Communist Cuba is running out of fuel, and with it, time.
This regime, just 90 miles south of the Florida Keys, has defied American pressure for 67 years. It has survived the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. But its present crisis may be too great to withstand.
Already under great economic pressure, Cuba’s situation has worsened greatly since the United States seized Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in Caracas last month. Venezuela had supplied Havana with heavily subsidized oil for decades, but that lifeline is now severed.
When President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any nation that ships oil to Cuba, the remaining options narrowed further. Mexico, which had quietly overtaken Venezuela as Cuba’s main supplier, has buckled under the pressure, withholding a planned shipment.
The Cuban communists have a problem. Inflation is soaring. Extreme poverty affects the vast majority of the population. Food and medical supplies are sparse. Power cuts are omnipresent. The once-vaunted healthcare system is hollowed out. Fuel is now increasingly being rationed. Administrative offices have been restricted to a four-day workweek. Airlines have been told there is no jet fuel for refueling, forcing Air Canada to suspend services, likely with others to follow. Resorts along Cuba’s northern coast have closed amid the energy crunch. And while Russia has pledged $1 billion in aid through 2030 and China has promised its own help, none of this comes close to replacing what Venezuela provided.
True, Cuba has defied predictions of collapse before. In the 1990s, during the “Special Period” after the fall of the Soviet Union, the island endured extraordinary hardship and 35% contraction of its economy. The regime was forced to legalize self-employment in a handful of occupations.
Then, Venezuela offered a helping hand and bought Havana time. In 2021, after GDP crashed by 11% in a single year, the government legalized private enterprise across over 2,000 occupations. For the first time in half a century, it also permitted small and medium-sized businesses. In a bitter irony, the communist government must now rely on private enterprise to feed its own people.
Still, the collapse of this regime would rightly be welcomed by many.
When Fidel Castro came to power in 1959, he promised respect for liberty and democracy. Instead, he banned every political party but his communist one, shut down the free press, and went after his political opponents. A reign of terror followed.
Political scientist R.J. Rummel estimated that Castro was responsible for the deaths of between 35,000 and 141,000 of his own countrymen. Up to three million Cubans have left the country since 2020, a demographic shock for an island of just over 11 million. Young, working-age people are leaving behind an aging population. The median age on the island now stands at 42.2, making it one of the oldest societies in Latin America.
Since Castro’s death in 2016, it has been unclear who truly runs Cuba. While Castro’s brother, Raul, handed formal power to President Manuel Diaz-Canel in 2018, he and the military still retain enormous influence. The armed forces also dominate the economy through military-run conglomerates such as GAESA, which function like a state within a state. When the ailing 94-year-old Raul Castro dies, a power struggle is sure to ensue.
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There are signs Havana grasps the gravity of its predicament. Having initially responded to the crisis with hawkish rhetoric about “U.S. imperialism” and calls to prepare for a “war of the entire nation,” Diaz-Canel shifted tone markedly last week and declared Cuba is “willing to engage in dialogue with the United States on any topic.” Cuba’s deputy foreign minister confirmed that “exchanges of messages” with the U.S. had taken place at the highest levels.
Whether Washington has any interest in negotiating is another question altogether.