HAVANA, Cuba – Eight days before U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on countries that supply Cuba with oil, 26-year-old twins Sandra and Sabrina Gonzalez received a shocking email.
“Due to U.S. regulatory requirements, Airbnb is required to deactivate certain listings. Unfortunately, this applies to your listing in Cuba…all future reservations will be canceled today,” the email, dated Jan. 21, said.
“At that point, all of our reservation dates were blocked and all reservations from January to April were automatically canceled,” said Sandra, who lives in Havana.
Sandra’s family has run two guesthouses through Airbnb since 2016, when Cuba’s tourism industry boomed following the historic normalization of diplomatic relations under former US President Barack Obama’s administration. Their business has weathered tourism sanctions during President Trump’s first term and the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
After further investigation, the sisters discovered that only Cuban hosts with US bank accounts linked to the list were affected.
To defuse the situation, they attempted to contact the guest directly, violating Airbnb’s rules, but were unsuccessful.
On February 8, Cuban authorities announced that the island’s jet fuel supplies had been depleted. Canadian airlines Air Canada, Air Transat and WestJet, as well as Russia’s Rossiya Airlines and Nordwind Airlines, have suspended flights to the island and arranged for the repatriation of nationals already in the country.
Canada and Russia are Cuba’s number one and number three sources of tourism, respectively.
Hostels, guesthouses and state-run hotels faced a surge in cancellations as President Trump’s de facto oil blockade left travelers unable to go to Cuba or reconsidering their plans.
The setbacks didn’t end there for Sandra and Sabrina. Their work as video producers was also interrupted and filming was canceled for the same reason. Both are currently considering moving to other professions.
“It’s tough when you suddenly find yourself in a situation where you have to look for a new job for less than half of your income,” Sandra said.
It is not in anyone’s interest to live in such conditions
The streets of Havana have changed in recent weeks. The city’s iconic taxis, 1950s American cars, have all but disappeared, leaving only Chinese-made electric three-wheelers struggling to meet demand.
On February 7, the Cuban government suspended fuel sales in local pesos and limited sales in US dollars to 20 liters (5.3 gallons) per vehicle, resulting in long waiting lists on Cuba’s online booking platforms.
The restrictions are part of a national contingency plan in response to oil blockades. The plan includes decentralizing fuel imports and giving any company, including private companies, the power to buy fuel overseas.
Meanwhile, with public transportation all but paralyzed, fares for private taxis, the main mode of transportation, have risen, and fuel prices on the black market have soared. Gasoline is already selling for the equivalent of $8 a liter (about $30 a gallon), a 400 percent increase since the week leading up to the Jan. 3 abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces. Venezuela supplied 30% of the oil it consumes thanks to a historic deal that sent thousands of Cuban doctors, nurses, teachers and other professionals to Venezuela in exchange for subsidized oil.
Cuba’s latest measures go beyond fuel. Many state employees have moved to remote work, others have been reassigned, and the work week has been shortened to four days. Non-urgent surgeries were canceled and university students were sent home.
Cuban economist Daniel Torralbas said sectors that rely directly on fuel, such as transportation and industry, would be hit the hardest. But all businesses, private and state-owned enterprises alike, are feeling the impact.
The island experienced a 16-hour power outage this week, with power restored to less than half of the country as of Thursday.
“This year will probably be the toughest year for the Cuban economy since the revolution,” he said.
Torralvas believes there is only one clear winner within Cuba in the current crisis. Those are “companies that offer solutions to problems caused by the crisis, such as companies that sell solar panels.”
It’s also benefiting people like 28-year-old Alejandro Candelaria. For the past six months, he has been working as a courier and taxi driver on an electric motorcycle left behind by his brother before moving to Spain. Now that fuel is scarce, competition has decreased and his income has increased.
But Candelaria is not feeling triumphant.
“There is no electricity, water or gas. It takes a toll on me mentally. Yes, I am benefiting from the lack of fuel, but living under these conditions is not in anyone’s interest,” he says.
Now I can go out, but I can’t move.
On the night of February 5, shortly after Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned of “difficult times” on television, 20-year-old Rafael Mena received a WhatsApp message ordering him to leave the university as soon as possible.
“This news caused a kind of catharsis among the students,” said Mena, a journalism student from Mayabeque province, east of the capital, who lived at the University of Havana because the Cuban system allows universities to accept students from remote and rural areas.
“The university dormitory was in unstable conditions for days. Transformers were broken, there was no water, and on top of the daily hardships we endure, the conditions were enough for someone to explode,” Mena said.
Students began returning home the next day, and within a week, many higher education institutions had already closed.
The government’s emergency response plan also introduced a “hybrid” teaching format for high school and university education.
According to official information Mena has obtained, students are expected to learn remotely and download materials from institutions in their communities, but Mena suspects that “hybrid” in this case is just a euphemism.
“This whole situation is just like during COVID-19. Back then, we were confined to our homes because we could get sick if we went out. Now we can go out, but we can’t move around much because it costs too much,” Mena told Al Jazeera.
This week, the U.S. Treasury announced it would allow some Venezuelan oil to be resold to Cuba for “commercial and humanitarian uses.” However, it is not clear whether companies will be able to pay that market price.
Torralvas is not optimistic about Cuba’s economy. The island’s GDP has shrunk by 15% over the past five years, and life expectancy, infant mortality, education and public health indicators have all worsened. He expects the government will have to introduce further measures to weather the impact of the US oil blockade.
“Given the seriousness of the situation, there is no way to recover without structural changes. We need fuel, food, foreign exchange… and no external savior will come who will provide everything Cuba needs. Neither China nor Russia will come, and of course neither will Venezuela, which has changed a lot since January 3.”
