Last week President Trump acted on his commitment to undo Obama's opening of relations with Cuba.
"Effective immediately," Trump told a crowd of Cuban exiles in Miami, according to Fox News, "I am canceling the last administration's completely one-sided deal with Cuba."
Only, not so much.
And from the standpoint of the travel industry, that is a good thing.
Though Trump made plenty of fanfare for the benefit of the community he promised the rollback to, he actually did about the minimum he could have done to repeal Obama's opening of relations with Cuba and still be able to say he did something.
Essentially Trump cut off individual travel. Under Obama, individuals could visit without having to be part of an organized tour for the first time in decades.
That window was closed by Trump's executive order but nearly everything else Obama did still stands. Trump's move will have practically no effect on tour operators, airlines, cruise lines and hoteliers that were cringing at the prospect of their business in Cuba being cut off with the stroke a pen.
Now they are breathing a huge sigh of relief.
There is something in the FAQ sheet from the Office of Foreign Assets Control about prohibiting business with Cuban military, intelligence, or security services, but it is unclear what that will mean at this point. At worst, tour operators will make some adjustments in their itineraries regarding certain hotels. They will not let it stop them from providing the services they have been providing.
It does seem to be an uncharacteristically judicious political action for Trump. Some gesture was necessary to acknowledge his promise to the Cuban exile community in Florida and New Jersey who turned out notably for him during the election. He needed to make some overture toward them, and individual travel was the easiest low-hanging fruit.
I would prefer the barriers be taken down and Americans be free to travel to Cuba. But given the political climate, we who want freedom of travel to Cuba came out very well this time around.
It could have been much worse.
In terms of the market, changes made by Trump will have little net effect. The loss in one sector will be absorbed as a gain by another, and tourism to Cuba will continue to grow-though not necessarily as wildly as many had expected.
Some Cuban exiles will never accept rapprochement with the Cuban government until they feel personally compensated for their losses and Cuba is changed back to what it was before Castro. The chances of those two sides coming together are not good. We are likely to continue to be enmired in those conflicts.
But happily, travel to Cuba is still open.
Most of the progress towards opening Cuba made under the Obama administration continues largely unchanged. Americans and Cubans can continue to expand their personal, cultural and economic exchanges on the grassroots level. Cubans can continue to see a growth of opportunities to reap the benefits of free market economics through their own enterprises.
And some day, the time when Castro tried to put Soviet-style command economics into place in Cuba will be just a distant memory.
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