Closer to home, growing pressure on Cuba seems to have escaped the scrutiny paid to escalating tensions near the Persian Gulf. The Trump administration’s interventions in the Caribbean, sinking boats and marshalling military units, touched Venezuela first and most closely but suggested that Cuba needed to prepare for a stormy season of US action. One day after the raid that apprehended Venezuela’s authoritarian chief Nicolas Maduro, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the Trump administration as “not big fans” of Cuba’s government. He also stated that the island nation was “in a lot of trouble” and shared that he would “be concerned” if he were a Cuban government official.
Following Maduro’s capture, the United States halted sales to Cuba of Venezuelan oil, a pillar of the island’s economy. The Trump administration also convinced Mexico to pause petroleum shipments to Cuba, tightening an energy stranglehold intended to force President Miguel Diaz-Canel’s government to transition away from authoritarian communism. These measures formed part of a “maximum pressure” campaign along with tariffs, sanctions, travel restrictions, and other measures that have disrupted government services and triggered electricity blackouts.
The United States shares a long history with Cuba. As early as the 1840s, Southern expansionists sought to purchase the Pearl of the Antilles from Spain. From the 1860s through the 1890s, humanitarian interventionists headquartered in New York City supported diplomatic or military action in support of Cuban exiles aiming to free their native land from Spain’s imperial grip.
Following decades of simmering tensions, President William McKinley’s administration oversaw the successful invasion of Cuba in 1898 during the Spanish-American War. Though not annexed by the United States like Puerto Rico and the Philippines, the new Cuban republic came under US economic and political influence, a relationship reversed by the revolution that installed Fidel Castro as the island’s leader in 1959. Decades of Cold War conflict, including the Cuban Missile Crisis and Castro’s attempts to export revolution to Latin America and Africa, brought the two nations to today’s hostilities.
Present day tension and pressure could quickly erupt in escalating violence. Last week, Cuba’s coast guard killed four occupants of a Florida-registered speedboat that opened fire off the island’s shores.
The bloodshed, still under investigation, inspired Republican Rep. Carlos Gimenez, a Cuban-born refugee from Castro’s revolution, to dub the situation a “massacre” and call for closer scrutiny. The United States loosened regulations on sales of petroleum to Cuban private businesses, easing civilians’ suffering for humanitarian reasons, but the Treasury Department maintained restrictions on providing petroleum to the Cuban government.
The island itself produces roughly 40,000 barrels of oil daily, but needs over twice that much, leaving shipments of humanitarian assistance stranded in ports for lack of vehicular transportation inland.
The Trump administration is flexing its muscles in pursuit of regime change, but Cuba’s communist president Diaz-Canel shows little public willingness to bend to American pressure. Perhaps the two sides will engage in a long, tense standoff costing the island’s residents dearly.
While you keep an eye toward the negotiations with Iran, and other major international issues such as the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, remember that Cuba may also be facing a vital moment.
Stanley Schwartz is an assistant professor of history at Cedarville University.