Cuba is confronting its most acute humanitarian crisis and the greatest threat to its political status quo in decades, after the United States, in effect, severed the island’s access to imported oil. The turning point came on 3 January, when the U.S. sent in commandos to grab Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, leading to a de facto halt of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, depriving it of a major source of fuel. Previously, supplies from Venezuela and Mexico together had accounted for roughly three quarters of Cuba’s oil imports. The U.S. stranglehold on these imports tightened on 29 January, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order declaring a “national emergency” related to Cuba and authorising tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act on countries supplying fuel to the island, a measure that appears to have contributed to Mexico’s decision to suspend deliveries. The disruption of fuel flows has already driven Cuba’s reserves to critically low levels, with analysts estimating that only weeks of supply remain.

The cutoff has triggered nationwide blackouts, fuel rationing, transportation shutdowns, suspension of airline refuelling (prompting a number of major international carriers to cancel service to Cuba) and other austerity measures, including shortened work weeks and reduced school hours. Oil is being set aside for hospitals and food production, but the Cuban health system – already weakened by shortages of medicines and equipment – is under mounting pressure, with disruptions of essential services like ambulances and medical flights as well as life-saving medical procedures such as dialysis and cancer treatment. 

The Trump administration’s decision to apply “maximum pressure” to Havana is the latest chapter of a decades-long riposte to the Cuban Revolution of 1959. Since that watershed, the U.S. has tried to usher in political change on the island, but various strategies – including periods of stricter sanctions and isolation as well as engagement during the Barack Obama-era normalisation – have not yielded the desired results. Cuba’s heightened vulnerability following the collapse of subsidised oil shipments has nonetheless created what some U.S. policymakers view as a rare opening to exercise decisive leverage. For Republicans, in particular, forcing regime change in Cuba remains a long-thwarted foreign policy goal, achievement of which they would see as a landmark in President Trump’s efforts to reboot U.S. stewardship of the Americas. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban emigrants, has promised that, under Trump, the U.S. “will hold the illegitimate Cuban regime accountable”.

Domestic politics also affect Washington’s posture toward Havana. U.S. citizens of Cuban descent, known as Cuban Americans, remain an important electoral constituency and a force shaping policy, particularly in southern Florida, the state whose southernmost tip lies just 145km from Cuba. Many of them see the current moment as a potential inflection point. The Cuban diaspora, however, is not monolithic. While hardline voices – including several Cuban American members of Congress – have long advocated for tough measures, such as restricting family remittances and suspending U.S. flights to Cuba, others favour dialogue and policies aimed at alleviating hardship.

These divisions reflect the complex political calculus surrounding Cuba policy, where calls for cracking down on Havana vie with concerns about humanitarian impact, new waves of migration and regional stability. Despite urgings from hawkish Republicans, the Trump administration itself appears to have grown more cautious about taking maximalist steps that could generate dire humanitarian consequences or contribute to renewed migration flows to Florida. This shift appears to have guided Washington’s decision on 25 February to authorise U.S. companies to resell Venezuelan oil to Cuban firms under federal licensing frameworks, with the stated aim of supporting “the Cuban people, including the Cuban private sector”. The policy is designed to channel fuel toward commercial and humanitarian uses, particularly activities linked to small and medium-sized enterprises rather than state-controlled entities. The volumes involved remain modest, however, and are unlikely to materially offset the broader energy shortfall.

Washington has also been restrained in its reaction to news that the Cuban border patrol exchanged fire with a Florida-registered boat on 25 February, leaving four people dead and six wounded. Havana said the boat was carrying armed men who shot at Cuban border guards and were intending to infiltrate the island to carry out “terrorist” attacks. Amid fears that the bilateral standoff could spill over into further acts of disorderly violence, the Trump administration has so far responded cautiously, stating that it is investigating the incident. 

