Business Dreams in Cuba Dimmed by Trump Action

HAVANA — For Yasser González, a software developer who now makes his living as a bike tour guide in Havana, the onset of American tourism has been akin to a second Cuban revolution.

For a nine-hour tour marketed by Airbnb, Mr. González, 31, can make as much as $700, in a country where the average state salary is about $20 a month.

“The majority of my clients are American,” he said. “With Airbnb, I have become independent.”

Such dreams were the sort of change the American government had in mind when President Barack Obama formally opened relations with the communist nation.

Now, many Cubans say, it is also the kind of economic transformation that could be threatened if President Donald J. Trump follows through on his decision to reverse core elements of Mr. Obama’s Cuba policies.

Mr. Trump wants to scale back the ability of Americans to travel to Cuba, which Mr. Obama had expanded. Mr. Trump is also curtailing transactions with companies controlled by the Cuban military, which largely runs the tourism industry.

Mr. Trump said the restrictions would force the Cuban authorities to embrace democracy by cutting off one of their most important lines of income — American dollars.

“For nearly six decades, the people of Cuba have suffered under Communist domination,” Mr. Trump said. “The previous administration’s easing of restrictions on travel and trade does not help the Cuban people. They only enrich the Cuban regime.”

But many Cubans say the entrepreneurs who have ridden the wave of tourism to a prosperity unthinkable even a few years ago will feel the brunt of the restrictions.

“They want to return to a failed policy,” said Carlos Alzugaray, a former Cuban diplomat in Havana. “The failed policy is that by punishing Cuba and the Cuban people, they can produce a regime change in Cuba. That was the old way of thinking, and that didn’t work.”

Hundreds of thousands of Americans have visited Cuba in the past two years, bringing an enormous infusion of cash into an anemic economy.

Under the new policy, Americans will be restricted from spending money at many military- controlled enterprises, like restaurants and hotels. That could seriously disrupt government revenue.

But the surge of visitors has been fed by a constellation of private restaurants, and many Americans

A policy that many say will hurt those it is supposed to help.

have chosen to stay in private residences through services like Airbnb instead of state-run hotels.

Many Cubans believe the Trump administration’s new policy will hurt those it is ostensibly meant to help: the average Cuban who has struggled under the weight of a battered economy for decades.

“It’s not just the people who have rental homes or who have a private business specifically targeted at an American audience like myself,” said Marla Recio, an event planner. “There are also the people who have simple cafeterias or beauty salons whose audience is mainly Cuban, and those people are also stimulated by the flow of people who bring money to the island.”