Jarring photo of Air Force One flying over Cuba displays a virtual time warp
On Sunday, President Barack Obama touched down in Cuba, becoming the first president since Calvin Coolidge in 1928 to visit the island nation.
READ MORE: Obama meets Castro in the heart of revolutionary Havana
The president announced in 2014 that the U.S. would normalize relations with Cuba, ending the decades-long freeze between the two nations, and setting the stage for an official presidential visit this year.
Minutes before the president and the U.S. delegation touched down in Cuba, Reuters captured this picture of Air Force One flying over a neighborhood in Havana:
A post shared by Reuters (@reuters) on Mar 21, 2016 at 3:14am PDT
The photo captured the unique developmental situation that Cuba has found itself in since the U.S. severed ties with Cuba in 1961.
The vintage cars in the photo are commonplace in Cuba, which for much of the past 50 years saw trade embargo with the U.S. and other Western nations.
American companies were barred from doing business in Cuba in 1962, after the Castro regime came to power. The regime was too poor to import significant numbers of new cars from its allies in Europe and Asia, meaning that many Cubans' cars are still pre-embargo, American-made relics.
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