The Patriot Post® · Cuba Is Literally Running on Fumes

The capture and extradition of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro has set off a chain of events in other countries belonging to the new axis of evil. This is particularly true of Cuba.

Since 1999, the communist dictatorship there has relied on Venezuelan oil. Venezuela, though a socialist nation, views Cuba as a failed communist state, as yet another nation that didn’t do communism “correctly.”

To quote Nobel Peace Prize winner and Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado:

Twenty-six years ago, Venezuelan youth fell in love with a socialist in Hugo Chávez. When people pointed to Cuba as a warning, they said, “Venezuela is not Cuba. And Cuba is not real socialism.” But here we are — worse than Cuba. Socialism always follows the same pattern. It elevates the state above the citizen, strips away your autonomy, your conscience, your dignity, your ability to choose. And it does so with a seductive lie. It whispers of equality, but the only equality it delivers is at the bottom — where everyone is dragged down together. That has been the case in every nation, on every continent, in every culture where it has been tried. The result is always the same: a gigantic state that crushes the people beneath it, and once it takes hold, it is terribly hard to remove.

In return for Venezuela’s oil, Cuba had sent over its medical providers, military advisers, and special forces, such as bodyguards, who failed to protect Maduro from Operation Absolute Resolve. Under Chávez, Cuba could rely on 90,000 barrels of oil a day. Under Maduro, that number shrank to under 35,000, which meant that most of Cuba was already flagging. Why? Because the country didn’t have enough oil to even keep its lights on.

After Maduro’s downfall, the United States took control of Venezuela’s oil industry. That oil isn’t heading to Cuba, as the U.S. has zero incentive to provide it with oil. Cuba is a communist country whose closest allies are our greatest geopolitical adversaries. In fact, China is rumored to have set up a spy base in Cuba in order to more directly surveil the U.S.

The Cuban people are already suffering under economic hardship. As Machado noted, everyone is dragged down together into poverty. Not even doctors can afford to buy certain groceries, and no one can bribe the power company to keep the lights on. A third of Cuba’s population is already living in abject poverty, which is why Venezuela suddenly being blocked completely as an oil partner is such a further blow economically.

The Cuban regime is inevitably looking at what’s happening in Iran. If it’s not careful, the people of Cuba are also likely to revolt if the economy gets bad enough. “It’s going to be the end of the [Miguel] Díaz-Canel regime, the Castro regime,” Florida Republican Senator Rick Scott predicts. “It’s going to happen. We’re in the process of it happening now.”

President Donald Trump has offered a deal to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who responded with defiance. “Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation,” he stated. “No one dictates what we do.” He later added, “Cuba does not aggress; it is aggressed upon by the United States for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the Homeland to the last drop of blood.”

Actually, common sense tends to agree with Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s sentiment: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned. At least a little bit.”

Venezuela is the harbinger, and Cuba is literally running on fumes.