Not all is lost

In a fact sheet and briefings by White House officials, the administration said the new Cuba policy will prohibit any commercial transactions with the island nation’s economically powerful military. U.S. citizens will be barred from staying in military-owned hotels, although they are free to stay in private homes or lodgings not owned by the military.

Tourist travel has been prohibited for decades, but Americans were long allowed to travel in groups licensed by the Treasury Department for specific purposes such as education, religion, professional conferences and sports.

Under President Barack Obama’s changes, individual Americans could “self-declare” their compliance with the Treasury regulations and travel alone. A new category of “people to people” exchanges provided a loophole under which many Americans have visited Cuba over the past two years.

Under Trump’s proposed changes, the “people to people” category will revert to group-only travel.

Although the regulations have yet to be written, senior White House officials, who were authorized to brief reporters on the condition of anonymity, said that other categories of authorized travel will remain open to individuals. The new regulations are also expected to call for stricter enforcement of Treasury’s role in auditing whether Americans are doing what they say they are doing in Cuba.

But much of the Obama policy will remain the same, including the maintaining of the diplomatic relations established between the two governments, the ability to use American credit cards in Cuba, U.S. airline flights and cruises to the island and commercial ventures in areas such as communications that do not include the military.