Cuba’s Impending Collapse
Cuba’s Energy Crisis Deepens Amid U.S. Tariffs
By Charles Kennedy
- U.S. tariff threats and sanctions have curtailed oil shipments from Venezuela and Mexico, tightening Cuba’s fuel supply.
- Rolling blackouts, hospital disruptions, and suspended airline refueling highlight the severity of the island’s energy shortage.
- The government is rationing fuel, cutting transport and tourism operations, and seeking alternative supply sources to prevent collapse.
Cubans are struggling with blackouts and fuel rationing amid President Trump’s campaign to provoke regime change by choking off the energy supply of the island nation, which is heavily dependent on fuel imports.
Trump last month threatened to impose tariffs on any country that sends oil to Cuba, labelling the island “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security. He noted the Cuban government’s relations with Russia, China, and Iran as evidence of that threat, which, Trump suggested, would present as “migration and violence.”
The island’s biggest oil supplier was out of the picture already, since that was Venezuela, and the United States effectively took control of the country’s oil industry following the ousting of President Nicolas Maduro.
Cuba’s second-largest oil supplier, Mexico, initially took a tough stance, with President Claudia Scheinbaum saying the country would continue supplying oil to Cuba because “It’s not right. They don’t have fuel for hospitals or schools. The people are suffering.” However, Kpler data shows that no oil cargoes arrived at Cuban ports in January.
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Time reported this week that the tight fuel supplies are causing rolling blackouts and affecting hospitals. The publication cited Cuban media as reporting that some medical facilities had had to cancel surgeries and outpatient transfers. Shortages of medical supplies and even antibiotics are also being reported.
France 24, meanwhile, reports that Cubans are turning to charcoal for cooking and to solar panels for electricity generation, even though both are quite expensive for the average Cuban. The Cuban government has responded to the oil blockade by reducing office hours and restricting fuel sales. The government is also closing tourism facilities and reducing transport between provinces, Al-Jazeera reports.
“Fuel will be used to protect essential services for the population and indispensable economic activities,” Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva said on Cuban state television. “This is an opportunity and a challenge that we have no doubt we will overcome. We are not going to collapse.”
Cuba produces oil organically but nowhere neat the 100,000 barrels a day needed. Without Venezuela, Mexico and Russia in support their oil reserves won’t last a month. The choice then will either be a national energy collapse or a deal with Trump.
Most likely it will be a collapse, and then a deal with who’s left.
Category: Foreign Policy, Schadenfreude, Trump!
Cuba has been getting bailed out since the days of the Soviet Union, past US Presidents have pussyfooted around on it, now we have an administration putting its foot down!
Windmills and solar panels.