A recent statement by the President Donald Trump How the Cuban diktat could have turned out is no different from his usual exaggerations, such as when he promised to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” or to end the war in Ukraine “in 20 hours”.
In the case of Cuba, it may be that the prediction is not out of the question.
The economic data is on Trump’s side. The recent suspension of oil supplies from Venezuela and Mexico to Cuba under pressure from the United States further exacerbates the island’s critical energy crisis.
Data consultancy Kpler predicts that Cuba will run out of oil between February 15 and 20. Financial Times. The island has been experiencing power outages for more than a year, sometimes lasting several days.
Tourism, the island’s main source of income, exploded. Few foreigners want to spend their holidays in a country that is dark at night. The number of foreign tourists rose to 1.8 million in 2025 from 4.7 million in 2018, according to official Cuban data.
Jorge Piñondirector of the Energy Program for Latin America and the Caribbean at the University of Texas, told me that Kpler’s prediction may be a bit of an exaggeration. Without the embargo, it matched Cuba’s oil reserves we will be back towards the end of the week.
El Marinera, one of six oil tankers detained by the United States during its blockade of Venezuela.
Reuters
“Our estimate is that we have four weeks of fuel,” I say to myself. “If we see an oil tanker landing in a Cuban port on the horizon until March, we will be facing a crisis.”
The problem with the Cuban decree, more than the oil necessary to keep the lights on in homes, will be the problem of diesel to keep the economy booming. Cuba’s sugar industry is sometimes paralyzed by a lack of diesel in its tractors and trucks.
The big question is whether the Cuban regime will collapse as a result of this economic crisis.
Piñón records that the regime survived a similar trial of its oil ministers in the early 1990s, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“But now the situation is completely different,” Piñón answered me. “I’m not a political analyst, but I remember what I had at that moment Fidel Castro. There was a man who could encourage the Cuban people to carry on.
Fidel Castro, Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and Osvaldo Dorticos.
Hello el hermano de Fidel Castro, Raulhe is 94 years old, and the president Miguel Diaz-Canel He is a gris bureaucrat who keeps her out of his audience.
People who visited the island recently tell me that while many people hate the regime, there is a major obstacle to massive protests that could topple it: most of the young people were born in the country.
Cuba has turned into an island of abuelos, where children and children live in Miami, Madrid and other parts of the world.
Asymism, it cannot be ignored that the Cuban dictatorship leads to a deal with Trump and is kept in power. Trump recently asked Cuban officials to “hold to account,” and on February 3, I said he spoke to “the highest authorities in Cuba” in Gobierno.
Trump could seek a deal on migration and drug cooperation, Dejando for the future transition to democracy.
In any case, foreign diplomats in Cuba tell me that Trump’s prediction about the possible fall of the regime may not be out of line.
In the past, the Cuban government has always been able to find a savior in times of need, be it in Russia, Venezuela or Mexico. This time, no El Salvador in sightand there are lights on the island.
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