Cuba’s predicament is the culmination of decades of centralised political control, U.S. sanctions, economic mismanagement and extreme reliance on foreign partners. Since the revolution led by Fidel Castro, power has been concentrated in the Communist Party of Cuba, which is constitutionally defined as the country’s “superior leading force”. Political authority is tightly held at the top, with limited institutional checks, and the security apparatus plays a prominent role in maintaining political stability. Today, Miguel Díaz-Canel serves as both president of the republic and first secretary of the Communist Party, formally holding the country’s highest state and party offices. Though Raúl Castro, who officially succeeded his brother Fidel in 2008, has formally stepped down from leadership positions, he remains an influential figure with informal authority inside elite and military circles. The Group of Business Administration (GAESA), a military-linked conglomerate, controls the main sectors that generate hard currency, such as tourism, retail, ports, real estate and foreign trade, strengthening the regime’s grip on strategic revenue streams. While the government has in recent years opened limited space for small and medium-sized private enterprises, these remain strictly regulated.

Cuba’s economy has long depended on foreign subsidies and imported oil. The Kremlin’s support sustained the system until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, after which the island suffered a severe economic crisis known as the Special Period, marked by widespread fuel scarcity, blackouts and sharp declines in living standards. Beginning in the early 2000s, Cuba and Venezuela institutionalised a barter-style arrangement under which Caracas supplied subsidised crude oil in exchange for Cuban medical and technical personnel. Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors staffed Venezuela’s community health programs, while oil shipments – at times approaching 100,000 barrels per day on preferential terms – became a pillar of Cuba’s energy security and balance of payments. As Venezuela’s oil production and fiscal headroom shrank in the 2010s and early 2020s, deliveries became smaller and less reliable, diluting critical external assistance on which Havana had come to rely.

Meanwhile, the U.S. embargo – imposed in 1962 following Cuba’s nationalisation of U.S. assets – has become one of the longest-running sanctions regimes in modern history. Reinforced in the 1990s through the Torricelli Act (1992) and the Helms-Burton Act (1996), it restricts trade, financial transactions and investment, and includes extraterritorial provisions that complicate third-country commerce with the island. Though President Obama’s normalisation from 2014 to 2016 eased travel, remittance and banking restrictions and removed Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, Trump subsequently reversed many of those measures and ordered a major tightening of sanctions by instituting a broad prohibition on financial transactions with companies controlled by GAESA. President Joe Biden’s administration later eased certain restrictions, particularly on remittances, travel and consular services, but left much of the sanctions architecture intact. Upon returning to office, Trump reinstated and expanded pressure measures, cancelling Biden-era adjustments and intensifying economic restrictions once again.

Critics argue that the embargo – known in Cuba as el bloqueo – has constrained trade, restricted access to capital and technology, and raised the cost of essential imports such as food and medicine. For 33 consecutive years, the UN General Assembly has voted by an overwhelming majority to condemn the embargo, reflecting the world’s broad opposition to these coercive measures. Despite the embargo’s undoubtedly pernicious effects, analysts nonetheless note that domestic economic policies and structural inefficiencies have also played leading roles in generating today’s crunch. 

The convergence of systemic economic distortions, long-term sanctions, centralised political control and the sudden loss of oil imports has pushed Cuba toward its current plight. The most immediate danger is a humanitarian collapse driven by severe fuel shortages. Prolonged blackouts – lasting up to twenty hours a day in some areas – are disrupting electricity, water pumping, sanitation, food refrigeration and transportation. Hospitals are operating under emergency conditions, putting off routine and elective procedures while struggling to maintain emergency and intensive care services. Interruptions of life support systems, diagnostic equipment and refrigerated medicines place patients with cancer, cardiac and respiratory illnesses at heightened risk. Ambulance shortages and fuel constraints delay urgent care, increasing preventable mortality. Sanitation breakdowns and stagnant water heighten the risk of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and Oropouche, with children, the elderly and other vulnerable groups at particular risk.

Food insecurity is also intensifying. Fuel shortages undermine agricultural production, imports and internal distribution, while inflation and declining purchasing power restrict access to basic goods. Recurrent power failures are straining the ageing electrical grid, raising the prospect of longer-term infrastructure damage that could depress productivity and deter future investment.

Demographic pressures compound these vulnerabilities. Mass emigration – already at historic levels – is shrinking the labour force, increasing the proportion of elderly people in the population and weakening the country’s economic base. Since 2021, more than one million Cubans – roughly 10-15 per cent of the population – have left the island, most of them working-age adults. The exodus has contributed to record-low birth rates, labour shortages in key sectors and mounting strain on pension and social support systems. Further economic contraction could accelerate outward migration, generating regional ripple effects and stoking a political backlash in the U.S.

