Cuba’s alliances are crumbling in Trump’s world

Every time he’s asked about Cuba, U.S. President Donald Trump gives the same answer: “It looks like it’s ready to fall.” Without Venezuelan oil, it won’t be able to survive, he boasts. He’s not the first occupant of the White House to predict the imminent fall of the government of the Castro brothers and of Miguel Díaz-Canel. Sixty-six years of pressure, the end of the Cold War, 12 U.S. presidents, and all sorts of predictions about the regime’s impossibility of survival precede him. But Castroism, like the dinosaur in Augusto Monterroso’s story, is still there.

Emboldened by the success of the military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro in Caracas on January 3, Trump believes that cutting off the supply of more than 27,000 barrels of oil per day that Cuba received from the Chavista regime will be the final blow for Havana. And now he has added the threat of sanctions against other countries that might send fuel to the island, with Mexico particularly in his sights. This is a brutal blow for a country already suffering its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution and grappling with power outages, shortages of food and medicine, and dwindling foreign currency reserves.

Cuba is now vulnerable, and not only because of the energy siege and the chronic economic crisis it suffers. Cuba’s former influence on the global left and on allied governments is no longer what it once was. “The international left isn’t being very emphatic. Look at the case of Brazil, for example. [President Lula has limited himself to condemning the blockade]. Nor is the Spanish government giving a high-profile response,” notes Rafael Rojas, a Cuban historian at the Colegio de México. Russia has promised financial aid, albeit half-heartedly. A visit to Beijing last week by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla resulted in nothing more than empty words. “There is an erosion of Cuba’s legitimacy on the world stage due to its lack of democracy and systematic repression, and this call for solidarity is having a very limited effect. Perhaps it reaches certain sectors of the left, but right now the rejection of the U.S. blockade isn’t translating into aid beyond humanitarian assistance, which isn’t enough to prevent a collapse,” the historian states.

Trump’s return to power is ushering in a new world order in which multilateralism and international organizations, starting with the United Nations, are in retreat. In this new world, Cuba’s role is becoming increasingly blurred and its isolation more pronounced. Mexico, Chile, and Russia are among the few countries that have come to its aid, publicly condemning Trump’s aggression. “The Cuban government is attempting to mobilize global solidarity by drawing an analogy with what happened in Gaza and speaking of a ‘genocide’ perpetrated by the empire,” Rojas explains.

Dmitri Rozental, director of the Institute for Latin America at the Russian Academy of Sciences, acknowledges the powerlessness of Cuba’s traditional allies in the face of the new global situation and the United States’ determination to implement the so-called Donroe Doctrine, which assigns Washington a controlling role in everything that happens in the Americas and prevents Moscow or Beijing from playing a significant role in what it considers “its” continent. “We will continue sending oil supplies, but we won’t be able to increase them. It’s very expensive and a logistical problem. Therefore, it’s very difficult for us (Russia) to alleviate the situation without help from others. I don’t know if China is willing to increase its supplies. I doubt Brazil can, given the global political risks. Russia can provide moral support, perhaps some humanitarian aid, but I don’t know if much more,” he explained at a seminar organized by the Stimson Center in Washington this Thursday.

Cuba’s geographical location, between the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean and facing the United States, and its antagonistic relationship with the northern power, have placed the island, with its population of just under 10 million, at the center of international politics. Its ability to forge relationships first with the Soviet bloc during the Cold War, and later with Venezuela and the so-called Bolivarian Axis, has given it extraordinary influence in those countries. It has also served as the last symbol of resistance to imperialism for a segment of the international left, an increasingly smaller minority.

Powdered milk from Mexico

Although Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insists she is trying to reactivate the flow of oil, the truth is that it has stopped. Now the shipments consist of powdered milk and other basic goods. Chile has also denounced the blockade and announced the shipment of humanitarian aid. But Trump’s pressure is tightening through neighboring countries: this week Nicaragua, a dictatorship allied with Cuba, has agreed to close the main route for Cuban exiles, denying entry to Cubans. And Guatemala has announced the departure of all Cuban doctors serving in the country.

