The Americas, explained.
Life in Havana during a national blackout across Cuba on 23 March 2026 as a US oil blockade bites (Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images)
An oil blockade has brought Cuba to its knees, but coercion alone can’t produce the stable transition the US claims to want.
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Is Cuba next?Is Cuba next?
While the world focuses on the US-Israel and Iran conflict, a deliberate catastrophe is reaching a breaking point in the Caribbean, just 145 kilometres from Florida. Cuba is no longer merely a victim of its own chronic economic mismanagement. It has become the focal point of a sophisticated and intentional “maximum pressure” campaign that mirrors the most aggressive Cold War containment strategies, recalibrated for a multipolar, 21st-century landscape.
A blockade around Cuba in the 1960s had the world holding its breath at the prospect of nuclear conflict. Now, the intended byproduct of a tightened US oil blockade has brought the island’s electrical grid and healthcare system to a point of “total collapse”. US President Donald Trump has declared that “Cuba is in very bad shape, we will do something with Cuba very soon”.
That “something” can be a “friendly takeover”, a “not so friendly takeover” or a forced restructuring of the Cuban state.
By successfully choking Havana’s access to imported fuel following the US takeover of Venezuelan oil assets, Washington has effectively severed the island’s jugular. No fuel has entered Havana since 9 January 2026. Fuel rationing has paralysed Cuba’s internal logistics, leading to the suspension of schools, the cancellation of flights, the shuttering of what remained of the productive economy and leaving people cooking on the streets with firewood. Many will die with hospitals postponing routine procedures and struggling to maintain basic emergency care marks. Five million people living with chronic illnesses, cancer patients who need continuous oncology care, and more than 32,000 pregnant women depending on maternal services are at risk. Access to water is paralysed because it comes from tanker trucks or electric pumps.
This domestic fragility is being leveraged by a Trump administration that views the current global preoccupation with Middle Eastern and Eurasian theatres as a “strategic window” for what they call the “Venezuela Solution”.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, despite his Cuban heritage, has maintained that he wants Cuba on its knees, overseeing a strategy that capitalises on the vacuum left by the collapse of the PetroCaribe lifelines. The US gamble is clear: by pushing the Cuban economy to the brink of a humanitarian abyss, Washington believes it can force the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) to accept a market-oriented transition in exchange for political survival.
A purely coercive approach may destroy the very institutions – such as power, water, and hospitals – needed to sustain any orderly transition.
However, this logic carries immense risks. Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s warning that the government is “preparing in case we have to move to a state of war” should not be dismissed as mere socialist rhetoric. It is a signal from a regime that would rather see a state collapse or a kinetic escalation than a total surrender of its sovereign political system.
Tensions reached a fever pitch on 25 February when Cuban border guards intercepted a US-registered vessel allegedly carrying weapons and ten individuals with “terrorist intentions”. The ensuing firefight, resulting in four deaths, serves as a grim microcosm of how easily a blockade can escalate into a hot conflict.
Whether such incidents are the work of independent actors, criminal networks, or the product of deniable operations will shape how easily the crisis can be contained. The danger is that a blockade‑driven humanitarian collapse could provoke desperate, unpredictable responses from a cornered regime or from non‑state actors.
The Free Cuba Rally at Milander Park on 24 March 2026 in Hialeah, Florida (Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Washington likely calculates that a more aggressive posture, aimed at applying maximum pressure now and extracting concessions later, is worth the gamble. But a total state collapse on an island of 11 million people would produce immediate humanitarian suffering and likely trigger a mass migration crisis with regional and domestic political consequences for the United States. Reports of “meaningful dialogue” via back-channel contacts suggest a de-escalation pathway remains in view, but only via a narrow path to stability and recovery.
Under these circumstances, three scenarios can be foreseen. First, continuing the blockade risks a humanitarian catastrophe and mass displacement. A purely coercive approach may destroy the very institutions, such as power, water, and hospitals, needed to sustain any orderly transition.
Second, a negotiated approach that ties conditional relief with robust monitoring and guarantees could preserve basic services while opening political and economic space. Such an approach would require credible international actors to underwrite humanitarian corridors and to ensure that any economic opening is not immediately captured by predatory actors.
Finally, a multilateral framework that preserves basic services while opening political space, avoiding a power vacuum that could be filled by unwanted elements.
Cuba’s crisis is not merely a bilateral dispute; it is a test of how coercive economic statecraft functions in a multipolar era. If Washington’s goal is stability, the current blockade is a blunt instrument that may destroy the very infrastructure required for a stable transition. If the aim is regime change by attrition, the humanitarian and geopolitical costs could be profound.
Whether Havana becomes a success story for “maximum pressure” or another failed state in a fragmenting world will depend on whether the upcoming weeks bring a “deal” that suits the Trump administration or a declaration of war triggered by humanitarian collapse. Unlike Iran, Cuba has no nuclear capability and poses no direct military threat.
Yet if Trump seeks change through economic pressure alone, his miscalculation could backfire – provoking a massive exodus of refugees, regional destabilisation, a hardening of Cuban domestic resistance and retaliatory measures that would undermine US credibility across Latin America and beyond. While other global crises dominate headlines, the silent collapse of Cuba may yet become the hemisphere’s most urgent emergency.
About the author
Izabela Pereira Watts
Dr Izabela Pereira Watts is a former UN peacekeeper, multi-award winner, with an extensive career of 20 years of experience and a robust aptitude for international security and international development cooperation.
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