Aaaaah. I should have known:
With 10 naval vessels and 10,000 troops already deployed to the Caribbean—the largest military buildup there since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis—and a carrier strike group led by the USS Gerald R. Ford taking up position, some sort of military attack on Venezuela appears imminent. U.S. President Donald Trump’s rationale for this aggressive military action is that Venezuela is a hub of drug trafficking and that supplying drugs to U.S. consumers is the equivalent of an armed attack on the United States, justifying a military response.
But the real aim is to overthrow Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government and then, by cutting off the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, fulfill the Republican right’s decades-long dream of collapsing the Cuban government. It’s a strategy that John Bolton, national security advisor in the first Trump administration, tried without success in 2019, but Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio now intends to try again.
This explains Rubio’s obsession. But their plan may not work any better than all the ones that came before:
If Washington manages to unseat Maduro, then his successor would very likely cut off oil shipments to Havana, striking another blow to an already reeling Cuban economy. U.S. success in Venezuela could also threaten Cuba’s national security if the Trump administration, intoxicated with the win, decided to expand its aggressive military interventionism.
But Havana is no longer as dependent on Venezuela as it was a decade ago.
The alliance between Havana and Caracas was formed in 1998, when Chávez was first elected as Venezuela’s president, advocating “21st century socialism.” Chávez and Fidel Castro developed a strong personal bond even before the election. Chávez saw Castro as his mentor; Castro saw Chávez as his protégé.
In 2000 and 2003, the two countries signed cooperation agreements for Venezuela to provide Cuba with petroleum at subsidized prices in exchange for the services of Cuban medical personnel deployed to Chávez’s working-class constituencies. At the peak of this trade, from 2008 to 2015, Cuba received more than 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) while nearly 30,000 Cuban doctors and technicians served in Venezuela
But beginning in 2016, Venezuelan oil production began to decline due to mismanagement and poor maintenance. By the middle of 2018, it had fallen by half. Over roughly the same few years, the global price of oil also fell by about half, drastically cutting Venezuela’s revenue. Oil shipments to Cuba declined as Venezuela sold more production for its own benefit. By 2024, shipments had fallen to 32,000 bpd and have been even lower this year.
The shrinking supply of Venezuelan oil has exacerbated its perennial shortage of foreign exchange currency. Power blackouts have become routine and domestic production is suffering from lack of fuel. But there’s a silver lining for Cuba in these dark clouds: Havana is less dependent on Venezuelan oil now than it was a decade ago.
In 2014, Cuban economist Pedro Vidal estimated that the sudden, complete loss of Venezuelan oil would knock 7.7 percent off of Cuba’s GDP. But since Venezuela’s largesse has already fallen by almost three-quarters and the price of oil is now roughly half of what it was then, Cuba has already absorbed most of the shock that Vidal predicted. Moreover, as Cuba’s energy crisis has worsened, Mexico and Russia have been willing to increase their oil shipments at concessionary prices to fill at least part of the deficit.
Cuba is an old fashioned right wing, anti-communist, white whale that seems weirdly anachronistic in 2025. I guess the fact that they’re using the word “communist” to describe everyone who opposes them shows some kind of resurgence on the MAGA right, but I really don’t think any of the rank and file see Cuba as the enemy. They don’t even know what the word really means. It’s the woke libs they want to vanquish.
Having said that, I will be surprised if Trump doesn’t get a huge rally round the flag effect if he starts bombing and regime changing. It is not natural for the right to be pacifists — they are a bloodthirsty lot. Maybe the America First thing is real this time. But I’m skeptical.