The parents of Marco Rubio They left Cuba for the United States in 1956, a few months before Fidel Castro He landed on the island from his exile in Mexico along with 82 men, entrenched himself in Sierra Maestra and organized the so-called “revolutionary army” from there.
Rubio learned the language, the ability to resist and adapt from his parents… and the hatred of the Castro dictatorship. A hatred that permeated his career as a politician in Florida from day one.
Hence, where Trump sees an immense oil business and where defenders of the expansion of the Monroe Doctrine see political domination of Latin America, Rubio sees, above all, the liberation of the people of his fathers. A liberation that, he knows well, can only come by force.
While much of the MAGA movement, with Steve Bannon and the vice president himself J.D. Vance At the front, he was wary of an intervention in Venezuela considering that ordinary citizens wanted to see their problems resolved and not expanded with wars abroad, Rubio continued struggling to convince Trump of the need for the operation.
That is until he succeeded, probably after talking several times with Delcy Rodriguez and ensure that there would be a peaceful transition that avoided the deployment of US troops in the Caribbean country.
Barrels of oil, investors and business opportunities passed through Trump’s mind. Through Rubio’s, the final suffocation of the island and, consequently, of the remains of the Castro regime, personified today by Miguel Diaz-Canel.
If I fell Nicolas Maduro and the United States could control Venezuela, Rubio knew that Cuba would lose its first oil supplier.
Without oil, or with very severe restrictions, the fuse of the counterrevolution would burn and Díaz-Canel’s position would become more precarious.
No sooner said than done. Throughout the month of January, crude oil imports have been reduced in Cuba to one tenth of the daily average for 2025. Only Mexico has collaborated with a shipment of 84,900 barrels, deposited on the island on January 9.
Pressure on Sheinbaum
The issue, then, is to put pressure on Mexico now and that is what the Trump Administration is working on. Although Claudia Sheinbaum has declared this very week that “he will maintain the historical ties of friendship with the Republic of Cuba”, the truth is that the US president has already made it clear to him in first person that he had better not sell more oil to the island.
Will he dare to bomb Mexican ships as he did with Venezuelan ones? Sheinbaum, of course, doesn’t want to find out.
The threat is not only military, as Trump has already threatened to intervene in areas of Mexico where he observes cartel activity that later operates in the United States, but also economic.
Commercially, Mexico depends on the United States almost as much as Cuba depended on Venezuela and the trilateral agreement with Canada must be renewed this year.
Donald Trump, president of the United States; Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico; and Mark Carney, Prime Minister of Canada.
Reuters
Considering the horrible relationship between Trump and the Prime Minister Mark CarneySheinbaum has the opportunity to turn his country into a privileged partner of the North American superpower… and he does not want to waste it.
Without any foreign support, Cuba finds itself, therefore, facing an extreme situation.
With serious problems in the tourism industry due to the political turbulence in the area and with a historic shortage in sugar production, its economy may suffer a setback that deepens the island’s poverty.
Whether that will bring down the Government or harm ordinary citizens even more is not easy to know. It doesn’t seem like either Rubio or Trump have given it much thought.
Avoid a new Bay of Pigs
In any case, this “strangling” of Cuba would prevent a military intervention similar to that sponsored by John F. Kennedy in the Bay of Pigs, one of the most notorious failures of American intelligence throughout the 20th century.
If Díaz-Canel decides to hold on, he will have to do so with the support of his traditional partners, that is, Russia and China. The problem is that China does not export oil and Russia has not exported oil to Cuba since last October.
In other words, we are not in 1961 or 1962, when the famous “missile crisis” brought the world to the brink of World War III.
It is not likely that Russia will defy any blockade or at least it cannot be said that Vladimir Putin is trying too hard to help its allies since it got into the absurd war against Ukraine. A war that will soon complete four years of monumental expenditures in human lives and material resources.
The situation is so alarming that, according to Victoria Grabenwoegerdata analyst for the company Kpler, Cuba would have “fifteen or twenty days” of normality left in the use of oil… if we add the supposed reserves that Cuba would have of Venezuelan crude oil to the January 9 shipment.
From there, scarcity, savings at all costs and the most absolute energy poverty. Trump is convinced that “the regime is about to fail,” but it is a regime that has been clinging to power for almost seventy years at the expense of the misery of its people. He knows something about resistance, wow, and Rubio should be the first to not underestimate the enemy.