Publicly, Cuban authorities have attributed this surge to Washington’s sanctions and U.S. migration policies known as “wet foot, dry foot”, which privilege Cuban arrivals. At the same time, outward flows of migrants ease social pressures within Cuba and generate remittances that provide vital hard currency. While there is no clear evidence that the government has deliberately exploited migration, past crises have shown that large-scale departures can cause great political discomfort in Washington: during the Mariel boatlift in 1980, as many as 125,000 Cubans emigrated in the span of just a few months, overwhelming reception systems in Florida. President Jimmy Carter, who had pledged to welcome Cuban migrants at first, eventually reversed course by tightening entry procedures and negotiating an agreement with Havana to halt the boatlift. Equally, a fresh surge of migration today could raise the costs of prolonged confrontation for the U.S.

The risk of escalating U.S. pressure adds to the uncertainty. Washington could toughen its squeeze by expanding secondary sanctions, tightening restrictions on remittances and travel, broadening export controls or increasing maritime interdictions of fuel shipments. Though the U.S. has not formally declared a naval blockade – likely mindful of legal and diplomatic implications – and has shown signs of moving to a less draconian approach, its enforcement measures have so far largely curtailed maritime fuel deliveries. Tanker traffic has slowed, suppliers have withdrawn under threat of penalties, and vessels attempting deliveries have been diverted or delayed.

Worsening hardship might in turn spark renewed unrest or worse. Demonstrations in July 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, brought thousands of Cubans into the streets to protest shortages of food and medicine. Sources familiar with Washington’s thinking told Crisis Group that a similar outbreak of turmoil appears to have been part of the calculations of some members of the Trump administration, who at least at first regarded mounting pressure as a means of triggering political change. In 2025, praising the 2021 protests as a “turning point”, Rubio affirmed support for the island’s activists, signalling an expectation that economic distress and public dissent could loosen the government’s grip. If protesters were to be met with a state-led crackdown, Washington could face a chorus of domestic demands for a decisive response, possibly extending to calls for military intervention, while hardline opponents of Cuba’s government might seek to provoke its downfall. Though the administration now seems to be stepping away from a “choking strategy”, elements of the Republican Party are still looking for Havana to be cornered.

The prospects of an outbreak of protests are hard to gauge. Cuban authorities responded to the 2021 demonstrations by imprisoning more than 600 protesters, many of whom remain incarcerated. Discontent has risen since then, stirring questions as to whether a state crackdown would be so effective. Comparisons with the Special Period – which saw equivalent levels of poverty and deprivation to those of today, but few shows of collective outrage – are also of limited value. Many Cubans at the time had reaped the benefits brought by the revolution, including free high-quality education and health services. Today, this tradeoff no longer holds for many. According to a leading Cuban writer, a veteran communist noted in private that change, even if driven by Rubio, is essential to improve dire living standards. 

Information about possible talks between Washington and Havana remains scant, unreliable and often contradictory. President Trump has repeatedly asserted that his administration is “talking” with Cuban leaders and suggested a deal may be within reach, involving reciprocal concessions rather than a broader process of normalising relations. Cuban officials, in contrast, have denied that formal negotiations are under way. Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío has acknowledged exchanges of messages between the governments but said there is no established dialogue or negotiation. President Díaz-Canel has also signalled willingness to engage in dialogue with the U.S. “without pressure or preconditions”, and from a position of equality and respect for sovereignty. Havana has insisted that any such talks must not compromise its constitutional or political system.

Beyond public statements, there are reports of unofficial or exploratory contacts. Media outlets have said Secretary of State Rubio has held conversations with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro (nicknamed “El Cangrejo”), a grandson of Raúl Castro with ties to GAESA, reportedly most recently on the margins of a Caribbean Community (CARICOM) summit in late February, though these interactions have been described as informal. Other reports have suggested that Alejandro Castro Espín, son of Raúl Castro and a key figure in the 2014 rapprochement between Washington and Havana, may have been involved in indirect talks in Mexico City. Mexico has offered to facilitate dialogue, though Castro Espín’s involvement remains difficult to verify. Cuban officials have told Crisis Group that many of these claims are misinformation designed to “sow doubts so as to generate false expectations” about future concessions from Havana. 

