CubaThe prospect of another four years of President Bush in the White House brought sadness and anxiety to Cubans feeling the pinch of tightened US sanctions.
President Fidel Castro's government said it was unfazed by the re-election of Mr Bush, who has vowed to keep up pressure to free the island of the leader he has called a "tyrant".
"We expected this. It's all the same, Bush or Kerry. We will continue forward," said Industry Minister Mr Yadira Garcia, a member of the ruling Communist Party political bureau.
But on the streets of Havana, Cubans who depend on dollar remittances from relatives living in the US had pinned their hopes on Senator John Kerry relaxing restrictions.
"It means another four years of tensions. We are tired," said a Cuban teacher who receives money from family in Miami. In June Mr Bush cut back visits by Cuban-Americans to once every three years.
Only leading opponents of Mr Castro welcomed Mr Bush's victory, hoping his policy of tightening a four-decade economic embargo will bring the Cuban government to its knees.
"Cuba's economic crisis has no solution. The government is in the corner of the boxing ring gasping for air and Bush will deprive it of all the air he can," said dissident economist Ms Martha Beatriz Roque. "For the opposition, this is the best thing that could have happened," she said.
Since last year, the Bush administration has sought to undermine President Castro - in power since 1959 - with new travel restrictions and curbs on financial flows to Cuba.
Havana's response was to increase prices for consumer goods and put an end to the circulation of the dollar as legal tender, slapping a 10 per cent exchange fee on the American currency.
Foreign businessmen were disappointed that Mr Kerry lost because they see four more years of the US hounding investors and entrepreneurs from third countries who do business with Cuba.
Cuba watchers said Mr Bush's win in Florida, where former Bush administration housing secretary Mr Mel Martinez became the first Cuban-American to gain a seat in the US Senate, would reinforce his hardline stance on Cuba.
"This is the worst case scenario, Bush winning re-election and carrying Florida. It does not promise any relaxation of US sanctions, at least in the short term," said Mr Paolo Spadoni, an expert on Cuba, at the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Dissident Mr Vladimiro Roca said Mr Castro would use Mr Bush's victory to justify unpopular and repressive policies, and continue blaming US aggression for Cuba's difficulties.
On state-run television, government spokesmen criticised the US election as a "capitalist spectacle" costing millions of dollars. Cubans, who have been told daily that Mr Bush is a threat, followed the vote closely. "What more can Bush do to us - invade?" asked Lazaro Perez, buying the Communist Party newspaper Granma at a kiosk.