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In total, Gaviota, which belongs to the Armed Forces Business Administration Group (GAE), is offering 18,768 rooms, the majority of them with a five-star or five-star-plus rating, compared to the 5,782 for Gran Caribe and 3,838 for Islazul, which depend on the Ministry of Tourism. A single night in one of Gaviota’s five star hotels ranges from 100 to 140 Cuban convertible pesos (roughly the same in dollars).

In the last two years the number of rooms and hotels with five-star ratings that Gaviota manages has not stopped growing.

“We are witnessing a slow-motion piñata that the Obama Administration is encouraging,” says Sebastian Arcos, a professor at the Cuban Research Institute of Florida International University (FIU).

For Arcos, the trade fair has made clear that the interest of Raul Castro’s government is not to solve the nation’s need for growth, “but its own oligarchic interests.”

“The Cuban economy has been militarized since the eighties and this fair confirms it,” he adds.

The International Fair of Havana is held every year in November. Since 2014 the Cuban government has been presenting a portfolio of opportunities to convince investors to do business with the island. This year the proposals have been on the order of 9.5 billion dollars.

The latest portfolio offers 395 projects gathered in 14 economic lines, among which Cuba prioritizes tourism, agri-food and energy. The document has 69 more initiatives than in 2015 and 149 more than in 2014.

Everleny Perez, one of the defenders in Cuba of the Raulista reforms, who was expelled from the Center for Studies of the Cuban Economy last April, says that basically the Fair was “more of the same.”

“Where are the 325 Cuban products exhibited? Where are they sold?” asked the doctor of economics who also questioned Cuba’s capacity to produce for a foreign importer, taking into account the difficulties in accessing raw materials in the Cuban market.

For Pérez, the absence of a real liquidity capacity on the part of Cuban companies hinders the negotiation process. “Foreigners exhibit products, but Cubans have no cash to buy them,” he says.

Cuban companies receive allocations in dollars from the Government for their transactions. These do not necessarily correspond to the profits of the company and limit its ability to buy.

Another important element, the economist says, is the number of proposals that have passed from one year to the next without finding investors.

The system of employment, whereby foreign companies contract directly with Cuban government employment agencies for workers, not with the workers themselves, is one of the brakes. The system discourages investors because they have to pay a high cost for labor, only about a third of which is paid to the workers with two-thirds retained by the Cuban government.

Despite three years since the appearance of the first portfolio of opportunities, projects such as a light car factory in Mariel, which would allow the manufacture of “a minimum” of 10,000 units, fail to pass from desire to reality.

“There are several obstacles to investment in Cuba, one of them is the slow pace of negotiations, which requires approval of the Council of Ministers or the State Council. How is it possible that a year later they have only laid the cornerstones of two factories in Mariel,” Perez asks, referring to the Mariel Special Development Zone and the Brascuba project of 100 million dollars as well as the Unilever project of 35 million.

Since the 2014 Law on Foreign Investment came into force, Cuba has approved 83 projects of around 1.3 billion dollars, a very distant figure from the 2.5 billion annually that the country needs to emerge from its economic coma; this year the country is not expected to reach a 1% growth rate in gross domestic product.

In the Mariel Special Development Zone just 19 projects are approved, of which only seven are in operation and none represents the large investments that were expected.

To Everleny Perez, “the country needs to return to the economic dynamics of changes that supposedly led to the coming to power of Raul Castro.”

For Sebastian Arcos, meanwhile, tomorrow will come to the Cuban economy through integration with the United States.

“That Cuba is less than an hour’s flight from the US cannot be changed by anyone, not even Fidel Castro. In the recognition of this natural market is the future of the island,” said Arcos.

The vast majority of Cubans with deportation orders are awaiting an immigration agreement between the two countries to be returned to their country of origin, something that not even the administration of President Barack Obama has achieved.

Cuba, along with China, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Somalia, is one of the countries considered “recalcitrant” by the Department of Homeland Security in rejecting the return of its deported citizens. The president-elect himself noted, in a campaign rally in Phoenix in September, that up to 23 countries refuse to accept the return of their citizens expelled by the United States. “That will not happen to me,” said the then candidate without explaining how he would force the measure.

The Immigration and Nationality Act requires the State Department to cancel the visas of immigrants and tourists to these countries, but in practice it has only happened once, according to The New York Times. Allen considers it plausible that this is the mechanism that Trump will use as leverage.

“In the end, the injured party will be the Cuban government. If it maintains its position not to accept the deportees, a conflict could be established with the current administration. If they accept it, it comes to thousands of people who need to be reintegrated in the society, which involves a considerable effort and resources, which would have consequences on domestic politics,” he explains.

If the Trump administration opts for this measure, thousands of people would be affected. In 2014 alone, 54,286 Cubans received tourist visas to visit the United States, not counting the 20,000 emigrant visas awarded by the American embassy in Havana.

In 2014 Maria Luisa Suarez received a multiple-entry visa valid for five years, to visit her brother in Miami. Although she had planned to make the trip just for family reasons, the opportunity to bring goods to the island has multiplied her trips to the United States, and she now makes a living on this clandestine trade that sustains the Cuban economy. Once a year she takes advantage of the measure that allows Cuban citizens to pay taxes on imports in local currency (rather than in hard currency) and in the rest of her travels she manages to evade the controls, bringing everything from lighter parts to shoes, coffee and clothes.

Suarez makes one or two trips a month. In addition to buying cheap in Miami and reselling in Cuba, she is part of a network that sends remittances to the island “without charging a penny.” She explains she receives remittances from people’s families in the United States in dollars, and when she arrives in Cuba she pays the families in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC), which allows her to compete with Cadeca, the chain the Cuban government maintains on the island to “collect” hard currency.

“With Trump now, this is going to be difficult,” she says fearfully.

A Cuban-American businessman with investments in Cuba explained, on condition of anonymity, that he does not believe that he will be able to continue his business under Trump. “These migratory movements are by agreement of both countries, but Cuba has made it known it does not want those people,” he says.

“If Trump did this it would lead to an extreme situation in Cuba. The country needs the United States now more than ever. In conversations far from the microphones, Cuban officials acknowledge it,” he adds.

The Cuban-American Juan Chamizo doesn’t think things will end in a disaster. He manages the Vedado Social Club, a project that promotes intercultural exchanges between the two countries. “Trump is a president who doesn’t come from politics, he comes from business and he knows how business works,” he says.

For Chamizo, responsible for concerts such as those of the musician Carlos Varela in Miami, the cultural exchange “is something that benefits both parties.”

“This way Cuba has been more exposed to the world and the people have seen what American culture is. I do not think Trump’s policy will change that,” he added. For the manager, economic interests will eventually prevail.

Lorenzo Palomares, a constitutional lawyer and active supporter of Donald Trump in South Florida, believes, however, that Trump’s threat is serious. “I feel fabulous that they will be deported,” he says.

“Cuba takes the spies when they’re discovered, but it won’t take the Medicaid thieves or the drug traffickers. Permanent residence is subject to good behavior. If you violate the laws you have to go back to your country,” he adds.

Palomares also agrees with the president-elect about the possibility of eliminating the Wet Foot/Dry Foot policy, which Trump called “unfair” last February, in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times during his campaign.

In the 12 months of the fiscal year ended September 30, more than 50,000 Cubans arrived in the United States, as confirmed to 14ymedio by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, a state of affairs Palomares finds unacceptable.

“If Cuba wants anything to do with the United States, it had better accept [the return] its citizens,” he says.