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Cuban historian Rafael Rojas, researcher and professor at El Colegio de México, believes that given the worsening crisis Cuba is facing under the oil siege imposed by Donald Trump and reinforced by the executive order of January 29, 2026, “migratory pressure toward a mass exodus, or a social explosion, are within the realm of reasonable expectations of what could happen in the coming weeks and months.”
“If there is a social explosion, one would expect the Cuban Government’s habitual way of reacting with repression and orders for mass arrests and imprisonments. In that case, the possibility of an (US) intervention becomes more tangible,” he warned.
In a conversation with the program Esta Semana, broadcast on CONFIDENCIAL’s YouTube channel due to television censorship in Nicaragua, Rojas analyzed different scenarios for overcoming the crisis of Cuba’s revolutionary model, after 67 years of wear and tear and now under “maximum pressure” from the Trump Administration.
Cuba has proposed dialogue with the United States to expand cooperation on issues tied to Trump’s hemispheric security strategy (illegal migration, counternarcotics, terrorism, security). But it is not ruled out that, in exchange for economic cooperation and suspension of the embargo, the United States would demand profound political changes in the “Cuban model” — something Havana has never been willing to consider.
Between these two options — which could lead to regime collapse or capitulation — a sector of Cuban society proposes resuming a political and economic reform agenda postponed since 2011. But the hardline wing of the Communist Party and the military, Rojas says, demands “closing ranks” with Miguel Diaz-Canel’s Government and instead imposing a “counter-reform.”
Cuba was already going through a severe energy crisis since last year. What impact has the closing of the Venezuelan oil spigot — imposed by the United States — and Trump’s executive order threatening tariffs on countries exporting oil to Cuba had on the economy and daily life?
Trump’s executive order of January 29 adds to a depression in Cuba’s economic and social indicators that has been unfolding since 2021, when that social explosion occurred — a series of mass protests across the island.
Since then, there has been an enormous drop in productivity and GDP, shortages of basic food and medicines, inflation, a fall in the real minimum wage, impoverishment, rising inequality, and worsening living conditions.
The executive order comes in the context of the suspension of Venezuelan oil subsidies after the US military operation in Caracas on January 3. The decline of Venezuelan subsidies over the last five years even led Mexico to replace Venezuela as Cuba’s main fuel supplier last year.
What is the situation right now? What oil reserves does Cuba have before a total paralysis occurs?
Energy specialists on Cuba, such as Professor Jorge Piñón, argue that Cuba has domestic fuel production sufficient to supply up to 40% of the infrastructure and economic needs. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on February 5 that there has been no external oil supply since December. However, in Mexico there was talk of shipments during the first 15 days of January. In the last month, the Cuban Government has been self-supplying oil at that pace it produces. What is under debate is the concept of collapse. Cuban economists, sociologists, and demographers — especially amid rising mass emigration — have used that concept for years, since the 2021 protests. But now collapse refers to national paralysis due to energy shortages. That said, total paralysis would never occur, because the Government could endure with self-supply, although 40% or below.
This crisis is also hitting tourism, especially Canadian tourism, which represents over 60% of visitors. How do blackouts, transportation limits, and access to basic services affect daily life?
The economic model consolidated in the first quarter of the 21st century — built on the collaboration scheme between Venezuela and Cuba promoted by Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez and rests on external oil subsidies and the concentration of development planning on tourism and family remittances.
Maintaining either income stream requires, on the one hand, oil subsidies, and on the other, good relations with the United States so sanctions don’t affect remittances.
Those two sources of income for the Cuban economy — tourism and remittances — are now being severely affected by the crisis. As a result, the Cuban state is facing the prospect of declining revenues which, combined with reduced oil supplies, not only limits the government’s ability to meet its international financial obligations but also its capacity to keep the country’s economic and social life functioning. One of the sectors immediately impacted by this energy blockade facing Cuba is the electricity sector, but also health services, education, and water supply — the systems needed to keep hospitals and schools operating, as well as businesses, factories, and public transportation.
