By Frances Robles, Ed Augustin and Hannah Berkeley Cohen
It wasn’t long ago that Havana’s Plaza of the Revolution was packed with American tourists knocking into each other with selfie sticks while taking photos of the iconic image of revolutionary Che Guevara and trying to catch a ride in a candy-apple red 1952 Chevrolet Bel-Air.
Today, those polished 1950s-era American convertibles that came to symbolize quintessential Cuba sit empty, the tourists they once carried largely gone.
The drivers spend their lives like most Cubans do: coping with prolonged power outages, standing in line at poorly stocked supermarkets and watching their friends, family and neighbors — sick of all the hardships — pack up and leave.
Ten years ago, President Barack Obama stunned the world by restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba, ending more than 50 years of Cold War estrangement between the United States and a country with which it had once been on the brink of nuclear war.
For 2 1/2 years, Cuba brimmed with enthusiasm amid a remarkable wave of investment and tourism, fueled by deals signed by major American companies such as Google, AT&T and Major League Baseball.
But a financial implosion caused by a cascade of factors — the tightening of U.S. policy by the Trump administration, Cuba’s mismanagement of its economy, the crushing effect of the COVID-19 pandemic — has kept visitors away and launched an immigration exodus of epic proportions.
Tourism, once a lifeblood of Cuba’s economy, has collapsed, down nearly 50% since 2017, with new U.S. visa regulations making it harder for even Europeans to travel there.
“The comparison between then and now is literally night and day,” said Luis Manuel Pérez, who works as a chauffeur.
A former engineering professor, Pérez, 57, once had a stream of customers who paid $40 an hour to ride in a classic car. Now, he’s lucky to land one a day.
“The difference is abysmal,” he said.
Many of the thousands of private businesses that the Cuban government allowed to open in recent years are trying to stay afloat after losing so many workers to migration. Streets are filled with garbage as fuel shortages impede trash pickup.
Many Cubans put it succinctly: 10 years ago, there was hope. Now, there’s despair.
“You go on the street, and people’s smiles are fading,’’ said Adriana Heredia Sánchez, who owns a clothing store in Old Havana.
Cuba’s unraveling underscores the United States’ oversized role in the country, and comes as Donald Trump is about to return to the White House: He has nominated Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a Cuba hard-liner, to be secretary of state.
By many measures, Cuba is suffering its worst crisis since Fidel Castro seized power 66 years ago, surpassing even the early 1990s when the dissolution of the Soviet Union left Cuba without its chief lifeline.
Cuba has suffered three nationwide blackouts since October. Official figures show the population has plunged by at least 1 million, or 10%, since the pandemic. More than 675,000 of those Cubans moved to the United States.
Even the infant mortality rate, which communist rulers had so proudly brought to levels lower than the United States, has been climbing.
Cuba was one of the few countries in Latin America touted for eliminating child malnutrition. But today its milk rations for children, as well as staples such as rice and beans, are often delivered late to state-run stores, if at all.
The sense of misery is a far cry from the excitement felt the week in 2016 when Obama attended a Tampa Bay Rays baseball game in Havana with Cuban President Raúl Castro.
“If Obama had run for president in Cuba, he would have been elected,” Jaime Morales, a tour guide in Havana, said laughing.
Obama also eased U.S. policy toward the island, allowing American cruise ships to dock in Cuba, more U.S. airlines to fly there and more Americans to visit.
Then, Trump reversed course. In 2018, after mysterious illnesses befell U.S. Embassy employees, which some believed to be an attack by a hostile nation, he sent so many workers home that it effectively closed the embassy. (The Biden administration reopened it in 2023.)
In his last days in office, Trump also returned Cuba to a list of state sponsors of terrorism, a designation severely limiting its ability to do business globally and that President Joe Biden kept in place.
Morales, 44, recalls that a ship was already at port when the cruise policy was revoked: He was at a pier waiting for passengers with reservations for his walking tours of Havana, but nobody disembarked.
“It was like a bucket of cold water in the face,” he said. “The fantasy had ended.”
Two senior Biden administration officials defended its Cuba policy, noting that Biden did reverse some restrictions. It lifted a cap on how much money Cubans in the United States could send home, increased flights and created more banking opportunities for Cuban entrepreneurs.
The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the administration did not authorize on-the-record interviews.
But Cuba, one of the officials said, never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Cuba’s harsh crackdown of a popular uprising in 2021 left hundreds of people in prison, which made it harder for Biden to justify easing restrictions, the official said.
Several Cuban American members of Congress who favored the restrictions also held considerable sway, and critics said the White House was concerned about the political landscape before November’s election.
Rubio and other Republicans who helped shape Trump’s Cuba policy did not return requests for comment.
The Cuban government said recently that Obama’s brief rapprochement was positive for the country, but it was followed by eight years of aggression. Officials on Friday held a large protest outside the U.S. Embassy.
José Ramón Cabañas Rodríguez, Cuba’s first ambassador to Washington when the embassies reopened in July 2015, said the United States was to blame for Cuba’s ills.
Many Cubans have grown tired of their government blaming Washington, said Arianna R. Delgado, a makeup artist who left Cuba this year for Miami.
“Let’s be clear: Cuba was always bad, but now the situation is not that there’s less; it’s that there’s nothing,” she said through tears. “Now it’s a concentration camp, and the whole world has to know it.”
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