Name: Donald Trump’s fuel embargo intensifies Cuba’s energy crisis | Global News Podcast
Uploaded: 2026-02-19T21:33:06.000Z
Duration: 12 min 5 s
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Welcome to the global News podcast on YouTube, where we go behind the Headlines today whether the US oil blockade on Cuba could come close to toppling the communist regime and whether Russia would dare send in its oil tankers.

We're joined from Havana by our Cuba correspondent, Will Grant.

It really is beginning to bite now, Alex.

It's been weeks since the Trump administration carried out military action on Venezuela, removing Cuba's most important ally in Nicolas Maduro, from power.

And basically the immediate consequence from that has been, first the lack of Venezuelan oil being provided to the island, which was to the tune of somewhere in the region of 35,000 barrels of oil a day.

But it was also bolstered by other energy partners, particularly Mexico.

Now, with the Trump administration putting in place the threat of tariffs, any potential energy partner to Cuba, we're really beginning to see the effects of what you've rightly described as a total energy blockade on the island.

We're seeing people cooking with firewood here in the capital, Havana.

We're seeing people going through the rubbish in search of perhaps recyclable materials, possibly even food.

We're seeing rubbish stack up at street corners because there's simply no fuel to run the state's fleet of garbage trucks to collect it.

And we're seeing the fact that there are very, very few cars circulating on the road.

People are only permitted 20 liters of fuel at a time.

It must be paid for in US dollars, which, of course, many, many Cubans don't have access to at all.

And when they do go to the petrol pumps, they can only do so through app.

And the queue, the virtual queue to get your turn at the petrol pumps is sometimes weeks long for half a tank of petrol.

So it is genuinely beginning to bite on the streets.

People are hurting, people are suffering, and

all they can do is sort of hunker down and keep going.

Is the leadership in Cuba afraid of being treated like Venezuela?

It's quite hard to know in sort of exact terms because everything seems to be based on leaks and rumors at this stage.

And you don't get many genuine leaks from the Cuban government because it's so hermetically sealed.

So it's sort of coming from the Washington side more than anywhere else.

But I'd say this Washington's goal under President Trump is the goal that Washington has had for many, many decades in Cuba, and

That much we know They've certainly made no bones about that.

The question, I think, is how they go about doing that.

Are they prepared to do a sort of Venezuelan version, which is that they're so aware of the dangers of complete overnight removal of a regime and the imposition of a sort of Washington craven regime, or one that is more closely allied to Washington, that they've shown themselves as reasonably pragmatic in the Trump administration that is happy to work with Delsey Rodriguez, that former vice president in Venezuela under Nicolas Maduro, and

sort of work with the remnants of the Maduro regime, at least for now.

It's had the same government in place for 67 years, the revolutionary government.

But it does begin to suggest now that they are looking for a sort of Delsey figure in Cuba that is someone that they would be prepared to work with in an interim capacity.

The latest suggestion is that that might be Raul Castro's grandson.

Everybody has always said that if there is to be a sort of power brokering in Cuba, it would have to be run through Raul Castro.

Even at 94 years old, he is the sole decision maker when it comes to decisions of this, of this importance.

The civilian government headed by President Miguel d' Esconel simply doesn't have the, the authority in those terms to make those decisions.

Now, there'll be lots of tensions between differing factions within the Cuban government, a faction that is more business orientated and perhaps younger, and

a faction that's more ideological and older.

But nevertheless, it does seem that Washington's goal, Trump's aim in Cuba is to achieve regime change.

But if that means doing it through an interim personality, and

if that person is directly related to Raul Castro, that would be acceptable to Washington.

It's another question whether or not he can sell that idea to the Cuban American diaspora in Florida, which is so important.

As you say, the oil embargo, the fuel embargo really biting.

Some in Cuba are hoping that Russia might step in and fill the gap.

I mean, I think Russia is the logical partner in the sense that it can do two things.

