A battered Cuba braces for aftershocks as US seizures of oil tankers linked to Venezuela surge
HAVANA (AP) — As the United States Seizure of Venezuela-bound oil tankers It’s fluctuating, concerns are rising Cuba It’s about whether the island’s government and economy will survive.
Experts warn: Sudden stop in Venezuela’s oil shipments A departure for Cuba following a dramatic US military raid could lead to widespread social unrest and mass exodus. capture of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I would be lying if I told you I didn’t want to leave the country,” said 16-year-old Cuban student Amanda Gómez. “We are all thinking of leaving, from the youngest to the oldest.”
Long before the January 3 attack, severe power outages were disrupting life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets in the middle of the island. worst economic crisis over decades.
Experts say the lack of Venezuelan oil could push Cuba to the brink.
“This will take an already dire situation to new extremes,” said Michael Galant, senior research and outreach fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. “This is what a collapsing economy looks like.”
Galant said he believes that’s the goal of the project. Trump administration: “Causing indiscriminate suffering to the civilian population to the extent of provoking some form of uprising or regime change.”
“This kind of siege of Cuba is very intentional. From their perspective, is it going to work? I think the Cuban people have been suffering for a very long time, and the Cuban government is very knowledgeable about how to deal with these situations,” Galant said. “I think it’s very difficult to predict what will or will not trigger real regime instability. From (U.S. Secretary of State Marco) Rubio’s perspective, it’s like waiting for them. … There’s always a tipping point.”
‘Someone will have to take the big pill’
From 2020 to 2024, Cuba’s population decreased by 1.4 million; Experts attribute this largely to migration triggered by the worsening crisis.
Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos noted that migration will continue even though Cubans with means have already left.
“Fuel is a factor that affects everything,” he said. “People will feel like they’re in worse circumstances, and people who wouldn’t consider leaving will feel the need to do so.”
At the Spanish embassy in Havana on Friday, 53-year-old doctor Ernesto Macías lined up behind dozens of people to request a family member visa for his daughter, who had acquired Spanish citizenship.
“I wouldn’t want Cuba to be invaded or something like that. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I’m sure people will continue to emigrate because there’s no other way,” he said.
Cuba’s gross domestic product has fallen 15% in the last six years and President Miguel Díaz-Canel In December, he noted that there would be a 4 percent decline in 2025 alone.
Although Cuban economy The country, which never fully recovered after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, experienced relative prosperity between 2000 and 2019, driven by the boom in tourism and exports of services, nickel, rum and tobacco.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit, and combined with a radical increase in US sanctions under Trump’s second administration to pressure political change – strangling every conceivable industry – Cuba’s crisis erupted violently.
Despite all this, Cuba remained dependent on Venezuela for oil and was buying approximately 35,000 barrels of oil per day from the South American country before the US attack. Approximately 5,500 barrels per day from Mexico and about 7,500 are from Russia, according to Jorge Piñón of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, who tracks shipments using oil tracking services and satellite technology.
Despite all these posts, cuts continuedexperts noted.
“In the event of a complete cessation of oil shipments from Venezuela, an indefinite shutdown of the electrical system, which is no longer so impossible to imagine, is conceivable, which seems to be the current strategy of the American government,” said Jorge Duany of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.
“This leads us to imagine the possibility of mass protests,” he said.
Andy S. Gómez, dean emeritus of the School of International Studies and senior fellow in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, said that even if the protests took place, he did not envision the collapse of Cuba while Raúl Castro was still alive and leading the military.
“Are they worried? I’m sure,” Gómez said. “They are not well armed; their equipment is old.”
However, Gómez noted that civilians were not armed and it was unlikely that any of the Cuban military’s three factions would break away from the ruling elite.
“At the end of the day, someone will have to take the big pill, and it will be either Díaz-Canel or (Prime Minister) Manuel Marrero Cruz, who cannot solve the problems,” Gómez said.
Food, electricity and home
US forces on Friday Fifth tanker was seized As part of the Trump administration’s broader effort to control the global distribution of Venezuelan oil products.
It is unclear whether any of the seized tankers were destined for Cuba, but experts believe any disruption in the supply line would come as a shock, given the fragility of the island’s economy.
As uncertainty continues, Gómez said Cuba has only one card to play against the United States: mass immigration.
“Right now I don’t think the Cubans are going to provoke the United States,” he said, adding that Cuban officials “can definitely control that.”
“Cuban military forces are on high alert,” he said.
Gómez added that even if the worsening crisis leads to unrest and the ouster of a senior government official, that person will likely be replaced by a prominent figure.
“This would just be a continuation of the government,” he said, adding that he did not believe it would offend the majority on the island. “The Cuban people unfortunately only care about one thing right now: they want to put food on the table, they want to have electricity, they want a place to live, they want to have a job, and then what do we do about the government?”
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Coto reported from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporter Milexsy Durán in Havana contributed to this report.
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