«Cuba, la eterna “siguiente en la lista”, continúa sin guerra, ni acuerdo ni colapso,» by Iramís R. Rosique Cárdenas, appeared first on CTXT. Contexto y Acción, no. 328, January 2026, on 20 January 2026. Its publication in English translation by and on Communis has been authorized by both Rosique Cárdenas and CTXT.
“In the perverse balance it finds itself face to face with the United States —neither open war, nor possible negotiation, nor convenient collapse—Cuba’s immediate fate is once again being played out. An island turned into a useful hostage: too resistant to be overthrown, too uncomfortable to be accepted, too symbolic to be ignored or discarded. Meanwhile, the real cost is paid by the Cuban people, subjected to a cruel and prolonged suffocation that seeks not solutions but punishment, not stability but a sobering example. It is always Cuba’s ‘turn,’ not as an immediate military target, but rather as a permanent warning: a disciplinary reminder in the narrative of global power.”
— Iramís R. Rosique Cárdenas
Cuba: Forever “next on the list,” remains without war, Trump deal, or collapse
Trump is not interested in a new Haiti that would create a migration crisis in the United States as proven by the fact that he is allowing Mexico to continue supplying oil to Cuba.
In Havana, we are long well-accustomed to the latest iteration of the same slogan: today Grenada, or Nicaragua, or the USSR, or Iraq, Libya, Syria, Venezuela: next comes Cuba. Cuba has been “next on the list” many times, now for 67 straight years. That apparent fate has manifested itself once again following the US military intervention in Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.
Beyond the various implications that these momentous events have for Venezuela itself—or for the global order—the truth is that Cuba has not had a second to be surprised or to mourn the 32 Cuban combatants who died while protecting the Venezuelan leader. These developments have been followed by an escalation of direct threats by the Trump administration against Cuba. The threats deepen the dynamic of tension that has characterized bilateral relations between the two countries since the first MAGA administration restored its policy of hostility and maximum pressure on the Caribbean nation and reversed and in the end dismantled the normalization efforts launched during the Obama years.
Why Venezuela is/was so important for Cuba
Should Trump be right, and truly have—as he has boasted—control over the movements of Delcy Rodríguez’s government, then the logical conclusion stemming from such circumstances is the immediate implication of a heightened strategic vulnerability for Cuba. Venezuela has been a pillar of energy security for the Cuban economy for the past two decades. In the 2000s, the late leaders of both countries, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, signed an agreement whereby Venezuela committed to sending oil to Cuba as payment for a range of services (medical, sports-training, educational, and others) provided by the island to the South American country. That agreement has been renewed, and while the ensuing commitments have varied over the last twenty years, its substance has remained intact. This allowed Cuba to accelerate the economic recovery that had been taking place since the late 1990s, after the most acute moments of the so-called “Special Period,” the great crisis that affected the country following the collapse of European socialism. On the one hand, it ensured Cuba’s energy security, an area in which the island was and continues to be highly vulnerable, mainly due to the difficulty of accessing international financing and fully and normally integrating into the world market, largely because of the economic, financial, and commercial sanctions imposed on it by the United States; a de facto total blockade for more than six decades and a half. On the other hand, this advantageous energy access agreement allowed for savings that were first used by Fidel Castro to recover and expand a whole set of social programs, the so-called “programs of the ‘Battle of Ideas’ revolution,” and then by Raúl Castro’s administration to promote consumption and real-estate investment aimed at developing the tourism industry. Venezuelan collaboration gave Cubans two decades of relative economic stability with prospects for growth.
In fact, the current crisis in the Cuban economy is usually attributed to only two factors: first, the tightening of the US blockade during Donald Trump’s first term in office through a whole series of new sanctions aimed especially at financial persecution and the weakening of Cuba’s two main sources of foreign exchange: tourism and the export of medical services. And second, the collapse of foreign exchange earnings from the tourism industry—from 4.2 million visitors in 2019 to 2.4 million in 2023—caused most particularly by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there is a third factor that should not be overlooked, namely the reduction in Venezuelan supplies.
At the height of Cuban-Venezuelan cooperation, during the Chávez era, PDVSA sent up to 100,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba. This represented almost the entire amount needed for the country to function normally, estimated at around 110,000 barrels per day. Since the end of the last decade, these figures have fallen significantly: by 2024, the annual average was around 32,000 barrels per day, representing a 42% drop compared to 2023. By 2025, it had fallen even further to 63% below 2023 levels.
This decline was mainly the result of two circumstances: the collapse of the Venezuelan economy in a context of economic sanctions in the second half of the previous decade and, ironically, the resumption of Venezuelan crude oil exports to the United States based on special licenses issued by OFAC to Chevron. The reinsertion of Venezuela’s weakened oil industry represented a significant challenge in which Venezuela had to choose between fulfilling its commitments to Cuba or meeting the demand from the US market, from which it obtained the foreign currency that drove its economic recovery.
In short, by the end of 2025, Venezuela no longer had the same weight in the Cuban economy as it did in the 2000s or early 2010s, although it still represented a considerable percentage of crude oil imports and an important contribution to the tattered and long outdated national energy system. All that oil that disappeared from Venezuelan exports represented a deficit that, in the midst of the crisis, the Cuban government had to cover on the international fuel market with foreign currency that it did not and does not have, which has further aggravated Cuba’s situation.
Threat or trick: Trump’s calls to “make a deal”
All of this helps us understand why Trump might be convinced that “Cuba is about to fall” should the U.S. cut off all Venezuelan aid to the island. And although his assessment that “all [Cuba’s] income came from Venezuela, from Venezuelan oil” is not accurate, as it disregards the contribution of other partners such as Mexico—currently Cuba’s largest supplier of crude oil—or Russia, or even China, it is absolutely correct that Venezuela’s disappearance from the Cuban economic landscape would be or will be a very hard blow to a country ravaged by one of the most serious crises in its entire history.
Throughout 2025, we saw what has already become a Trump modus operandi in the current administration’s bilateral relations. Whereas in the past, US foreign policy combined the use of the stick and the carrot to elicit the desired behavior from its interlocutors, the current occupant of the White House prefers to use “the stick only.” The Trump administration’s negotiations with both allies and adversaries have followed a recurring pattern: first, a terrible threat, and then agreements that, while benefiting the United States and harming the other party, are acceptable and “sensible” in relation to Trump’s previous threatening announcements on the issue. This strategy has worked: there are the tariffs, there is the increase in the defense budget in Europe, there are the reinforcements of the U.S.-Mexico border by the Mexican army and the increase in security operations in the area, there is the increased pressure exerted by the Petro government on those guerrillas accused by Washington of drug trafficking.
Such approach having worked several times before, why wouldn’t it work again? That seems to be the implication of Trump’s call to the Cuban government to “make a deal before it’s too late” in the context of the intervention in Venezuela. Too late for what? Well, Trump himself offers two answers. The first would be the result of the aforementioned hypothesis about absolute dependence on Venezuelan oil: before the “inevitable” collapse—according to him—of Cuba. The other has to do with one of his threats—perhaps the most direct and serious—when, responding to a question about Cuba during a radio interview, he said: “I don’t think you can put much more pressure on them except to go in and destroy the place.” Since the US invasion of Grenada, US and Cuban military forces have not come face to face. These statements by Trump, coupled with the death of 32 Cubans in an unequal battle during the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, mark the most tense moment in relations between the two countries since Ronald Reagan.
However, it does not appear that Cuba will accept the US president’s make-a-deal-or-die game: “No one dictates what we do,” responded Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. And although there has been speculation about the movement of US warships near the northern coast of Cuba, and there is great mobilization within the country on defense issues, it seems unlikely that the US will dare to go beyond its threats. This interpretation is based on several considerations.
First, although it is indisputable that the United States has an enormous military superiority over Cuba, it is also well known that a US military intervention on the island would be a very costly and counterproductive adventure in more ways than one. From an economic point of view, the cost of “going in and destroying the place,” a place that has been preparing for this for more than half a century, does not correspond to the benefits that could be obtained from it. Cuba does not have significant deposits of the key minerals at stake in the global dispute. Nor does it have the strategic geopolitical weight it had decades ago. What Cuba does have is the only Latin American army with experience in wars that go beyond mere counterinsurgency, due to its cooperation and direct participation in various liberation processes in Latin America and Africa. The United States could become bogged down in a costly war that would also take place 90 miles from its territory, with all the risks that this entails.
Furthermore, there would also be a significant political cost. Cuba does not suffer from the diplomatic isolation that was imposed on Nicolás Maduro’s Venezuela. The relative indifference with which the world has received the aggression against Venezuela cannot be expected if it were Cuba. And it would not necessarily be a matter of ideological affinities, given that Cuba has cultivated, in various ways, commitments and relations with most of the world’s States. Ideology also plays a role, as the Cuban Revolution still possesses great symbolic capital. Many leftists who renounced Venezuela, and who even helped pave the way that has led us to the current scenario of invasion, treat it differently, and have always treated it differently, when it comes to “the Cuba of the Revolution,” “the Cuba of Fidel Castro,” “the Cuba of resistance against imperialism.”