Compared with past crises — the 1962 Missile Crisis, the 1990s “Special Period,” the 2021 protests — what does today represent with the loss of Venezuelan subsidies and the new aggressive policy of the Trump administration?
In recent weeks, a frequently invoked comparison has been with the “Special Period” and the “Zero Option,” as a moment very similar to the present one was called in the 1990s. At that time, Cuba faced both the U.S. trade embargo and the loss of its ties to the Soviet Union and the Eastern European socialist states during the Cold War — which had been the main buyers of Cuban sugar — producing a crisis similar to today’s.
The difference is that Cuba was once one of the world’s main sugar producers for the CMEA market — the socialist countries — whereas today that is no longer the case, because Cuba no longer has a productive resource like sugar positioned in the global market. What Cuba can offer in a moment of energy shortages is tourism and remittances, two sources of income that are directly affected by this escalating dispute with the government of Donald Trump. In the span of a week, the United States has effectively become the only option Cuba has to secure a stable energy supply and to maintain — and even increase — the flow of remittances from the Cuban diaspora in a regular way that would have a meaningful impact on the island’s economy.
Donald Trump himself has promoted speculation and various accounts about alleged talks and negotiations with the Cuban regime. Is there any evidence that negotiations actually exist? And if that were the case, what would the United States be seeking in such negotiations with Cuba?
I have not read any report that provides concrete evidence of negotiations between the governments of Cuba and the United States. What we have heard in recent weeks are statements by Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, in which he has referred to conversations and exchanges of messages at the highest level. We have also seen statements from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating that Cuba is offering to deepen its cooperation with the United States in a number of areas that are very important to Washington’s new hemispheric security strategy — or the so-called DonRoe Doctrine — including combating drug trafficking, human trafficking, and illegal migration in the Greater Caribbean, as well as cooperation on cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and a proposal for far-reaching collaboration in maritime and border security in the region.
It is true that these are areas in which there has been cooperation in the past, but the Cuban government is now offering to deepen that cooperation with the United States. At the same time, Havana is also calling for global solidarity with Cuba, drawing parallels between the island’s situation and that of Gaza, seeking international impact — particularly at the media and ideological level — in denouncing what it portrays as U.S. harassment or hostility. Alongside this outward-facing discourse, there is also a strong emphasis domestically on the Cuban people’s capacity for sacrifice, on the revolution’s ideological intransigence, and on the assertion that Cuba will not negotiate with the United States under conditions of pressure or political preconditions.
The United States is focusing on issues that, according to Cuba, align with its own agenda — anti-migration policies, deportations, drug trafficking, and also rare minerals. Or is promoting political change, or regime change in Cuba, also part of its agenda?
We do not know; that is part of the uncertainty. Marco Rubio, for example, has made statements favorable to regime change, but has always insisted that the United States would not be directly involved in such an agenda. He has said that lifting the embargo would require regime change, but that regime change is not on the immediate policy agenda of the United States.
However, it is very difficult to understand the Trump administration’s policy of maximum pressure through an energy blockade without linking it to expectations that another social uprising like the one in 2021 could occur, disrupting domestic stability on the island and potentially leading to some form of military intervention in one of its possible modalities. It is difficult to rule that out. Given this increase in pressure, the shortages, and the possibility of social unrest, there is no clarity about what the United States’ negotiating agenda — or regime-change agenda — would be.
I imagine that if this offer from the Cuban Foreign Ministry to deepen cooperation on security issues in the Greater Caribbean is received positively by some sector of Donald Trump’s government, other demands would be made in return. The Trump administration would currently be in a position to offer what Cuba most needs — energy supply. But naturally, in exchange, it would demand other concessions beyond the expanded hemispheric security cooperation that Havana is offering.
From the perspective of the Cuban regime, deep political and economic reforms that could address the crisis of the Cuban model have been ruled out or postponed for decades and were never implemented. Are these postponed reforms part of the options available to the regime today, or is the only option left to resist or capitulate?
