Will Cuba be forced to accept President Trump's demands? | Inside Story

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[00:00:00]Running out of fuel, Cuba is struggling to keep the lights on as the US ramps up economic pressure and military threats.

[00:00:08]Washington's now offering aid, but at a cost. Will the system set up by the Castros break down? This is Inside Story.

[00:00:32]Hello again, I'm James Bay. Cuba's economy has been battered by decades of US sanctions, but since 2021, an energy crisis and food shortages have pushed an estimated 20% of its population to leave. And now, Havana has announced the country is nearly out of fuel. It comes after months of added pressure from Washington. The US cut off oil shipments from Venezuela and then imposed a near total oil blockade paired with Cuba's aging energy grid. The result sweeping blackouts, supply shortages, and a deepening economic crisis. Washington's goal is to force the socialist government to open up the economy and implement political reforms. Donald Trump has even threatened Havana with military action. So, what lies ahead for Cuba? Will it be forced to accept the US president's demands? We'll discuss all of this when we're joined by a panel of guests in a moment. But first, this report from Malahab Mipe.

[00:01:29]>> US President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to attack Cuba, calling it a failed state.

[00:01:34]>> They need help, as you know. And you talk about a declining country. They are really a nation or a country in decline.

[00:01:43]>> Cubans have for years faced recurring fuel shortages and nationwide power cuts. That is in part due to decades of US sanctions and aging power generation facilities. But blackouts have recently become more severe, especially after Washington imposed a blockade on oil shipments earlier this year. And people are losing electricity for up to 18 hours a day.

[00:02:07]>> We have absolutely no fuel, no diesel.

[00:02:10]We have absolutely no diesel whatsoever.

[00:02:12]And I'm repeating myself. The only thing we have is associated gas in our wells.

[00:02:18]Cuba has imported most of its oil from Venezuela over the past 30 years, but that arrangement ended after the US military abducted and imprisoned former President Nicolas Maduro in January.

[00:02:29]Since then, the Trump administration has been overseeing Venezuela's oil production and exports. It's proposed a direct humanitarian assistance package of hund00 million on the condition the socialist government mixed what the State Department has called meaningful reforms to its economy and political system. Following the offer, the head of the CIA arrived in Havana to meet senior officials, including the Cuban interior ministry's chief of intelligence.

[00:02:57]US media reports say that rare visit is part of a plan to potentially charge Cuba's 94year-old former president Rahul Castro. The indictment would reportedly charge Castro for shooting down two airplanes in 1996, killing four people who were part of a Cuban exile group.

[00:03:15]Hava accused the group of violating Cuban airspace, but the International Civil Aviation Organization said the attacks happened in international waters.

[00:03:25]>> Castro, who is still regarded as a powerful political figure, was the defense minister at the time. The Trump administration is intensifying pressure on Havana to open its economy to foreign investment. And with its energy supplies dwindling, Cuba may not be able to hold out much longer. Malik Alazer for inside story.

[00:03:48]>> Well, let's discuss the current situation in Cuba with our panel of guests on today's inside story. And joining us from Havana, Ruri Nickel, the Guardians Cuba correspondent, former editor of the Observer magazine. In Washington DC, Adulo Franco, a Republican strategist and former official at the Latin America and Caribbean Bureau of the US Agency for International Development. And in London, Javier Fah. He is journalist and historian specializing in Latin American affairs. Thank you all three of you uh for joining us. Let me start with you, Rory. Um because uh I think it's worth finding out how things are where you are in the Cuban capital. You've heard what the energy minister said just a few days ago. Absolutely no fuel, no diesel, no reserves. Cuba's had problems for very many years economically. But how bad is it now?

[00:04:44]>> Yes, it feels very much like a tipping point. I mean, the situation has been bad for a long time. There uh as your reporter said, the economic situation has been pless for about 5 years now.

[00:04:58]But we're now 4 months into the US oil blockade and the past week has been really really grim. Um much of the country has been enduring blackouts of up till 22 23 hours for a while now.

[00:05:13]That's really hitting in Havana. You saw on Wednesday night um people out on the street banging their pans, making sort of um a lot of noise, shouting, "Turn the power on." You saw them burning piles of trash that are have not been collected. This is expressing real real sort of suffering now because people you've got to understand it's now getting very hot in the Caribbean. We're now into May. The pro the temperatures are rising. People are finding it very difficult to sleep because if they don't have power, they don't have fans. Their children aren't sleeping. Um they're not sleeping. Worse still, uh, because of the economic crisis, a lot of about 40% of the population really have no access to money and food is becoming expensive.