An unresolved question is whether Cuba has an insider capable of negotiating with a far more powerful adversary while retaining sufficient authority to deliver commitments internally. Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez appears to personify this balancing act: she has been the chief interlocutor with Washington since the raid seizing Maduro and she is a political operator able to steer core parts of the state in the direction she chooses. Cuba’s system, however, is more bureaucratic and dependent on collective management rather than personalistic rule or factionalism. Authority is distributed across the Communist Party leadership, the security services and the military-linked economic apparatus, making the emergence of a single, publicly identifiable transition broker less feasible. Speculation has centred on figures in the Castro family’s inner circle and the military-economic establishment, but no individual who could fit the bill has yet been identified.

Regime politics reinforce this dynamic. With little room for political pluralism, incremental economic reforms – including modest openings for small private firms initiated under Raúl Castro and continued under Díaz-Canel – have been tightly managed. There have been reports of debate in government circles about the pace and scope of economic liberalisation, with some officials viewed as more open to market-oriented adjustments aimed at stabilising the economy and attracting investment. But more doctrinaire elements of the party, security services and military-linked economic sectors appear to retain greater influence, putting political control and regime cohesion above deeper reform. In the absence of a powerful constituency for change, the balance of power continues to favour continuity over a substantive economic and political opening.

At the same time, there is no single opposition figure who could anchor an alternative political system. Cuba’s opposition is fragmented, with many prominent dissidents and civic leaders living in exile. Those who remain on the island are under tight surveillance, facing periodic detention and legal restrictions that leave little space for sustained political mobilisation.

Some form of communication does seem to be taking place between senior figures on both sides, but there is no sign pointing to a structured negotiation with an agreed-upon agenda. With neither a regime insider nor an opposition leader equipped to pilot a credible negotiated transition on the horizon, any eventual talks would likely have targets more modest than political transformation. Recent remarks by Rubio point to a calibrated approach: while insisting that “Cuba’s status quo is unacceptable”, he added that everything “doesn’t have to change all at once” and that “everyone is mature and realistic”, signalling that the U.S. is not expecting sweeping political change. “If any agreement is going to be affected by an anticastrista [anti-Castro] position from the start, then it won’t happen”, a Cuban official told Crisis Group.

As Cuba’s emergency deepens, several foreign states – including the Vatican, Mexico, Russia and China – have become more visibly engaged. Some appear focused on supporting dialogue and alleviating humanitarian distress; others are approaching the situation primarily as another episode of big-power competition.

On the back of its previously pivotal diplomatic role in U.S.-Cuba relations, above all in facilitating the back-channel communications that contributed to the 2014 rapprochement and restoration of diplomatic ties between the countries in 2015, the Vatican has re-emerged as a potential intermediary. U.S. diplomats Mike Hammer and Brian Burch met in Rome on 19 February with Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, the Holy See’s secretary for relations with states, to discuss Cuba and the role of the Catholic Church. The U.S. has also coordinated with Caritas International to donate humanitarian aid delivered through the Church; it provided $3 million in assistance for eastern Cuba following Hurricane Melissa, which hit the island in October 2025, and has now pledged an additional $6 million. 

Mexico, meanwhile, has positioned itself as both a prospective mediator and a provider of humanitarian relief. President Claudia Sheinbaum has emphasised that Cubans themselves should determine the island’s political future and offered to facilitate dialogue between Washington and Havana. Mexican authorities have delivered food and supplies and proposed a humanitarian “air bridge” that would allow aircraft carrying aid to Cuba to refuel in Mexico, while taking pains to avoid large-scale fuel shipments that could trigger U.S. secondary sanctions. Spain, for its part, has announced that it will send humanitarian aid to Cuba through the UN system, especially food and sanitary products.

