“With God’s help, Trump said, “a free Cuba is what we will soon achieve.”

Trump’s policy is thought to be borrowed from Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, both Republicans who represent many Cuban American voter, and both of whom have called for continuing the 50-year old trade blockade against Cuba. But Rubio and Diaz-Balart, and now the Trump administration, are in a shrinking minority.

Leading up to May 20—the date of Cuba’s 1902 independence from the U.S.—there was speculation Trump would use the moment to announce changes to U.S.-Cuba policy. When the day came and went without word, seven GOP representatives signed a letter last week that argued for keeping the current relationship on the grounds of national security. They cited nine bilateral agreements signed between the U.S. and Cuba since the thaw, including those that combat human trafficking, identification fraud, and drug smuggling. They also said if the U.S. didn’t expand into the Cuban economy, Russia and China surely would, as they’ve already begun to do. Republican voters, too, have come around, and overall more than 75 percent of Americans support the Obama administration’s policy. So why is Trump reversing it?

Much of Obama’s six major policy changes, starting in 2014, were done through executive order or regulatory changes, since only Congress can reverse the embargo. Most significantly, Obama loosened travel restrictions so that practically any American could visit Cuba, as long as their trip included educational activities, including people-to-people cultural exchange. The administration also opened trade, allowing certain medical supplies, telecommunication technology, and agricultural goods to flow between nations. At the embassy flag-raising ceremony, which announced the opening of U.S.-Cuba diplomatic relations, Secretary of State John F. Kerry said there’d been “too many days of sacrifice, and, sorry, too many days of suspicion and fear.” In March of last year, Obama made a historic visit to Cuba, the first sitting president to do so since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. And as the door to trade creaked open, U.S. companies took advantage.

On his trip, Obama mentioned an Alabama business that would “be the first U.S. company to build a factory here in more than 50 years.” He was speaking of two businessmen, Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal, whose proposal to assemble tractors in Cuba was the first approved by the administration. Obama spoke too soon, because Cuba rejected the project (possibly because the tractor technology was 70 years old). However the government has accepted many other U.S. companies since then, all of them eager to tap into the Cuban market. Starwood Hotels and Resorts struck a deal to manage hotels in Cuba. Technology companies like Airbnb let Cubans rent their homes to tourists, and last year some 600,000 Americans visited the island. To accommodate travel, airlines like JetBlue, Southwest, and American Airlines began some 20 flights per day to Cuban cities. In the Midwest, farmers looked on eagerly, hoping for an end to the embargo and the opening of Cuba’s speculated $1 billion agricultural market.