Why Trump means the Cuban Revolution faces its biggest threat yet

Will a worsening internal crisis create the conditions for the Cuban Revolution to unravel from within?

Why Trump means the Cuban Revolution faces its biggest threat yet

3 days ago

[Will Grant profile image]

Will GrantCuba correspondent in Havana

[BBC A man stands next to a mural depicting Ernesto "Che" Guevara, in Havana]
BBC

A sizeable exhibit in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana is dedicated to conditions in Cuba before the revolution took power in 1959. Inside the ornate former presidential palace, photographs and oral testimony detail the grinding poverty and ingrained corruption of the dictatorship of Cuba's then-military strongman, Fulgencio Batista.

The enduring image is of a woman in a dirt-floored palm-leaf hut cooking with firewood. Similar pictures appear in state museums across the island from the Bay of Pigs to Birán, the birthplace of the father of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro. The inference is clear: the revolutionaries saved Cubans from the ignorance and hardship of life under a Washington-backed de facto leader and led them to dignity, education and true independence.

Yet today, Lisandra Botey identifies more with the impoverished woman in the photograph than with the revolutionaries who liberated her country from Batista.

"We're living like that now, we're exactly like that", says housewife Lisandra outside her home in Havana, which is cobbled together with pieces of sheet metal and wood.

"Every morning, we have to go down to the beach [in Havana] and look for firewood. Then we bring it home to cook breakfast with – because if we get power, it comes on during school hours."

Lisandra says she identifies with the impoverished woman in the photograph from pre-revolution Cuba

Lisandra's nine-year-old daughter set off for school that morning with nothing in her stomach, she explains, tears pricking her eyes. Her husband, Brenei Hernández – a construction worker with next to no work – says they often have no idea where the next meal is coming from.

"Every day is the same hunger, the same misery", he says, stirring a pot of white rice – so at the very least his daughter will come home from school to something hot to eat.

With the Cuban economy in freefall since the coronavirus pandemic, no gas has been delivered to Brenei's flimsy home in a Havana suburb for months. He and his neighbours were already cooking with firewood and charcoal before US troops forcibly removed Cuba's closest ally, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, from power on 3 January. Since then, though, Washington has seemingly taken full control of Venezuela's oil industry and the supply of crude to the communist-run island has dried up.

[Universal Images Group via Getty Images A painting showing Fidel Castro celebrating with people the overthrow of the Batista regime]
Universal Images Group via Getty Images

By 1958, the revolution had spread throughout Cuba, culminating in the fall of Havana in early 1959

The decades-long US economic embargo on Cuba has been ramped up like never before: US President Donald Trump has threatened tariffs on any nation which sends oil to the stricken island.

None of Cuba's traditional allies – whether Mexico, Russia, China, Vietnam or Iran – have stepped up to fill the void left by Venezuela, although the US Treasury this week said it would relax restrictions on a limited number of oil sales, to "support the Cuban people for commercial and humanitarian use."

The move comes amid rising tensions between Washington and Havana. Cuba's government has reported that its border guards fatally shot four people travelling in a US‑registered speedboat. It said the individuals were Cuban nationals living in the United States. According to a US official, at least one American citizen was shot dead and another injured by Cuban officials intercepting the speedboat.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was investigating the "highly unusual" incident.

"Washington's old playbook on Cuba doesn't apply anymore and whoever hasn't appreciated that yet is in for a shock," says Cuban economist, Ricardo Torres. "Trump is changing the rules of the game."

Trump has declared that "Cuba is ready to fall", intensifying pressure on the island at its most vulnerable moment since the Cold War. Some commentators have said one of the aims of Washington's removal of Maduro in Venezuela was to deepen Cuba's economic crisis. It appears the Trump administration hopes to weaken the revolution – possibly terminally – and push for the collapse of state-run socialism on the island.

The underlying calculation is straightforward: that a worsening internal crisis could create the conditions for the Cuban Revolution to unravel from within. What remains far less certain is whether such a strategy will force regime change, or whether the communist-run Cuban government will, as it has in past crises, find new ways to endure.

Blackouts and 'extreme rationing'

The effects of the fuel crisis are being felt the length and breadth of Cuba.

Blackouts in Havana can last for 15 hours a day or more. Hospitals are in darkness with only emergency cases being admitted. Schools are often shuttered. Rubbish is piled high on street corners with no fuel for the state's garbage trucks to collect it. Scrawny and elderly residents can often be found sifting through the discarded waste.

Watch: BBC examines life in Cuba without electricity and gasoline

For an island proud of the social safety net it built for its people since 1959 – universal healthcare, the eradication of illiteracy, tackling infant mortality rates and preventable diseases – the picture is bleak, and getting worse.

One constant question since Maduro's arrest is: how long can Cuba hold on without new fuel supplies reaching the island?

"Perhaps the oil inventories could last for six to eight weeks," suggests Ricardo Torres – but he admits it's hard to know with any degree of precision. "Cuba doesn't publish figures on fuel inventories."

"Extreme rationing" could be introduced, he says, but draconian restrictions are already in place. People are limited to 20 litres of fuel at the petrol pumps, which must be paid for in US dollars.

They're obliged to use a government-run app called Ticket. But the wait can last for days, even weeks. Drivers are finding more than 10,000 people ahead of them when they join the virtual queue for half a tank of petrol. Unsurprisingly in such circumstances, the price of black-market fuel has skyrocketed.

[AFP via Getty Images Vehicles wait in line to refuel at a gas station in Havana]
AFP via Getty Images

There is a limit of 20 litres of fuel at the petrol pumps, which must be paid for in US dollars

Despite it all, Brenei Hernández doesn't direct his ire at Washington. Quite the opposite, in fact: he blames the Cuban state.

"I'd like Trump to take this place over. Then let's see if things get better," he says with unerring honesty. "What can I tell you? I'm not going to lie," he adds.

Regime change

Having spent years listening to Cubans repeat anodyne revolutionary slogans when asked for their opinions on camera, it's disarming to hear such frank views expressed with no outward fear of the repercussions. Such is the level of disgust and exhaustion, the public's fear of reprisals for speaking out is beginning to evaporate.

"It's too much," Brenei says. "We're only eating white rice. Hopefully I can get enough money together in the next couple of days for a packet of hot dogs, or three or four eggs."

Lisandra already worries that her daughter will want a birthday cake this year, which is well beyond their means.

"Every day is the same hunger, the same misery," says Brenei Hernández

Such suffering may be part of the Trump administration's strategy of "maximum pressure" on Cuba. But while the methodology may be new, says Ricardo Torres, Washington's ultimate goal in Cuba remains the same as always: regime change.

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