[00:06:03]They bring home the food, they put it in their fridges and then there's no power, the food goes off. So, people are really, really struggling, especially people with small children. Um, I live in an extremely privileged position compared to the majority of Cubans. I live right next to the US embassy, which means they tend to keep the power on with me a little more, but I haven't had power for um probably 16 hours at this stage. Probably why I'm a bit red-faced.

[00:06:33]Um but you um but for the majority of Cubans, yeah, it's a parless palace situation. you just uh quickly just to add to that we have over the last week you're having this enormous amount of stress put on uh Cuban people by the news uh the US is releasing sort of um quite sort of uh threatening language constantly day after day and so people don't know when it's going to end people have no idea what their end game is where they might land and that is putting people under enormous amount of mental pressure and we're seeing huge spikes in people taking psychotropic drugs and things like that. So people are really suffering.

[00:07:16]>> People suffering Adulo because of what your government is doing, what the Trump administration is doing. And of course this pressure that comes now is on top of sanctions that are the longest running sanctions perhaps with the exception of North Korea anywhere in the world. And of course Cuba is the US's neighbor. So they bite much harder than anything to do with North Korea, don't they?

[00:07:40]Well, that's a loaded question if I've ever heard one from an anchor. Uh, but let me respond.

[00:07:45]>> Why is it a loaded question? It's clearly historically accurate. It's >> not It's not the United States sanction, sir. It's the failed policy of a communist system that has never worked and it's only worked when it's received subsidies. And the rest of the world has economic ties to Cuba to the extent they want to have them and they don't because it's a der country. Uh, so frankly, you don't know what you're talking about. I I ran the Cuba program uh for the United States government. I I'm a Cuban American. I I was born in Cuba. I have family in Cuba and I'm in contact with that family in Cuba. So, I think I have an insight that frankly you do not. Uh the other guest from Havana correctly depicted the situation in Cuba and I'm glad he said because of the background he's in that he's in a privileged setting where which I understand because he's a foreigner and a guest where he's living only elites in Cuba live like that. Uh the situation in Cuba is has been desperate and has been desperate for many years because of a failed economic system. The president is right when he calls it a failed state and it has been a failed state for decades. The difference has been that when the Soviet Union was around, it was subsidized and it was kept afloat. Anything can be kept afloat if you inject enough money. Uh, of course, in the 1990s, as you have a historian coming, we had a similar crisis referred to in Cuba sometimes as the special period and that's when Cuba almost failed and you had some types of demonstrations. Now it's far more acute.

[00:09:17]Situation has decayed. The problem is if you look at debtor countries in the world, Cuba's at the bottom of the list.

[00:09:22]It rivals North Korea. There is no investment in Cuba. You can't invest in a society that doesn't allow investment and only the military controls it. We're not going to provide assistance to a government that is totalitarian, represses its people, has the last largest percentage diaspora of any country. That means people leaving fleeing the country uh in modern history and that tells you what a failed system it is. Most of those people you see on the street would give anything to reach the United States for political and economic relief both. So that is the reality of Cuba. It's not the doing of the United States. It's the doing of a totalitarian repressive regime that is only in power because it uses brutal force to keep its population in check.

[00:10:08]Those are the facts. The economic facts were nicely stated by your guest uh in Havana. The other facts are not that the United this is be a great prosperous country if the United States uh did not have what I think has been largely a very weak embargo anyway on Cuba. Okay, >> that is what the reality of >> let let me bring in Javier on that.

[00:10:28]Adulo challenging me there. Uh and clearly there has been mismanagement by the Cuban government. But what has changed in recent months is, is it not heavy, the US administration piling on uh the pressure, the lifeline that was Venezuela and the energy supplies from Venezuela cut because of uh the US uh military action and perhaps a little bit the the Iran war again the actions of the Trump administration.

[00:10:58]>> Well, yes. Yes, I mean I partly agree with that for not entirely to dismiss the sanctions or the embargo as uh not playing a relevant role in the economy in Cuba is not to take into account the history of the relation between United States and the Cuban revolution.

[00:11:14]However, it is true that mismanagement of the economy. There's no question about that. Back in 2020, Fidel Castro criticized the socialist model, the socialist economic model, saying that hasn't worked. When he was asked, "Do you think we could support your model?"

[00:11:27]and he said well it hasn't work for us how is it going to work for anybody else there was a criticism level of criticism by Phil Castro himself of the socialist economic model so and then there was a bit of opening to the private sector not a big one big bit of opening to the private sector in order to make them more competitive and to reduce the huge size of the Cuban state which is big because it is communist bure communist bureaucracy uh I I was in Cuba when that happened you could see private businesses thriving in many ways but it He never pushed for more openness in terms of the in terms of the private sector. Now it seems to me that I mean you you cannot dismiss this the the embargo as if it doesn't play any role.

[00:12:09]It has it has stopped Cuba from getting hard currency to be able to develop their own economy and that's that's really a big problem for them. But it has but also I I I'm prepared to admit that mismanagement of the economy this concept of centralized economy based on the socialist principle of centralized economy has not worked. As I said to you Phil Castro himself criticized criticized that in n in 2010. What seems to me is that the current strategy of the government is to put pressure on the government through the private sector.

[00:12:42]Allow me to to just quote Marco Rubio when he allowed the export of 30,000 barrels of diesel back in March. He said, and I quote, entirely designed to put the private sector and individual private Cubans, not affiliated with the government, not affiliated to the military, in a privileged position. They don't I don't think he's in favor of bombing Cuba, invading Cuba because that would create a flood of refugees going to United States, something that Trump does not want because he wants to get rid of refugees and immigrants rather than have more there in his in in in the United States. So I have the feeling this is the case. Now there is a law that allows the private sector to import diesel from United States. The problem is that there's no money to do that. So I have the feeling and but also it's important to realize that uh having the head of the CIA John Radcliffe visiting Cuba which would have sound heresy not long ago the the visit of the head of the C in the in the re revolutionary Cuba not the CIA of the sporting cigars or whatever you want to believe or not that but visiting and discussing issues related to the economy and security means that in one place on one part they're playing the carrot that means you know having talks but also paying the stick. Marco Rubia, he's never expressed any sentiment in trying to invade in Cuba. He does. I don't think he wants that. In fact, he started early negotiations with the grandson of Rahul Castro, Raul Gumo, Rodriguez Castro, known as the crab of Raulito, in order to try to find a way to uh to find a solution for the situation. So, I think this can I bring can I can I bring Rory back in into the situation into the discussion, please? um uh about the sorry sorry Adalfa do you want to say something quickly you got a point to raise >> yeah I I I want to say I I I thought that was I don't entirely agree with the other guest but very quickly uh I just want to comment before we talk about Rul and you want to shift to that uh the uh the questions on I first frankly uh I I think it's a very uh soft word to say mismanagement it's a system that does not work so I disagree with the use of that term but but let me say about the the sanctions when you sanctions and sanctions we sell all They You're right.

[00:14:48]The other guest is right. I wanted to say this. We've sold all kinds of agricultural products to Cuba if it has cash. If it has cash for the last 25 years, number one. Secondly, there's enormous remittances that come from Cubanameans that are sent to the Cuban economy and that's what's kept it afloat for so many years. So, this idea that this is this is sanctioned these embargos and this is completely sealed is is just not true. Uh, and you're right about Secretary Rubio, we did it in our program. We managed the program.

[00:15:18]If we could send money and get it to actual citizens, we did. I managed those programs in the tens of millions of dollars. So this idea that that Cuba is not receiving anything from the United States is just not true. It is controlled and it's in a cash basis only. I just want to get that clarification.

[00:15:34]>> Yeah. No, thank you Adalfo. If I could bring in Ruri. Um, we've had prediction of the end of the Castro um, system for very many years, very many years indeed.

[00:15:47]And I'll agree with Adulo. I don't claim to be a Cuba expert, but I was there uh at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union 34 years ago. And people said uh that the system was going to collapse. And of course um although there have been reforms and changes since uh the country Fidel Castro built still stands yet you have protests.

[00:16:09]We'll come to what the the US is doing in a moment. But is there any possibility you think that without the US getting involved right now that things may come to a head without US intervention of any sort? Rory.

[00:16:25]>> Oh they've got it down. uh they they are an authoritarian state. Don't go.

