurt Small Businesses<br />"But there are also the people who have simple cafeterias or beauty salons whose audience is mainly Cuban,<br />and those people are also stimulated by the flow of people who bring money to the island." Mr. Trump is taking aim at one of the principle changes made under Mr. Obama, who allowed Americans to organize trips to Cuba for cultural or educational purposes on their own, without special permission from the American government and without a licensed tour company.<br />And now, many Cubans say, it is also the kind of economic transformation<br />that could be threatened if President Trump follows through on his decision to reverse core elements of Mr. Obama’s Cuba policies, as Mr. Trump announced in a speech in Miami on Friday.<br />Trump said that For nearly six decades, the people of Cuba have suffered under Communist domination,<br />Mr. Trump and White House officials outlined several major reversals to Mr. Obama’s policies, most notably<br />scaling back the ability of Americans to travel to Cuba, which Mr. Obama had vastly expanded.<br />Marla Recio said that It’s not just the people who have rental homes or who have<br />a private business specifically targeted at an American audience like myself,<br />Policy analysts and Cuban citizens alike fear that many of the Americans traveling to Cuba — those most likely to dine at private establishments<br />and stay in private housing — will simply stop going if they risk breaking the law by doing so.<br />Mr. Trump said the restrictions would pressure the Cuban authorities to embrace democracy<br />and human rights by cutting off one of their most important lines of income — American dollars.
