In a video shared on TikTok by user Michael Robert (@michaelrobert018), two young Cubans express their concern over the possibility that former U.S. President Donald Trump might carry out mass deportations of immigrants, including Cubans who have emigrated in recent years.
One of them states: “If more than two million Cubans have left for other countries, and you remove them from the ration book, why is there less rice? Where is that rice? If now Donald Trump deports all those people back here, where are you going to get 2 million pounds more of rice each month? So that’s 4 million pounds of rice, where is that rice? And what do we have left? We’re going to have to eat flour with sweet potato.”
These concerns reflect the deep food crisis that Cuba is experiencing. According to official data, the production of essential foods has drastically declined; for example, pork production fell by 93.2% in 2023 compared to 2022, and rice production decreased by 85% in the same period.
This situation has led to essential products like rice arriving at warehouses late and in poor condition, impacting the food security of the population.
The concerns of the young people in the video are also related to the recent immigration policies of the Trump administration. The president has granted new powers to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to expedite the deportation of immigrants under humanitarian parole programs and CBP One, which could impact thousands of Cubans currently residing in the United States.
The combination of an internal food crisis and the possibility of a massive return of emigrants creates uncertainty about how the country might handle a sudden increase in demand for basic food items, especially when it is already struggling to supply the current population.
Filed under:
