The Venezuelan journalist and researcher Andrés Cañizález believes that Cuba is currently facing a crisis more severe than the Special Period of the 1990s. He stated this in an interview with Tania Costa, in which he analyzes the humanitarian deterioration of the island and the possible scenarios of a U.S. military action that is "somehow inevitable."
Cañizález has a firsthand perspective on the crisis of the 90s because he arrived in Cuba at the end of September of that year, on the very day Fidel Castro officially announced the Special Period in Time of Peace, and he worked there for Prensa Latina and the Mexican agency Notimex.
"Incredibly, I arrived in Cuba on September 28 or 30, 1990, which was the day Fidel Castro announced the Special Period. That day, I was coincidentally landing in Cuba," the researcher recounted.
From that direct experience, their diagnosis of the present is striking. "The situation today looks much worse. It is much more impoverished, as it is a humanitarian crisis that has not been resolved. In other words, it has only deepened."
In Cañizález's opinion, the Cuban economic crisis has never truly been addressed since the 1990s. That is why he speaks of moments of partial relief thanks to the supply of Venezuelan oil.
"It has had moments of a bit more oxygen when the Venezuelan oil valve was open, but that crisis has never been resolved since the Special Period, it was never addressed," he noted.
That valve was permanently closed following the capture of Nicolás Maduro in January 2026, which cut between 25,000 and 35,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil per day. This was compounded by Executive Order 14380 from Trump, which threatens tariffs on countries looking to sell oil to Cuba, reducing fuel supply by approximately 90%. However, it has allowed Russia to send a free oil tanker to the Island.
In any case, the result is a country plagued by blackouts of up to 20 or 30 consecutive hours; an electricity deficit of 1,885 megawatts and 89% of the population living in extreme poverty. ECLAC projects a contraction of the Cuban GDP of -6.5% for 2026, the worst in Latin America.
The regime, for its part, has reported 96,000 pending surgeries in Cuba, including 11,000 in children, in a healthcare system lacking medications, with a shortage of personnel and dilapidated facilities, where hygiene is conspicuously absent.
For Cañizález, the comparison with the Special Period leaves no room for doubt. "Today, the situation is indeed much more dramatic. It is much more painful to witness everything happening in Cuba at this moment compared to that Special Period."
Regarding the role of the United States, the researcher believes that some form of intervention is unavoidable. "I think so, that it is inevitable for the United States to intervene in some way in Cuba." Immediately after, he added that he sees Marco Rubio as "a person with a strategic mindset" whose experience with Venezuela will provide him with tools to act on the island.
This assessment coincides with information about secret meetings between Rubio's team and Cuban representatives, including the grandson of Raúl Castro, within the context of negotiations that the Trump administration is conducting alongside its maximum pressure policy on Havana.
Rubio recently warned that the collapse of Cuba would be a problem for the entire region. Washington is closely monitoring the evolution of the Cuban crisis, and perhaps for that reason, on the agenda of the Secretary of State, who began a visit to the Vatican this Wednesday, is addressing the humanitarian aid that the U.S. has allocated to the Island, distributing it through the Church, independently of the regime.
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