Jon Lee Anderson

He said, do you think he would stop?

El Trump Varadero, he said, it has a ring to it.

And people both said that cynically, but also genuinely.

They actually thought, because they've heard so much about his famous transactionalism and his pecuniary motivations, apparently, and some of his policy initiatives.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, in the, I think it was 2013, the Trump organization sent people down, executives down to the island to explore the potentials for golf courses, marinas, etc.

Nothing came of it, as far as I know, but they had meetings.

So that's there.

Yeah, look, it was shockingly bad.

I was there also last year in May, which was also, and I had not been in a couple of years, and I found that return just, you know, very revealing because I had been hearing about the exodus from Cuba since 2021.

Up to 20% of the population is believed to have left.

And the emptiness of the island is what struck me on that occasion.

I'm talking about nine months ago now.

And then when I returned this time, it had worsened significantly.

So there were very few tourists, which of course is an important source of foreign revenue for Cuba.

back in may and when i returned at the beginning of this year there was literally almost none i mean i i found there's a few chinese here and some jazz enthusiasts from new york there and that was kind of it and almost the you know the the squeeze on on gas with him had already begun and

And so there were many, much fewer vehicles on the road.

There's always been very little in Cuba, and now there was almost none, as well as some Chinese three-wheelers.

And if you leave Havana, the city itself, you find a lot of horse carts, much as you might have found in the 1920s or the 1890s.