Now, Trump has declared that those shipments will stop. Cut off from its main source of crude oil, Cuba finds itself exposed, a circumstance that the US president wants to take advantage of as he decrees the death of Castroism. He has also decided to impose tariffs on other countries that provide Cuba with oil, seeking to further isolate it in order to force negotiations.
The last ship carrying crude oil from Venezuela arrived in December 2025 with 598,000 barrels. That oil, plus the 84,900 barrels sent by Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) a week after Maduro’s capture, is all the regime has to survive the coming weeks. The regime was counting on support from Mexico, but after pressure from Trump, President Claudia Sheinbaum has, for the time being, promised food and medicine but not crude oil.
According to the consulting firm Kpler, Cuban oil reserves are in critical condition. Imported crude oil is essential for the electrical system, transportation and, therefore, the economy. The Cuban leadership appears to have no other alternative than to choose between negotiating with Trump to lift the blockade or leading the country into an economic paralysis.
Food or the Internet
One of the issues that will be at the forefront, if the Cuban regime finally sits down with Trump to negotiate a way out of its current situation, will be internet access, a key concern of those opposed to the government.
The Trump administration anticipated this in a June 2025 fact sheet, announcing increased restrictions on the island and an amplification of “efforts to support the Cuban people through the expansion of internet services, free press, free enterprise, free association, and lawful travel.”
In 2015, when internet services began to expand in Cuba, many Cubans had access to the web for the first time in their lives, and the impact was profound. The regime lost the monopoly on information that had existed for years. As the country’s only legal political party, the Communist Party had been able to construct the country’s narrative as it saw fit through its media outlets. The emergence of social media, where activists, artists, and opponents of the regime were able to share their work and their messages, along with the rise of independent media, empowered a dissident civil society that had long struggled to be heard.
Six years later, in 2021, the opposition to the regime was strong enough to attempt to change the country’s status quo with calls for an end of repression and human rights abuses. Citizens took to the streets in almost every city. They demanded freedom, an end to the dictatorship, and a new beginning for the nation. The regime responded with violence: one death, more than a thousand political prisoners, and forced exile for others. Finally, it tightened surveillance and access to the internet, which had been central to the opposition movement.
Since then, Castroism has brought an increased focus to control of the internet as it tightens the screws of repression to prevent another uprising.
