HAVANA (AP) — As the U.S. seizure of Venezuela-linked oil tankers escalates, concerns have grown in Cuba about whether the island’s government and economy will survive.
Experts have warned that a sudden halt to Venezuela’s oil shipments to Cuba could lead to widespread social unrest and mass migration following a surprise US military raid on former President Nicolas Maduro.
“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to leave the country,” said Amanda Gomez, a 16-year-old Cuban student. “We are all thinking about leaving, from the youngest to the oldest.”
Long before the Jan. 3 attacks, a severe blackout was disrupting life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades.
Venezuela’s oil shortage could push Cuba to the brink, experts say.
“It takes an already dire situation to a new extreme,” said Michael Gallant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. “It looks like a devastated economy.”
Gallant said he believes this is the goal of the Trump administration: “to provoke some kind of rebellion, regime change, by causing such senseless suffering to the civilian population.”
“This kind of blockade of Cuba is very deliberate. Will it work from their point of view? I think the Cuban people have suffered for a very long time, and the Cuban government is very savvy in how to handle these situations,” Gallant said. “I think it’s very difficult to predict what will and won’t be real regime instability. From (U.S. Secretary of State Marco) Rubio’s perspective, it’s kind of wait them out. … There’s always a breaking point.”
‘Somebody’s gonna have to take the big pill’
From 2020 to 2024, Cuba sees its population drop by 1.4 million, which experts attribute largely to emigration fueled by the worsening crisis.
Cuban economist and demographer Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos said that while Cubans have already left, the migration will continue.
“Fuel is a factor that affects everything,” he said. “People will feel they’re in a bad situation, and people who wouldn’t consider quitting will feel the need to do so.”
At the Spanish Embassy in Havana on Friday, 53-year-old Dr. Ernesto Macias stood in line behind dozens of people to request a family member visa for his daughter, who had just received her Spanish citizenship.
“I don’t want an invasion of Cuba or anything like that. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I’m sure people will continue to migrate because there is no other option,” he said.
Cuba’s gross domestic product has fallen 15% over the past six years, and President Miguel Díaz Canel said in December that it will only fall 4% by 2025.
Although the Cuban economy has not fully recovered since the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, it experienced relative prosperity between 2000 and 2019, driven by growth in tourism and services, exports of nickel, rum, and tobacco.
Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and with a radical increase in U.S. sanctions under Trump’s second administration to press for political change — hitting every imaginable sector — the Cuban crisis intensified.
Through it all, Cuba remained dependent on Venezuela for oil, receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels per day from the South American country before the U.S. invasion, as well as 5,500 barrels from Mexico and about 7,500 barrels from Russia, according to Jorge Pinon, of the university’s Energy Research Institute. Services and satellite technology.
Even with all those shipments, the blackout continued, experts noted.
“An indefinite shutdown of the electricity system, which is no longer impossible to imagine, can be envisaged under the complete suspension of oil shipments from Venezuela, which seems to be the current strategy of the US government,” said George Duaney of the Cuba Research Institute at Florida International University.
“This will lead us to imagine the possibility of widespread protests,” he said.
Andy S. Gomez, emeritus dean of the School of International Studies and senior fellow in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, said he does not envision Cuba collapsing if protests occur while Raul Castro is still alive and running the military.
“Are they worried? You bet,” Gomez said. “They are not well armed; their equipment is old.”
But Gómez noted that civilians are not armed, and it is unlikely that one of the three factions of the Cuban military will break with the ruling elite.
“At the end of the day, someone is going to have to take the big pill, and it’s going to be either Diaz-Canel or (Prime Minister) Manuel Marrero Cruz not being able to solve the problems,” Gómez said.
Food, electricity and housing
On Friday, the US military seized its fifth tanker as part of a broader push by the Trump administration to control the global distribution of Venezuelan oil production.
It is not clear if any of the seized tankers were bound for Cuba, but experts believe that any interruption in the supply line would be a blow given the weakness of the island’s economy.
As uncertainty continues, Gómez said Cuba has only one card to play with the U.S.: mass migration.
“I don’t think the Cubans will provoke the United States at this time,” he said, adding that Cuban officials “can completely control it.”
“The Cuban military is on high alert,” he said.
Gómez added that even if a worsening crisis leads to unrest and a top government official is removed, that person could be replaced by a celebrity.
“It will only be a continuation of the government,” he said, adding that he did not believe it would affect the majority on the island. “The only thing the Cuban people care about now is, unfortunately … they want to put food on the table, have electricity, have a place to live, have a job and then what do we do about the government.”
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Country from San Juan, Puerto Rico. Associated Press reporter.
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