Related videos:
For more than two decades, the destinies of Cuba and Venezuela have been intertwined. When Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez solidified their political and energy alliance in the early 2000s, both regimes found in each other the perfect complement for their survival.
Cuba offered doctors, military advisers, intelligence instructors, and an ideology of resistance against the United States; Venezuela responded with oil, foreign currency, and diplomatic support in the region. This pact made Havana a key player in chavismo and provided support to the Cuban regime following the Soviet collapse.
For years, the exchange of crude oil for technical and political personnel was presented as a model of solidarity cooperation. In reality, it cemented a structural dependency.
Today, without Venezuelan oil, the Cuban economy cannot withstand. Massive blackouts, industrial shutdowns, and the collapse of transportation are visible symptoms of this fragility.
And if Nicolás Maduro falls, as more and more analysts are predicting, the consequence for Havana will be immediate: the island will lose its only stable source of energy and with it the little balance it maintains.
The collapse of the international shield
The global scenario surrounding Cuba further exacerbates this vulnerability. The allies that at various times provided political or economic support are experiencing their own decline.
Russia, embroiled in the war with Ukraine, has drastically reduced its capacity for assistance. Promises of new oil shipments have diminished in the face of the urgency to sustain its war front and evade sanctions. The Kremlin is prioritizing its alliances with China and India, and can no longer allocate resources to an island with no strategic return.
Iran, which in recent years attempted to foster closer ties with Havana and Caracas, has been left paralyzed following the joint attacks by the United States and Israel on its military and nuclear facilities.
The commitments for technological and energy cooperation with Cuba have vanished from the map. Tehran now has its own domestic urgencies and cannot, nor wants to, sustain ventures in Latin America.
China, meanwhile, has chosen pragmatism. The arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency and the negotiation of a new bilateral trade agreement have reshaped Beijing's priorities.
In that context, Cuba has lost relevance. Investment projects in telecommunications, solar energy, and transportation have become merely decorative, while Chinese banks have tightened their financial conditions for Cuban companies.
Beijing maintains a rhetoric of friendship, but it has ceased to act as a political partner. Perhaps the only interest of the Asian power in the island is its proximity to the U.S. and the use of its territory for electronic espionage against the rival power.
Even the European Union does not offer any leeway. Brussels has chosen to distance itself following repeated reports of repression and human rights violations on the island.
The European Parliament has called for the release of political prisoners and an end to the persecution of dissenters, while European embassies maintain a low profile. Cooperation, which was previously moderate but stable, has turned into a mere formality without substance.
The result of this realignment is devastating for Havana. For the first time since 1959, the Cuban regime lacks effective international support. Neither Russia, nor Iran, nor China, nor Europe are willing to sustain it. Castroism has lost its global shield.
A continent that is changing its character
Latin America has also ceased to be an ideological refuge. The progressive wave that dominated the region during the 2000s has faded into a new pragmatism.
Brazil under Lula da Silva, once a steadfast ally of Chavismo and Cuba, refrains from making any statements regarding the Venezuelan crisis. Lula, aware of the weight of his economy and the need for stability, stays away from ideological confrontations. His silence amounts to a distancing.
Mexico, another traditional partner of Havana, is facing direct pressures from Washington. The White House is conditioning migration and trade agreements on a more critical stance toward the Bolivarian axis. Although the Mexican president avoids criticizing Havana and continues to send oil to the regime, she knows that Washington is watching and has the capacity to exert pressure on the matter.
In the Caribbean, the situation is even clearer. The small nations that once formed the diplomatic solidarity block with the island now actively cooperate with the United States on maritime security and the fight against drug trafficking.
The Caribbean has once again come under the influence of Washington, and Cuba's anti-imperialist rhetoric sounds as distant as it is irrelevant.
The militarization of the region reinforces this trend. The U.S. fleet deployed in Caribbean waters, the largest in decades, not only aims to combat drug trafficking but also to send an unequivocal message to Caracas and Havana.
The designation of the Cartel of the Suns as a foreign terrorist organization, along with the inclusion of high-ranking Venezuelan officials on the Treasury lists, paves the way for cross-sanctions that could target Cuban entities. The Cuban regime, viewed in Washington as "the head of the snake" and an accomplice of Chavismo, finds itself in the line of fire.
Rhetoric without echo
The response from the Cuban government has been, as always, rhetorical. In recent statements, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío reiterated the historic script of the so-called “revolution”: denunciations of “Yankee imperialism,” condemnations of the “Monroe Doctrine,” and appeals to the “sovereign right of peoples.”
According to Fernández de Cossío, no one believes in the "fable of the fight against drug trafficking" used by the United States as a pretext for aggression, and the American military presence in the Caribbean poses a threat to regional peace.
Rodríguez Parrilla, for his part, accused Marco Rubio of lying and promoting a disproportionate offensive in violation of International Law.
The discourse, however, seems to come from another era. In the current hemisphere, Latin American governments, including those on the left, prefer silence. No one openly supports Havana's narrative or repeats the slogans of classical anti-imperialism.
The revolutionary rhetoric, which once found immediate echoes in international forums, today resonates only within the Cuban state apparatus and a few reluctant satellites that orbit it. Propaganda no longer replaces power.
A country on the brink
The fall of Maduro would have a politically, economically, and socially unpredictable impact on Cuba. The oil supply would be disrupted, blackouts would intensify, and the country would enter a state of general paralysis.
The conglomerate GAESA, which controls the dollarized economy and maintains a high level of opacity regarding the flow of currency, would see its income plummet due to the loss of Venezuelan crude oil and the reduction of its regional operations.
In civil society, weary from inflation, scarcity, and repression, discontent could transform into a new wave of protests, now without the reverential fear that characterized previous decades.
All of this, combined with the worsening epidemiological crisis in Cuba and the collapse of public services, the increasing shortages, hunger, and desperation of the population, would have an even greater impact on the tourism sector, one of the economic pillars of Havana.
The difference with the "Special Period" is that the Cuban people no longer live in informational isolation. Social media, communication platforms, and migratory experiences have altered the perception of the crisis.
The population does not believe in heroic sacrifices or in the slogans of resistance. In the face of a new collapse, the regime would have to confront a society that is more aware and less submissive.
A horizon without allies
If Maduro falls, Havana will lose not only its source of energy but also its main political justification.
Chavismo has been for years the ideological excuse for Castroism: the demonstration that resistance to U.S. power was still possible. Its disappearance would symbolically mark the end of an era. Without Venezuela, Cuba would be left without a mirror or narrative.
History repeats itself, but under worse conditions. When the Soviet Union fell, Havana still had Venezuelan oil and a diplomatic margin in Latin America. This time there will be no refuge or subsidy. Neither Moscow, nor Beijing, nor Mexico will come to the rescue.
The Cuban regime is not prepared for Maduro's fall because it never learned to survive without a protector. Its economy, ideological apparatus, and political structure were designed to depend on others.
Today, that model has reached its limit. The world that supported Castroism has dissolved, and what remains is a lonely island, trapped in its own narrative.
The era of political subsidies is coming to an end. If Caracas collapses, Havana will face its most dreaded reality since 1959: the need to sustain itself. And that is a task for which the regime is not prepared.
Filed under: