The last 15 days, since Donald Trump imposed on January 29 with an executive order an effective embargo on foreign oil sales to Cuba, has entered into free fall the already delicate economic situation on the island, which had seen the fuel tap that arrived from Venezuela. The Government of Havana has declared a emergency. Several airlines suspend flights, blackouts intensify, scarcity worsens and despite shipments of humanitarian aid from nations like Mexico or Chile The United Nations has already warned of the risk of collapse.
As the nation and its 11 million inhabitants capsizeWashington does not stop tightening the siege, adding ropes to that of the embargo that has been applied for decades. For many, resistance is ending and the possibility of change feels closer than ever in the 67 years since the communist revolution triumphed and Fidel Castro came to power, a time in which they have passed 13 presidents in the White House.
There remain, however, transcendental open questions: how Trump’s goals fit with those of his Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, with a personal obsession with regime change on the island his parents left; How far is the White House going to push, and when will they consider that their final goals regarding Havana, not publicly marked, are fulfilled.
No oil
The pressure is undeniable and with very real effects. After the operation in Venezuela against Maduro, Cuba lost its main supply of oil. Caracas sent between 27,000 and 35,000 barrels of crude oil per day to a country that with its own production can only cover 40% of your needs.
Trump’s January executive order, which threatened to duty to anyone who sold or supplied oil to the island, was the final straw of pressure for the other main supplier, Mexicowho had been sending some 20,000 barrels per day to the island. Now the Government of Claudia Sheinbaum is sending humanitarian aid and two ships loaded with more than 500 tons of food arrived this Thursday. Chile It has also announced the sending of humanitarian aid and a flotilla is being organized.
RussiaFor his part, he did not want to clarify whether he will try to send fuel to the Island. “It is impossible to talk about these things now in public for obvious reasons,” he said. Dmitri PeskovKremlin spokesman, who has insisted that Moscow does not want an escalation with Washington for Cuba. “We’re probably still counting on there being a constructive dialogue”he said this Thursday.
Doubts about the dialogue
Whether the dialogue between Washington and Havana is taking place or not is unknown. Earlier this month, at Mar-a-Lago, and after defining Cuba as “a failed nation” that “no longer has Venezuela to put up with it,” Trump assured: “We are talking to people from Cuba, people at the top, to see what happens. “I think we are going to reach an agreement with Cuba.”
There is noIn any case, official and not unofficial datae dates, participants or location of the conversations. Both Trump and Rubio, unlike what they did for months with Venezuela, They speak little about Cuba in public. And although extreme discretion has always been the tone in contacts with the island, as was proven when during the presidency of Barack Obama Not even the State Department was informed of the dialogue sponsored by the Vatican and Canada, this time there is more question as to whether the talks are taking place.
It has been questioned the truthfulness of information with anonymous sources that pointed to the alleged meeting in Mexico of the CIA with Alejandro Castro Espínthe son of Raúl Castro, or the Mexican’s involvement in the conversations Efrain Guadarrama And officially the Cuban Government, through statements to different media Carlos Fernández de Cossío, number 2 of the Foreign Ministry, has denied high-level dialogue.
“So far there have been some exchanges of messages but “We cannot say that we have established a bilateral dialogue.”the diplomat repeated, in a message echoed by other Cuban sources, who speak of “purely technical” contacts.
From his own State Department American, also seeking anonymity, has spoken to ‘The New York Times’ of “non-substantive” contacts and focused, for example, on the repatriation of immigrantsnow that Trump has removed protections from many Cubans, with 45.000 con deportation orders y more than half a million at risk. And the newspaper’s sources have also said that there would be more willingness for a deeper dialogue if Cuba made offers such as a greater openness to private companies or the existence of political parties.
At the moment, at least in public, that does not seem to be the way of Havana. The Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canelhas opened the door to dialogue although marking red lines: “without prior conditions, in a position of equals, of respect for our sovereignty, independence and self-determination.” Cuba has also shown signs of being willing to renew cooperation in areas that are not those that are of most interest to Washington now, and in many of which Trump was the one who closed the dialogue: cybersecurity, the fight against terrorism, money laundering, other financial crimes or human trafficking.
As far as
Part of the key to how the White House moves forward is how it covers the ideological distance that separates Trump from Rubio, because he President has neither the same emotional commitment nor the same political dependence of Cuban-Americans than the former senator from Florida. It remains to be seen whether the Cuban voters of Miami will accept in Cuba something like what has happened in Venezuela, where they have been left to Delcy Rodríguez in power.
Trump may be more interested in Havana bowing to the regime’s collapse. For this reason, and although in his first term he took 240 measures that intensified pressure on Cuba, restricting flights and shipments of remittances or canceling bilateral dialogues, he can put a stop to the more maximalist requests of the hawks in Rubio’s line who have sought to completely drown the regime by trying to further close the money that comes from the turismoof the Cuban medical missions abroad (with 20,000 doctors in more than 50 countries) or those remittances which bring about 2,000 million dollars a year into the island. And as Carlos Díaz-Rosillo, advisor in the first Trump Administration, said at an event in Miami on February 6, “Marco can’t allow himself to be too Cuban”.
It is a difficult balance because the risks of a political and humanitarian collapse in Cuba would be many for the United States. Although after the crisis that opened in the pandemic there was the largest massive wave of departures from the island, in which the Cuban Government itself recognized that it had lost 10% of the population (although other calculations raise the flight to 18%, almost two million people), the collapse could produce mass migration to Florida. And in the past, American military commanders have expressed fear that a popular uprising on the island could make them Cuban-American and if there were repression by the regime that affected them, the pressure would increase for a intervention that Trump doesn’t want.
Trump undoubtedly cares a lot about the image he could have if he achieves what 12 presidents before him did not achieve. In the economic field, open the island to American farmers It would be helpful now that the sector is being punished by the trade wars with tariffs that it has opened. The opening of other sectors, and especially tourism, would also bring benefits to the US. And they would contribute them to him, who since 2008 has been annually renewing a construction license of hotels, golf clubs and properties with his name.
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