The rest of Latin America, on the other hand, has mostly remained silent in the face of the U.S. squeeze. Left-leaning leaders including Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva have condemned the embargo and defended the island’s sovereignty, but steered clear of criticising Washington. Even so, several Caribbean leaders lamented the hardships facing Cubans at the CARICOM meeting attended by Rubio and Hammer in late February, asking for a “constructive dialogue between Cuba and the U.S. aimed at de-escalation, reform and stability”.

Russia and China, by contrast, have depicted the crisis in more explicitly geopolitical terms. Both have condemned Washington’s campaign and signalled their political support for Havana, albeit without providing supplies to offset Cuba’s fuel shortfall. On 18 February, President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov hosted Lavrov’s Cuban counterpart in Moscow, taking the opportunity to decry what they described as a blockade and indicating readiness to provide humanitarian fuel assistance. Similarly, Beijing has denounced U.S. pressure and reiterated support for Cuban sovereignty. But the reluctance of either extra-hemispheric power to provide large-scale material support suggests that, for now, neither is willing to absorb the economic and political costs of directly challenging reinvigorated U.S. claims to supremacy in the Americas.

The optimal path forward would be one that staves off extreme suffering in Cuba, while scaling down tensions between the sides by linking an incremental political and economic opening in Cuba to a phased easing of U.S. sanctions, particularly those affecting energy flows and financial transactions. An approach along these lines would depend on calibrated, reciprocal steps rather than a far-reaching political makeover. The immediate objectives would be to relieve humanitarian distress, restore the workings of the economy and reduce the pressures to migrate, while preserving space and incentives for longer-term institutional reform.

This roadmap is feasible in principle, but in practice it faces huge obstacles. Cuba’s political system remains cohesive, with authority embedded in the Communist Party, the security apparatus and military-linked economic forces such as GAESA. Steps toward greater economic freedom and political pluralism may be welcomed by some in the state apparatus but would challenge entrenched interests, especially those with stakes in protected businesses. On the U.S. side, domestic political conditions – notably the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which codified the embargo and tied its lifting to democratic transition in Cuba, as well as the sway of influential Cuban-American constituencies – limit the flexibility the president has to ease sanctions, absent visible, verifiable reforms in Havana. Deep mutual distrust would further complicate the sequencing of any reforms, as each side is reluctant to offer concessions without credible assurances of reciprocity.

Dampening bilateral tensions would also require Havana to reconsider its longstanding ambivalence toward the Cuban diaspora. Relations between the Cuban government and influential sectors of the diaspora have been marked by decades of acrimony, shaped by property disputes, exiles’ calls for regime change and hardline posturing on both sides. For much of the post-revolutionary period, Havana restricted the ability of émigrés to return, limited communication with relatives abroad and portrayed exiles – particularly in southern Florida – as hostile. At the same time, segments of the diaspora supported sanctions and, in certain instances, backed direct actions aimed at destabilising the government. Though travel rules and family contacts have gradually eased since the 1990s, mistrust continues to shape political narratives in both Havana and Miami.

Yet Cuban Americans play a decisive role in shaping U.S. policy and remain deeply connected to the island through remittances, family ties and investment flows. Many within the diaspora express a desire to be part of a shared future for the country, whether through entrepreneurship, philanthropy, cultural exchange or family support. Continued political estrangement, however, narrows the space for confidence building. Greater openness to the diaspora from Havana should be possible, without any need for capitulation, and could help expand economic opportunities, discourage working-age Cubans from emigrating and create constituencies in the U.S. and Cuba in favour of better ties between both sides of the Florida Straits.

Concessions from Havana, however, will hinge on a softer line from Washington. For now, the divides over Cuba are becoming harder to paper over. Some, particularly Florida Republicans and their allies, insist that nothing short of regime change is welcome. They see Trump’s open intent to exercise dominion over the Western Hemisphere as their best bet to extirpate communism from Havana. Others, possibly now including Rubio, appear to understand that after a lifetime of socialist rule, an overnight political shock administered by Washington could bring with it toxic consequences. The narrowest of paths leads from the current asphyxiation of Cuba to a gradual thaw in relations and a measured opening of the island’s economy and its civic and political spaces. Though destitution, hunger and disease are dreadful to behold, and hardly the way to start a new era of bilateral ties, the hope remains that the U.S. can pull back from the brink and both sides can sit down to talk.