We do not know that either. In recent weeks, reformist groups on the island — particularly economists, sociologists, and demographers — have relaunched their reform proposals on various digital platforms and are advocating a return to the reform path. These proposals are well developed at different levels: some are more radical or far-reaching in academic circles, while others had been accepted by Raúl Castro’s government between 2011 and 2016, precisely when diplomatic normalization with Barack Obama began. Later, however, a Party plenum reversed that entire reform project. These reformist sectors — including diplomats, politicians, and figures from the economic and commercial spheres in Cuba — are proposing a return to that reform agenda. The response from the more ideological wing of the Cuban bureaucracy is that demanding reforms now amounts to capitulation, and that the priority should instead be to close ranks behind the Díaz-Canel government and maintain the counter-reformist line. In fact, a new development plan has just been launched along the same counter-reformist lines of recent years. The Cuban government’s response to the idea that reform could be an element of negotiation is therefore opposed to that option.
Where does the Cuban people stand in this crisis? Is a mass exodus or large-scale migration likely if no solution emerges? Are there prospects for new popular protests as a result of the widespread blackouts and lack of access to services, or does the regime have sufficient support for its strategy of resistance and non-concession?
Both scenarios — a mass exodus or migratory pressure, and a social uprising — fall within the range of reasonable expectations for what could happen in Cuba in the coming weeks and months. In the case of a mass exodus, there are a number of new restrictions that did not exist in the 1990s during the Special Period and the Zero Option, nor in the early decades of the 21st century when the last attempts at large-scale maritime exodus occurred. U.S. laws today are different; they are restrictive toward illegal migration by sea. Other irregular migration routes by land — traveling to Nicaragua, Ecuador, other Central American countries, and Mexico in order to make the journey to the U.S. border — are also closing. The government of Daniel Ortega recently decided to impose visa requirements on prospective Cuban migrants.
The visa-free policy had been used during the years of the 2021 and 2022 protests by thousands of Cubans to reach Nicaragua and then travel north through Central America, cross Mexico, and enter the United States overland. Those pathways are now closing, and as the prospects for a successful mass exodus diminish, the likelihood of a social explosion or a wave of protests increases even further.
How have Cubans reacted to Nicaragua’s suspension of visa-free entry? In a column you wrote and that we published in CONFIDENCIAL, you say that Daniel Ortega is showing solidarity with Donald Trump. Why?
It is ironic, of course, because the decision taken by the Nicaraguan government aligns with what Donald Trump and Secretary of State Rubio have been demanding in recent years — namely, to restrict as much as possible irregular migration of Cubans, Venezuelans, and Haitians through Central America and Mexico. In that sense, it must have been a measure well received by the Trump administration; that is why I refer to it as “solidarity.”
Mexico, as you mentioned, and also Chile, are calling for humanitarian aid for Cuba. But what is the scale of this humanitarian crisis? Is it a short-term phenomenon caused by the oil embargo, or a structural problem?
The idea of collapse has been appearing in analyses of the deterioration of Cuba’s economic and social indicators since 2021 and 2022. Another term used by academics on the island is polycrisis. They use it because it is a structural crisis in every sense — economic, social, political, external and internal income, and budgetary. It has been incubating over recent years and is now reaching its climax with the oil blockade — or perhaps not entirely, since it remains to be seen how long the Cuban government can survive with 40% or less energy self-sufficiency and this call for resistance.
