Cuba

Cuban President Díaz-Canel publicly acknowledged ongoing negotiations with the Trump administration, marking a rare admission of direct bilateral engagement under crisis conditions. Cuba has imported no oil for three months, driving grid instability and civilian power outages of 13–15 hours daily, and the black market has become the primary fuel distribution mechanism. Trump publicly framed Cuba as a depleted, subordinate actor — linking its fate to Venezuela regime change — signaling Washington views Havana as operating from a position of extreme vulnerability. Cuba offered 51 prisoner releases and FBI access as apparent goodwill gestures, suggesting it is making asymmetric concessions to sustain dialogue. The structural imbalance between the two parties' negotiating positions indicates Washington holds overwhelming leverage while Havana's capacity to resist or delay is rapidly eroding.

On January 29, 2026, President Trump invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to declare Cuba an 'unusual and extraordinary threat' to U.S. national security, authorizing tariffs and punitive measures against third-party states supplying oil to Cuba. The U.S. Coast Guard has since intercepted oil tankers bound for Cuba, creating an effective naval blockade unprecedented in its scope — exceeding even the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis quarantine, which permitted non-military imports. The blockade has cut fuel supplies to Cuban hospitals and ambulances, compounding pre-existing infrastructure degradation from decades of embargo. Secretary of State Rubio has explicitly stated that regime change is the objective, while congressional figures have acknowledged civilian suffering as an acceptable cost. The move is analytically linked to the January 3 U.S. capture of Venezuelan President Maduro, suggesting a coordinated maximum-pressure campaign across the Caribbean left.

U.S. forces physically removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from Caracas, ending his tenure through direct military intervention rather than diplomatic or electoral pressure. The action followed the collapse of regional mediation efforts after the fraudulent July 2024 election, during which Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and the United States failed to apply meaningful pressure on Maduro. The intervention establishes a de facto U.S. protectorate over Venezuela under acting President Delcy Rodríguez, with Venezuelan oil and resources effectively under U.S. receivership. The event signals a shift in Trump's 'Americas First' posture toward active enforcement of hemispheric dominance, with Venezuela serving as a precedent for potential future interventions. Latin America's inability to coordinate a regional response both precipitated the intervention and leaves the region structurally exposed to further unilateral U.S. action.

Trump declared a national emergency citing Cuba as an 'unusual and extraordinary threat,' imposing secondary tariffs on any country supplying oil to the island. The measure has effectively cut off all of Cuba's foreign oil supply — from Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, Algeria, Angola, and Brazil — collapsing the island's energy infrastructure and sending the economy into free fall. The blockade compounds decades of U.S. embargo pressure and has produced cascading domestic failures: hospital cancellations, school suspensions, garbage accumulation, and fuel queues. Cuba's leadership has begun signaling — obliquely — openness to accommodation, though no formal negotiation has commenced. The Trump administration is simultaneously conducting back-channel diplomacy with Raúl Castro's grandson, suggesting a coercive bargaining strategy aimed at regime restructuring rather than outright military overthrow.