[00:16:31]There's no question about that. They are very good and they're very practiced at keeping in people in line here and exiling them if they don't do the right thing. So um there was a book that was published in um at at the beginning of the special period called the end of the revolution. In 2003, there's a book saying end of the Castros. I actually wrote a piece which they put the headline end of the revolution. And I got a friend said, you should be aware this is not the first time that's been said and you know this can run for a long time. Can I just quickly say I do feel fine. I I totally grant that I'm privileged, but I am married to a Cuban.

[00:17:10]I have a Cuban child. I have Cuban family. So I am pretty much in with the bricks here. I've been here nine years.

[00:17:16]Um just on the um let's I think we should move beyond how I think we're all agreed that this is not a government that works. I flew down to Santiago, the other city which is 550 mi away. Um I at the beginning of the blockade and I hitchhiked back because I actually wanted to see what was happening on the street. I stood beside the road. I held up pesos. I got in the cars. Um, I traveled in every possible form of transport and I talked to people and I was quite surprised because I believed that the people on the island, the Cuban people on the island really didn't care who was to blame anymore. They just wanted things to change. Um, I was very struck to find I spoke maybe to 20 30 people in depth and 28 of them only two people blamed the Americans for the current situation. Um most nearly all of them thought Donald Trump is um slightly out of control. They used much harder language than that. They didn't appreciate him. Um a nearly all of them believe in sovereignty. They don't want an American takeover of Cuba. They've been through that. Well, they haven't, but Cuba's been through that before. Um it led to the revolution in many ways.

[00:18:39]Um, but they did all one of them stood beside the road and said, "Do you see these new Dodge Rams?" Because Adula is right. You can import cars from the US to this day. You just can't fill them with gas. Um, but they said, "Look at these new Dodge Rams and these new beautiful Toyotas that drive past and they say, "Those are the people who are running our country. Those are the people of the new elite, and they're not stopping to pick us up." And I thought that was a very telling telling um stage. So I think you've got three guests who all agree that the government here is um is is is morbunded and is um clinging on to power for reasons that we can discuss. What we may not agree on is what the US is doing. The US is being brutal at the moment. It has got is very smart, very clever. The oil blockade is hurting people. It's meanwhile coming up with stuff and I I speak as someone who loves the US. I've loved the US for a long time. Ever since I was a child, I was a US correspondent to my newspaper.

[00:19:43]I've got a great faith in the US. But it is releasing releasing news that I know isn't true and it's doing it to increase pressure.

[00:19:54]There was a story yesterday about the U about Cuba having 600 drones that could um attack the US. Uh now maybe maybe but I'd be super surprised um that look the US says that Cuba is a state sponsor of terror. This is a country that can't even feed its people. They have been let me put let me put those points let me please Rory let me put those points to Adulo. Adulo your response is is the US engaging in propaganda right now?

[00:20:31]Well, every country engages in propaganda and certainly psychological warfare and that's part of the coming indictment out of old Castro to hopefully shake it up with the the the rest of the the gang, the bandic gang that runs Havana to see if they can break loose and have internal dissension in Cuba. Look, I largely agree with many of the things the guest said from Cuba and maybe that's awful to get people onto the street. To try and force people on the street is awful. Can we just agree that's terrible to do? Well, well, I I I I I disagree with you, but uh uh the this regime, according to Mossad, and I was in the US government at the time, which is the Israeli intelligence agency, Cuban intelligence is the best in the world. So, this idea of this poor country that doesn't do it, invests everything it has in its repression. It isn't, we'll talk about moving forward, it isn't authoritarian, my friend. It's totalitarian. There's a difference. uh and that uh secret police and its enforcement and its brutality. You should be focused on the brutality of the regime against its own people.

[00:21:33]>> Okay. Adula, I want I want to move you on only because we're limited in time and I want you to explain to us Adula what the Trump administration is actually trying to do. Can you tell us what in your in your view what the objective is? Is it to remove completely the system that has been in power since the revolution? Or is it as the Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio has said, Cuba needs to change and it doesn't have to change all at once. Is it a sort of Venezuela model to change uh somebody at the top but keep the system in place? What is your view of the current policy?

[00:22:11]>> Okay, let me let me move forward on that question. Uh first um I agree with the other guests that had said Secretary Rubio who I know very well and personally uh is does not looking to invade Cuba. What we want is the latter.

[00:22:24]We want some transition in Cuba.