One, it has the capacity, I think, even though it is obviously engaged in its invasion of Ukraine and it needs its oil capacity for other means, I think it would still have the capacity, from what experts tell me, to sort of continue to prop up Cuba, at least to an extent, at least to get them through the hardest moments as they head into the, to the hotter months in this country where air conditioning Units will be whirring and so on.

So there's a possibility that it could do that.

Now, would it do that given the threat of sanctions?

There's been suggestions from a spokesperson.

Again, one can't be sure whether or not it's a bluff or it's clear that they would be able to sort of take on sanctions to a much better extent than some of the other partners that Cuba has.

For example, Mexico, because of the fact that bilateral trade between the US and Russia isn't so significant that it would make that much of an impact.

It's obviously a very large and powerful country and President Putin may decide that this is something he wants to do.

So far though, there have been no sort of knights on white horses riding over the horizon to Cuba's rescue at all.

Whether or not that's Moscow, Vietnam, Iran, Mexico, Chile, any other nation that might be inclined to help Cuba simply hasn't done.

That's partly because of the Trump's threats of tariffs and it's also, I think, because it is such a delicate moment that they simply don't want to cross Washington at this particular moment, irrespective of the tariffs, they're being told to step back and they're doing so.

The one thing we're seeing from Mexico is sends of humanitarian aid in form of baby milk and rice and so on, but

not that one thing that the island most desperately needs, which is crude oil.

There was a time, Will, when the tourist industry provided quite a lot of much needed hard foreign currency.

Presumably that is nigh on impossible in these conditions.

I mean, it was already very low because of really from the years of the coronavirus onwards.

It took a huge hit during the COVID 19 restrictions and has never quite recovered, certainly not to the level of the 5 million visitors a year seen during the year that Barack Obama came to Cuba in 2016.

So over the past decade there's been a steady decline to the point that it's just barely knocking on the door of 2 million visitors.

That's, you know, 40% of what it was at its height.

That is naturally going to have a major effect in terms of its foreign currency earnings.

And it is very, very painful for an island which absolutely depends on tourism to survive.

People here involved in tourism, I've spoken to a lot of them over the years and on this particular trip say, you know, they're still here, they're still doing their bit, they're still trying to make sure people come and can Have a good time and prop up the tourism industry.

But the truth of the matter is it's a much, much harder thing to do when there's so limited fuel to go around to organize trips around the island, because you could get to one point and not get back.

And we know of course, that tour operators are not flying to the island in some cases because they can't guarantee.

In fact, they've been told they cannot refuel in Havana.

So then it becomes just short haul flights from Cancun, from Miami and so on.

And we've seen flights by Air Canada completely suspended.

Last question, Will does the communist regime still have the support of Cuban people?

And it's not just dwindled in this current crisis.

It's a very, very different generation to the one that they called the original generation of revolutionaries, the contemporaries of Fidel and Raul Castro.

Those men and women built this Cuban revolution and did so through blood, sweat and tears, in essence.

But young people look at their cousins in Miami and in Spain and in Europe and so on, and

wonder why they are having to struggle quite so hard on the island for the basics.

I spoke to a man who is in his 40s and he is cooking with firewood in Havana, and

his nine year old daughter went to school with an empty stomach with no breakfast that morning.

That is very, very galling for a society that has done what it's been done, asked to by the Cuban revolution, that is sacrifice its wages, receive very, very small wages for its work over the years in exchange for a sort of social safety net of free health care, good education and security and so on.

Now all of the pillars of the revolution are crumbling in those areas and you're still not getting wages.

You're trapped in essentially a cycle of eternal poverty, which is true, of course, in many parts of Latin America, but

feels particularly galling to people here because they feel like they were never given the chance to get on.

They could never make a living out of construction, they could never make a living out of owning a small store, and

The revolution is also splitting into a society where there are those who do have access to these things, who do have access to dollars and petrol and cars and support.

The private sector sector are doing okay even in this current environment.