By Jo Nova
Is this the End of Communism in Cuba?
We don’t hear much about Cuba in Australia, but it is suffering rolling 16 hour blackouts, the streets are filled with rubbish, people are cooking with wood and charcoal, and the airports have run out of jet fuel. The US is offering food aid, but only on the condition that the Cuban government does not interfere with the delivery.
Cuba’s fuel crisis has become a waste crisis as many garbage trucks don’t have enough gas to pick up rubbish which is piling up on Havana’s street corners https://t.co/AQ50L5j9KG pic.twitter.com/3BhugSOcJJ
— Reuters (@Reuters) February 16, 2026
The US is blockading shipments of oil to Cuba in an effort to get the communist regime to talk. Cuba relied on Venezuelan shipments of oil, but after the US captured President Maduro, Cuba lost one of their best allies, and the US has stopped the oil shipments. Trump also signed an order last month declaring Cuba to be a national security threat and he threatened to put tariffs on any nation that sent oil to Cuba. Trump has said that “Cuba is a failed state” and that he won’t mind if there is regime change. “I don’t think we need (to take) any action,” Trump said on Jan. 4, adding: “Cuba looks like it’s ready to fall.”
Has Cuba Reached the Point of No Return?
— By Sarah Anderson, PJ Media
Power outages have increased throughout the nation, with some impacting hundreds of thousands of people at a time and lasting for days. Public transportation has come to a standstill, and there are reports that citizens are not currently allowed to fill up their own vehicles. Food prices are through the roof. Resorts and tourist attractions have shut down. People are using charcoal or wood to cook. Hospital and schools that were already barely functioning are not viable. Several companies and embassies from other countries have plans in place to stockpile supplies and/or evacuate their people.
While the immediate cause of Cuba’s pain is the oil embargo, decades of profligate communist economics, and brutal suppression of political dissidents meant healthy workers were fleeing, and the few resources Cuba has were wasted. Rumors suggest as many as a million people have fled out of a population of 11 million. Things were so bad, Cuba, known as ‘the sugar bowl of the world’, had to import sugar.
The communist economy builds things no one wants — like 7000 hotels rooms, no one uses:
A programme of hotel building has been under way, with 7,000 more rooms added since 2019, despite tourist numbers halving in the same period. And no one answers the question why.
The lobby is clean and the shop is open, selling beach towels and hats. The staff are welcoming, their uniforms pressed. The swimming pool is empty and there are no guests. I ask when the last came through and the receptionist tells me four years ago.
Meanwhile, in 2021 came a unification of two currencies, one pegged to the US dollar, one local, which resulted in hyperinflation that collapsed the value of state sector pay and pensions.
José Daniel Ferrer was once the only effective opposition leader in Cuba, but he spent 12 years in jail, where he saw two people beaten to death, and finally he fled. His view is ““There is nothing to lose with the fall of the regime,” he says bitterly. “Rather we will gain freedom, opportunity and prosperity.””
Rebel News interviewed people in Cuba and found some waving American flags, and others with hopeful signs that Trump will save them like he saved Venezuela.
In the soft West it is easy to forget how quickly energy can be weaponized by an adversary, especially if we don’t have our supply chains locked up.