[00:22:26]Obviously the goal of every American presidency has been regime change of some sort and we still desire that as we desired it in Iran but we want it to come from within. In this case there is no invasion plan. This idea of the president I know has said that sometimes. Uh the president also said we're going to invade Greenland uh and Canada is going to be a state. So the president says things and Venezuela a state that says things to shake things up in Cuba. The goal of the administration is to bring about regime change with additional pressure. And that pressure the guest from Havana said I'm sorry to say them CubanAmerican community and their very recent arrivals and have family there as myself strongly appro approve of the United States uh as he refers to brutal action against the Cuban people. and the Cuban people ultimately know that's the only way to bring about change. So that is the game plan to bring about internal change with enough pressure within not an American invasion. Javier, um, one, do you think that all of the administration is of the same view? And having heard the way Adulo has just explained it, is the US plan going to work?

[00:23:32]>> I doubt that regime James is a priority for the United States. Look what happened in Venezuela. I think Trump and Marco Ruo play the good cup, bad cup, good cup. Maria is more uh the tendencies to negotiate to discuss the issue happened in Venezuela where Rodriguez the president of Venezuela after Maduro was kidnapped, arrested or whatever you want to call it. And now the regime is still there intact, hasn't moved. There's been a lot of pressure to release political prisoners to open up a bit more the economy for the oil. Many companies don't want to invest in the oil in Venezuela anyway. So I think if we if we follow the model followed in Venezuela which I believe is a philosopher Marco Rubio he I think he tries to avoid confrontation and it's true that he wants a slow process of change but this he does want to force it because that would create probably if there is an attack on on Cuba and there was a flood of refugees from Cuba to the United States that's something that Trump does not want. I'm not sure about using the MOSAD as a reliable source of information in terms of whatever they do. So I'm not going to get into that.

[00:24:35]But what I believe is that Marco Rubio is he started negotiating with the grandson of Al Castro long before they started negotiating with the government of Danel, the president of Cuba. It's very interesting that but also he said at the time we want change, political and economic change. I have the feeling that Marco Rubio's idea is to try to create change within Cuba via the economy. the p to strengthen the private sector in in Cuba which is still small but is becoming influential because they are the only people who can actually import oil and fuel and and things like that because the embargo only applies to stateowned companies which is when the 1960s so I have definitely that is the strategy of Marco Rubio he wants to avoid that confrontation between uh the government of the United States and Cuba the president of John Rack the head of the CIA in Cuba which was heresy until some time ago it's something which I think is extremely interesting uh in in terms of uh in terms of the way they want to deal with Cuba. So in my let me bring in Ruri again if I can. Um is there a real danger with this US uh policy that the anti-immigration um President Donald Trump might if he does things wrong trigger a situation where many many more people leave Cuba?

[00:25:52]Some estimates say nearly a quarter of the population has left in the last 5 years.

[00:25:58]Well, certainly we've lost nearly two uh two million people from Cuba in the last 5 years. You might notice behind me the lights have just come back on. So that's um that was they went off at 11 last night. They've just come back on. As I say, I'm in a privileged position. Um a uh yes, I suppose this is one of the big things. I've not really sort of as a journalist, I'm not really concentrating on the possibility of lots of people leaving. I don't see that as the endgame here. I mean, there is the possibility that um a vacuum's created and then a true horror show results with civil war or whatever, but I I don't think that's what we're looking at. Um I think they're being very smart in how they're doing it. I think that the CIA director arriving is suggesting that the negotiations are continuing. My fear, I suppose, is that um you know, let's let's be frank. Donald Trump wants a win. He wants a win before the midterms and he wants the prize of Cuba. As Adulo said, the people have wanted, presidents have wanted that forever and he wants to be he said it. He wants to be the man that does it. Rubio is slightly different because he is CubanAmerican like Adulo and he feels he it's in his blood that he wants to see Cuba um in his terms free.

[00:27:16]>> Rory, thank you very much. And thank you to our guests today, Rory Nickel, Adulo Franco, and Javier Fire. If you missed any of our discussion, remember you can see the program again anytime at our website algazer.com. What should we discuss next time? We want to hear from you. Go to our Facebook page. That's facebook.com/ajj inside or find us on axe there. Our username is ajside story. That's it from me, James Bay, and the team here for now. But don't go anywhere because Al Jazer's coverage continues in a moment.

[00:27:46]Stand by for an update. Heat. Heat.