Cuba entrepreneurs await Biden Cuba policy changes

In Cuba hopes are rising that US President Joe Biden will bring back the prosperity that the private tourism industry was beginning to see during the Obama administration. Many Cuban entrepreneurs are now "Waiting for Biden." Sanctions imposed by former US President Donald Trump, along with the COVID-19 pandemic, have devastated many privately-owned, tourist-oriented businesses on the island.

Trump reversed moves by his precedessor Barack Obama to ease restrictions on Cuba, and imposed new measures to curb flights and stop American cruise liners from visiting the island. The US cruise market briefly offered a lifeline for Cuban travel businesses. The first US cruise ship to visit Cuba for half a century docked in Old Havana in 2016.

By 2018 nearly 20 cruise lines carried 800,000 passengers to the island. Ships and flights from the US were received with great fanfare and excitement on the part of local residents. And then a year later, it all came to a screeching halt with a new Trump measure banning US cruise liners and heavily curtailing flights. The move has had a particularly severe impact on Cuban entrepreneurs who had invested during the Obama years expecting the rapprochement would last.

Rigoberto Romero owns nine horses and an antique carriage that he used to offer sightseeing rides for tourists disembarking from huge cruise ships in Old Havana. He would take them on scenic tours through cobblestone streets for US$30 to US$50 a time, or more, depending on the route. Those days have gone, for now at least.

Today he keeps his horses on the outskirts of the city far from the port. His carriage is warehoused in a building in the old city along with many others that have gathered dust for the past year and a half. Romero is counting on Biden to help bring the good times back. "Our job opportunities are practically based on the fact that relations with the United States will improve and the cruise ships will arrive again," he said.

Another company that's waiting for Biden is Cuba Educational Travel, which offers cultural and educational trips for Americans. It was founded by Collin Laverty, an American. During 2016 and 2017 his company arranged more than 5,000 visits a year, but the number has fallen sharply since then. He said he was confident that Biden would start by eliminating some of the Trump-era restrictions on trips which bring Americans and Cubans iton direct contact, such as sports events or concerts. "President Biden has said that the best ambassadors of the United States and U.S. policy are Americans and Cuban-Americans," Laverty noted. "So he's clearly supporting liberalising U.S. travel to the island."