Cuban fuel shortages, compounded by the U.S. blockade of oil shipments, are rapidly pushing the country closer toward a breaking point as the United States seeks to bring Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canal to the negotiating table to discuss Cuba’s future.
Without fuel to power the country’s energy grid, industry, transportation, and essential services like health care, education, food distribution, and sanitation are grinding to a halt. The United Nations said this month that Cuba faces a “humanitarian collapse” if its oil needs aren’t met.
The Trump Administration’s strategy of blocking oil imports to the island may prove to be the most effective tool to hold Havana accountable for undermining regional security and its systemic repression of the Cuban people. However, undoing the Communist system imposed after Fidel Castro led the 1959 revolution in Cuba will not be easy.
Ultimately, Cuba’s future stability and the Western Hemisphere’s security will depend on comprehensive structural changes to Cuba’s economic, security, and political systems. If the Trump Administration pursues further measures against Havana, merely removing or neutralizing Cuba’s top leadership would be insufficient given Cuban authorities’ deep reach into both the country’s economy and its internal security apparatus. As the long-awaited opportunity for change in Cuba approaches, the United States should make clear that a transition to democracy where the rule of law can guarantee the conditions that enable a free market is essential.
While the fuel shortage has exacerbated the challenges of daily life for ordinary Cubans, the country’s current crisis predates this, and its root causes are of Havana’s own making.
Rampant corruption, the diversion of funds that should have been used to bolster infrastructure, and the Cuban Communist Party’s highly repressive grip on the island’s resources and people have stifled attempts at innovation and hollowed out most sources of wealth the country possessed.
The fundamental reality is that Cuba’s authorities have failed to meet the basic needs of their citizens on its own. Ultimately, they have been more interested in reaping their own profits at the expense of investing in the Cuban people.
The most lucrative sectors of Cuba’s economy are controlled by the country’s military leadership under the umbrella of a military-controlled conglomerate known as GAESA, its Spanish-language acronym. In March 2024, GAESA held nearly $18 billion in assets stashed in secretive accounts hidden from other Cuban government oversight mechanisms, according to investigations by the Miami Herald and Cuba Siglo 21, a Spain-based think tank. These vast resources, accrued from GAESA’s dominant interest in sectors such as international tourism, money transfers, currency exchanges, fuel stations, and supermarkets, allow Cuba’s military leadership to effectively operate a parallel state that will need to be dismantled.
Cuba’s government has infamously leveraged its proximity to the United States to attract foreign benefactors including China, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. But this time, Havana’s allies appear unwilling or unable to come to the rescue.
Since Nicolás Maduro’s removal from power in Venezuela in January, the United States has blocked the main lifeline of deeply discounted oil exports to Cuba. Russian state media have claimed the country is preparing to send “humanitarian oil” to the island, but, so far, Moscow has only sent empty planes to evacuate an estimated 4,000 Russian citizens on holiday in the country. China has likewise expressed rhetorical support. But, seemingly frustrated by Cuba’s unwillingness to implement economic reforms, it has taken no action (even after a Cuban official visited Beijing) beyond sending emergency food aid
In its desperation to maintain control, the regime has continued to harass and arrest Cuban citizens who have spoken out against its failure to provide for basic needs. In January, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights documented nearly 400 acts of repression by Cuban security officers – a 50% to 100% increase from prior months.
Independent journalist José Gabriel Berrenechea was sentenced to six years in prison in January, along with five other individuals, for involvement in peaceful protests in November 2024 against electricity grid failures. And two young social media influencers with the outlet El4tico, Ernesto Ricardo Medina and Kamil Zayas Pérez, were detained in early February for publishing videos critical of the difficult living conditions that ordinary Cubans regularly experience.
Despite the obstacles, Cubans have never lost hope of living with dignity in a free and democratic country.
Time and time again, generations of freedom and human rights advocates have repeatedly expressed their dissatisfaction with life in Cuba under one-party rule by the Communist regime. From the Varela Project petitioning for human rights and democratic elections, to the Ladies in White peacefully demonstrating on behalf of political prisoners, to bloggers like Yoani Sánchez and the artists of the San Isidro Movement who challenged the regime’s chokehold on free expression, to the ordinary citizens who bang pots and pans to protest electricity blackouts, Cuban citizens bravely continue to dream of an open and democratic Cuba.
Ultimately, the United States’ goal for negotiations with Havana should center on restoring freedom and dignity to the Cuban people. Under the thumb of the Cuban Communist Party and the military and security apparatus that enforces its rule and enriches itself, Cuba will remain a source of regional insecurity, a soft underbelly for U.S. adversaries, and fount of migration. But if the country is able to turn the corner wherein the people can hold their own leaders accountable, Cuba will have an opportunity unlike any it has had in more than six decades and enjoy security, peace, and prosperity.