Therefore, a military attack on Cuba is not a viable option from a US pragmatic point of view. Unfortunately, the possibility of an agreement does not seem likely either. The Cuban leadership has repeatedly shown its willingness to engage in dialogue with the US. In fact, if we look at the way Trump has dealt with post-Chávez Venezuela, it seems that he could reach agreements with the Cuban government, provided that he can sell it to the world as a great personal victory, as a great achievement showcasing his “brilliant negotiating skills.” The US suffered its greatest military defeat in Vietnam, yet 20 years later, the two countries normalized relations and achieved vigorous economic cooperation that did not in any way involve the destruction of the Vietnamese socialist State, its Communist party, or the replacement of its leaders with others sympathetic to Washington.
So why not with Cuba? Perhaps the simplest answer is that Vietnam never had a Vietnamese-American lobby that hijacked US policy toward that country. Cuba, on the other hand, must navigate the powerful Cuban-American lobby, so powerful that it has managed to install one of their own as Secretary of State, in order to engage in dialogue with the United States, a country for which, honestly, Cuba has not been a priority for some time. It is a tragedy that, within the US power apparatus, Cuba is only of interest to Cuban-American politicians. And for the political forces and traditions they represent, an agreement with Cuba is absolutely impossible, because the only solution they can accept for Cuba involves the destruction of everything that has resulted from the 1959 Revolution, the dismantling of its State and security apparatus, and presumably the prosecution or, at least, the political liquidation of its main leaders. When the options are all or nothing, unilateral and unconditional capitulation, and then further humiliation, it is extremely challenging, if not nearly impossible, to envisage any negotiation.
And so, once either open war or a one-sided negotiation imposed by force or threat (the so-called “deal”) is ruled out to “finish off Cuba,” the only option remaining on the table is betting on the self-implosion and final collapse alluded to by Trump. However, this does not seem to be entirely what the United States wants either. Marco Rubio himself had to admit that they are not interested in a destabilized Cuba, something would be an expected consequence of the policies he himself has promoted for so many years. It is not just that it is not “in their interest”: a destabilized Cuba is not at all convenient for the US. Despite being adversaries, Cuba is a guarantee of security for the United States, because it is a strong State just south of its shores with which it can talk seriously about issues such as migration or organized crime, to give just two examples. A Cuba collapsed like Haiti would not only generate a serious migration situation for those in the North, but could also be prey to organized crime and paramilitarism. The United States’ acceptance of Mexico continuing to supply oil to Cuba is a more eloquent confession than all of Donald Trump’s posts and posturing.
None of this, though, means that the United States is going to leave Cuba alone. That Cuba, which cannot be invaded, must not be allowed to collapse, but with which no one wants to engage in dialogue, is indeed useful to the project of the hemispheric right-wing wave led by Trumpism: it serves as an instrument of far-right propaganda. It is therefore absolutely convenient to prevent any kind of recovery of the Cuban economy, and to that end, US sanctions and the blockade will continue. In this way, the crisis in which the Cuban people are mired can be used against all the left forces in the hemisphere in electoral politics and in the cultural battle: “Go to Cuba,” “We will become another Cuba.” And this strategy affects all left-wing parties, not just the most radical ones, because the new right-wing project keeps moving the fences in ways so broadening that «Cuba» is also Sánchez, Boric, and Lula, just as it is Maduro or Claudia Sheinbaum.
In the perverse balance it finds itself face to face with the United States —neither open war, nor possible negotiation, nor convenient collapse—Cuba’s immediate fate is once again being played out. An island turned into a useful hostage: too resistant to be overthrown, too uncomfortable to be accepted, too symbolic to be ignored or discarded. Meanwhile, the real cost is paid by the Cuban people, subjected to a cruel and prolonged suffocation that seeks not solutions but punishment, not stability but a sobering example. It is always Cuba’s “turn,” not as an immediate military target, but rather as a permanent warning: a disciplinary reminder in the narrative of global power.
Featured image: Cuban internationalists during the battle of Cuito Cuanavale (Angola, 14 August 1987–23 March 1988), the decisive military victory that marked the beginning of the end of the Apartheid in South Africa. Photo courtesy of Bohemia.
Translated from the Spanish by Rolando Prats.