In effect, the humanitarian crisis is not new, although it has clearly intensified. What I observe as new is that Cuba’s international relations with left-leaning Latin American governments are now based on recognizing a humanitarian crisis. In other words, Cuba no longer circulates among governments such as Claudia Sheinbaum’s in Mexico, Lula’s in Brazil, Orsi’s in Uruguay, or Boric’s in Chile as a model — as the Revolution or socialism — but as a country experiencing a humanitarian crisis, much as Haiti has been perceived for decades. Obviously, there are emotional and ideological factors tied to the historical experience of the Cuban Revolution and its regional role that also shape this diagnosis. But this also leads to differences in how solidarity is expressed. The Boric government, for example, insists that humanitarian aid should not be delivered directly from the Chilean government to the Cuban government, but rather through international organizations such as UNICEF. By contrast, President Sheinbaum — I believe in order to satisfy pro-Cuba sectors within the ruling Morena party — is defending a form of humanitarian aid delivered through direct government-to-government relations.
During the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela on January 3, 32 Cuban officers and soldiers were killed in military actions. What impact did this have in Cuba, and what is happening with the Cuban military and security presence in Venezuela — does it remain, has it withdrawn, or is it also part of negotiations with the United States?
The deaths of those 32 Cuban military personnel in the January 3 operation in Caracas were treated as a period of mourning by the Cuban government. Funeral honors were held on the island, and for at least a week the official press focused heavily on that mourning before shifting to other strategies. Something that was not apparent at first but has since begun to gain ground on official Cuban social media is a negative perception — even rejection — of how Delcy Rodríguez’s government is conducting its negotiations with the United States; at times, the term “betrayal” is even used. Overall, a very critical and negative perception is becoming dominant, including criticism of the cold manner in which Rodríguez’s government has handled the issue of the 32 Cuban soldiers killed in Caracas.
Regarding military cooperation with Venezuela, I do not have firsthand information. However, I would expect an accelerated deterioration of that relationship, just as cooperation in public health — including the deployment of Cuban professionals in education and sports — is also rapidly deteriorating.
How long could this crisis last? I assume that from Cuba’s perspective they want to hold out until Donald Trump’s midterm elections in the United States, but on the other hand Trump has many tools to exert pressure on Cuba. .
Indeed, I believe that is the Cuban government’s strategy: to hold out until November and hope that an unfavorable outcome for Republicans in the U.S. midterm elections — and a reshaping of Congress — could lead to a reversal of the January 29 executive order and a change in the climate of extreme hostility seen in recent months. That is the government’s bet, and between now and November this campaign of solidarity with Cuba will try to advance as much as possible within networks of the Democratic Party in the United States. We may even see in the coming months something that has happened before, though not with the same intensity or emphasis — a Cuban intervention in a U.S. electoral process, meaning efforts to place the island’s situation on the Democrats’ electoral agenda ahead of the November vote.
Is a crisis in Cuba triggered by the United States possible? I assume Washington must weigh the consequences of provoking a collapse in Cuba.
It would be very risky for the Trump administration. Trump’s popularity is low, and there are unfavorable projections for both him and the Republican Party ahead of the November elections. But anything could happen if a serious development occurs in either of the two scenarios we mentioned earlier. If there were a social uprising — which has historically been met by repression, mass arrests, and imprisonment — or an attempted mass exodus, the possibility of intervention would become more tangible.
When the U.S. military intervention in Venezuela occurred, many expected a different reaction from the Venezuelan armed forces and from the political support base of Nicolás Maduro’s regime. In Cuba’s case, what would the population’s reaction be? Does U.S. pressure generate support for the regime?
Both reactions are possible. There is a segment of the population — especially young people, critical sectors, and activists who use new social media technologies — that is strongly positioning itself against the government and is being repressed, arrested, prosecuted, and sentenced to prison terms. There is also an evangelical activism that is mobilizing against the government. This critical segment of Cuban society, particularly among the younger generations, has been gaining ground in its challenge to the government since the 2021 social uprising, and this trend will deepen in the coming weeks.
However, there are also more traditional sectors that will reaffirm their identification with the government under this new climate of hostility. Both dynamics coexist. And I would assume that within the decisive sectors — namely the military and security apparatus — a similar division is also emerging: perhaps not as openly oppositional as among young critics of the government, but rather between those more inclined toward reviving a reformist project and those aligning with the government’s current stance.
