Since this island connected to the world in the late fifteenth century—with Christopher Columbus's arrival on its shores—crisis has been a constant state. After nearly 400 years as a Spanish colony, its founding as a republic was shaped by U.S. influence on the country's political life—a drag on its independence—, chronic corruption, and bitter dictatorships like those of Gerardo Machado and Fulgencio Batista. After 1959, the Cuban Revolution compounded the many, very costly errors of its own making in every area that defines good statecraft with the critical impact of U.S. policy. Washington carved in stone the idea that it cannot coexist with a process like the one opened 90 miles to the south. It implemented the most comprehensive sanctions regime administered by the Treasury's OFAC, a fact the U.S. government itself acknowledges. Until the fall of the USSR, the blow of the U.S. economic war wasn't felt as strongly in Cuba, thanks to the generous exchange arrangements with the socialist bloc. Still, the first half of the last decade of the twentieth century was a harsh turning point for the Cuban economy. That moment, which brought an extreme worsening of the reproduction of material life—and, consequently, of spiritual life as well—went down in history as the "Special Period." Although by the year 2000 one might have thought the worst was over, the truth is that, for many, the country never fully recovered, and, officially, we never left the so-called "Special Period." I remember that around 2002 there was a major electrical crisis, in which you either had power in the morning and at night, or only in the afternoon. And of course, we'd take that crisis over this one any day.
So, back to the initial idea: which specific crisis am I referring to in the title? The one triggered by the first Trump administration in the first four months of 2019—though, to be thorough and leave nothing out, we could just as well set the starting point in 2017. Since then, between the assault on Cuban external sources of income like tourism and the export of professional services—regardless of the criticisms, some of them fair, leveled at each, especially the latter—and the pursuit of fuel shipments to Cuba, everything here has become extremely harder; far harder than it used to be. Because, again, in 2018 it was—and has never stopped being—hard to live, or survive, in Cuba. Still, it's crystal clear to anyone who puts their little gray cells to work, as Poirot would say, that people could cope better with that context, or with any other, even accounting for the "Special Period." Along the way, from 2019 to the present, there's the COVID-19 pandemic, the accumulation of restrictions Trump imposed along with those tied to the buildup of the sanctions regime—which, incidentally, dates back to 1960—and the unprecedented escalation of economic aggression that has followed the still murky removal of Nicolás Maduro this past January 3rd. So far this year, only one fuel tanker has arrived in Cuba—the Venezuelans have buckled under U.S. pressure, and certain high-ranking Cuban officials are beginning to show their discontent with that stance more openly—, and the humanitarian aid sent by countries like Mexico or China is nowhere near enough for the sheer scale of the crisis.
I have a friend who had to drop out of university in March because of fuel cuts. He came back this week having lost so much weight that I had to steel myself not to let my sorrow and shock show at such a stark example of what the reinforced economic strangulation policy of the second Trump administration is producing. There are, I repeat, plenty of errors and bad practices on the part of Cuba's political leadership, but for years we lived with all of that without the country digging itself quite this deep into misery and starvation. People in my hometown fetch water from the local river every day because the pumping system collapsed due to the fuel crisis. They can only count on three or four hours of power a day, or sometimes go two or three days without any at all. With no country willing to put its neck on the guillotine—to bleed, if need be—and stand as a bulwark against the White House, the Cuban government is rushing through a reform toward a market economy, but at the worst possible moment and burdened by the same chronic management problems I've already mentioned. The United States has said this isn't enough to ease the pressure, and it's holding out for deeper, specifically political reforms. But whether out of a defense of sovereignty or sheer self-preservation instinct, Cuba's leadership doesn't seem willing to hand over the concessions that the Rodríguez brothers' "Chavismo 3.0" has granted to Donald Trump. The problem is that my friend's body—just one instance of a national problem—can't keep waiting on politics. So, on the Cuban side, it grows more urgent by the hour to find common ground between two seemingly incompatible missions: keeping the country's dignity intact and delivering tangible results for those of us who are here. I don't know whether the current leadership can reach the level of statecraft needed to pull that off.
Source for the cover image, via X.