Cuba, the first victim of US pressure on Venezuelan oil

Washington suffocates Caracas and Havana is left breathless. U.S. pressure on the Venezuelan “ghost fleet” is significantly damaging Cuba, which is now in the worst of its systemic crisis and is also facing a decline in crude oil shipments from its Bolivarian ally.

The situation in the Caribbean and its possible escalation have all the prerequisites for this exacerbate the island’s already critical economic and energy situation, something that the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio certainly thought about from the first moment, according to the experts consulted by EFE.

“The most likely thing is that with the recent measures in the Caribbean, these shipments (of oil from Venezuela to Cuba) will decrease,” says Cuban economist and political scientist Arturo López-Levy.

“The consequences for Cuba would be catastrophic” says Cuban economist Ricardo Torres, author of the specialist publication Cuba Economic Review.

It all started in 2000 with the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement between Cuba and Venezuelawhich ratified bilateral complicity and the agreement that Caracas should pay for Havana’s professional services (mainly doctors and teachers, but also security and defense experts) with crude oil.

Venezuela became Cuba’s main energy supplierwhich takes the role of external economic support (for geopolitical reasons) that the USSR had in the Cold War.

The volume of Venezuelan shipments has fluctuated over the years. The official data is not public, but experts agree They have been declining over the past decade due to the decline in production and US sanctions.

And in this context, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, turned his attention to Venezuela when Cuba was also suffering in the fifth year of a serious crisis – with a shortage of basic goods, high inflation with decline, incessant power outages, a collapse in production, a deterioration of public services and mass migration.

The U.S. encirclement of the Venezuelan “ghost fleet” was a new twist for Cuba, which López-Levy believes is no coincidence.

“Trump’s offensive against Venezuela, quietly, wants to overthrow the government of Cuba with the same or higher priority than ending Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, he says. For Rubio, he adds, everything is “one problem,” “Castro-Chavismo.”

This is what independent estimates suggest This year, Cuba needed between 110,000 and 120,000 barrels of oil per day. Of these, around 40,000 are domestic production; the rest has to be looked for outside.

Venezuela, which delivered 100,000 barrels per day, sent an average of 27,000 this yearaccording to the specialist service of the Reuters business agency.

To fill this gap of up to 50,000 barrels per day (which in Cuba is currently causing 20-hour power outages per day, paralyzed industries and queues at gas stations), some support has emerged, but it is not enough. Havana does not have foreign exchange to buy up this difference on the market.

Moscow shipped about 6,000 barrels per day in 2025said Cuban expert Jorge Piñón, from the Energy Institute of the University of Texas (USA), who informed EFE this Wednesday of the arrival of a new Russian oil tanker with 330,000 barrels on the island.

Torres points this out Russia is the “only country that could be a real alternative to Venezuela” But he estimates he is unable to take on that role given Ukraine’s war, its economic woes and the pursuit of his own “ghost fleet.”

Then there is Mexico, which sent about 23,000 barrels per day to the island last year, but only about 2,500 this yearaccording to the state oil company Pemex.

Torres speaks here of Mexico’s need to address relations with the United States, the destination of 85% of its exports. López-Levy believes that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is even willing to make “political sacrifices” for Cuba, but bears this in mind “He’s close to the limit of what he can do.”

In this context, López-Levy continued, “the question arises as to who would finance purchases in other markets and who would dare to sell and transport the fuel under the current conditions of American harassment.”

In his opinion China could play a “key role” Granting loans to Cuba or its potential suppliers (in dollars or yuan). “It is a geopolitical decision, not an ideological one,” he adds.

López-Levy recommends ““Do not underestimate the resilience and resilience of the Cuban system, even under the most difficult conditions.”despite the context of the “brutal” economic, energy, food and “confidence crises” in Cuba.

However, he distinguishes between Cuba’s temporary survival under the current US “siege” of its Venezuelan partner and the structural crisis afflicting the country, something which he says has no “prospect of resolution”.