Trump administration cancels Marriott’s license to run hotels in Cuba
BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES | JUNE 05, 2020
(Miami Herald) – Another Obama-era symbol of engagement with Cuba will soon be gone, after the Trump administration told Marriott International its license to run the Sheraton Four Points hotel in Havana will not be renewed.
The hotel, reopened under the Sheraton brand in 2016, was the only one in Cuba managed by an American company.
“We have recently received notice that the government-issued license will not be renewed, forcing Marriott to cease operations in Cuba,” said Kerstin Sachl, the company’s director of public relations for Latin America and the Caribbean.
Sachl said the Treasury Department told Marriott that operations in Cuba have to cease before Aug. 31 and that the company will not be allowed to manage other hotels on the island as it had planned.
The inauguration of the Four Points Sheraton hotel in 2016, the first run by an American company since 1959, became one of the symbols of the thaw in relations with the communist country under President Barack Obama.
The agreement generated criticism from the start because the hotel is owned by the Gaviota company, which is linked to the Cuban military…
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