During the Cold War, Cuba was a key player for the former USSR. But after the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Havana was able to rebuild relations with Russia and forge new ties with China and Vietnam. From 2002 onward, the strong alliance between Hugo Chávez’s Venezuela and Fidel Castro “generated a very deep connection and was the origin of the Bolivarian bloc and other organizations such as Petrocaribe, CARICOM, UNASUR, and the ALBA countries,” Rojas points out. The successive electoral defeats of the left in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Honduras have gradually unraveled these ties. Maduro’s fall marked the end.

“Sheinbaum in Mexico and [Gustavo] Petro in Colombia, both left-leaning governments within Cuba’s sphere of influence, have condemned the blockade, but with a more ethereal discourse and avoiding mention of the United States,” explains Sergio Ángel, director of the Cuba Program at the Colombian university Sergio Arboleda. “However, both are exploring the gray areas to continue supporting Havana at a time when a possible ‘zero supply’ of oil is approaching,” he adds.

But the situation could become even more complicated. If the Castro regime teeters on the brink, Washington could also find itself in a corner if it maintains what William LeoGrande, professor of government at American University and author of the book Back Channel to Cuba, calls “collective punishment that represents a violation of international law.” Other humanitarian crises on the island have generated a wave of exodus to the Florida coast, as happened during the rafter crisis of the 1990s. “Is the United States willing to be responsible for a famine among Cuban children? Will we tolerate seeing images of starving children in Havana like those we have seen in Sudan?” asks Vicky Huddleston, former head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana (1999-2002), in a recent talk organized by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

“The Cuban economy is experiencing what is probably the worst crisis in its history, marked by a combination of internal and external factors,” notes a study by the Swiss Embassy in Havana, which mediates between Cuba and the United States. The U.S. president maintains that he has offered an agreement and that the two governments are negotiating. Havana only acknowledges that there have been some contacts on technical issues and denies that any serious talks are taking place, while President Díaz-Canel announces rationing measures reminiscent of the worst days of the Special Period.

In any case, the options are highly unattractive to the Cuban government: either it yields to Washington with measures it fears will jeopardize its survival, such as holding elections, or it faces a humanitarian crisis of enormous proportions, deliberately provoked by its neighboring country. In the past, the regime’s response to such situations has always been to intensify repression.

For the U.S. government, what happens with Cuba this time is almost personal. The man in charge of Washington’s foreign policy, Marco Rubio, is the son of Cuban immigrants, for whom the fall of Castro’s regime would be the fulfillment of a lifelong dream. In an appearance before the U.S. Congress this January, he asserted that the pressure on the island is not aimed at overthrowing the regime, but added: “We would love to see a regime change.” This is a position he shares with the influential Cuban-American community, whose votes are crucial for the Republican Party.

“It doesn’t have to be a humanitarian crisis. I think they probably would come to us and want to make a deal,” Trump recently stated. “I think, you know, we’ll be kind.”

But Cuba, as experts point out, is not Venezuela. Since the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959, the United States has tried to overthrow the regime by all means, including force, as in the debacle that was the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1962. The CIA attempted to assassinate Castro on several occasions. The United States imposes an economic embargo; since the 1990s, its laws have sanctioned foreign companies that Washington finds are profiting from expropriated U.S. assets on the island.

Its military establishment is far more seasoned than Venezuela’s, as is its political system. The Communist Party enjoys absolute control: unlike Venezuela, there is no organized opposition or strong civil society there; most of the prominent dissidents have left the island, along with two to three million of their compatriots since the revolution’s triumph.

“There is no Delcy Rodríguez [the acting president of Venezuela, former vice president under Maduro] in Havana. If there is, the United States doesn’t know who she is, nor does it have any way of contacting her without the Cuban secret services knowing about it,” says Professor LeoGrande.

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