The island that for decades lived off sun, seas and nostalgia for old cars is now watching its tourism fall apart. In the first five months of 2026, Cuba took in fewer than 360,000 foreign visitors - a drop of fully 58.4 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the Cuban statistics bureau.

There's a clear strategy behind the number. Donald Trump's administration is targeting tourism specifically - a key source of revenue for the Cuban government - through tightened sanctions. The result is that airlines and hotel chains are abandoning the island one by one. Air Canada suspended its flights indefinitely citing "lasting political and economic uncertainty", while the Spanish hotel groups Meliá and Iberostar shut down numerous properties ahead of the deadline Washington set for cutting ties with Gaesa, Cuba's military-controlled conglomerate.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Gaesa of operating like a "state within a state" and of "piling up profit for a small elite" while treating anyone who complains with repression. Still, as ever with sanctions, the question is who really pays in the end - the elite being targeted, or the ordinary person who depends on it?

And the reality on the street is frightening. Cuba faces shortages of fuel, medicine and rationed food. The survival rate of children with cancer has fallen from 85 to 65 percent since January. Power cuts triggered rare public protests, and the scarcity runs so deep that even the communion wafers in monasteries are running out. The Balkans know this story up close - when geopolitics is played through a people, it's the most vulnerable who suffer first, and the ones who designed the game are the last to be asked anything.