A complete halt in Venezuelan oil deliveries — a scenario experts now describe as the apparent aim of U.S. tanker seizures — would likely knock out Cuba’s already crippled electrical grid and accelerate an emigration wave that has already cost the island roughly 1.4 million residents since 2020, analysts said.
HAVANA — U.S. forces seized their fifth Venezuela-linked oil tanker on Friday as part of a broader administration push to control Venezuelan oil distribution globally, intensifying fears among experts and residents that Cuba’s already battered economy may not survive a full cutoff of Venezuelan crude.
Cuba had been receiving an estimated 35,000 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela before the Jan. 3 U.S. military operation that resulted in the capture of former President Nicolás Maduro, according to Jorge Piñón of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, who tracks shipments using oil tracking services and satellite technology. Cuba also received approximately 5,500 barrels per day from Mexico and roughly 7,500 from Russia, Piñón said.
Even with those combined supplies in place, severe blackouts had already sidelined daily life across the island, with residents enduring long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid what analysts describe as Cuba’s worst economic crisis in decades.
“This will take an already dire situation to new extremes,” said Michael Galant, senior research and outreach associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. “This is what a collapsing economy looks like.”
A decade of economic deterioration
Cuba’s gross domestic product has fallen 15% over the past six years. President Miguel Díaz-Canel noted in December that the economy contracted an additional 4% in 2025 alone.
Although Cuba experienced relative stability between 2000 and 2019, driven by tourism and exports of services, nickel, rum and tobacco, the COVID-19 pandemic and a sharp escalation in U.S. sanctions during the Trump administration’s second term have since crippled virtually every sector of the economy.
Cuba’s population fell by approximately 1.4 million people between 2020 and 2024, a decline analysts largely attribute to migration driven by deteriorating economic conditions, according to Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, a Cuban economist and demographics expert.
“Fuel is a factor that affects everything,” Albizu-Campos said. “People are going to feel that they are in worse conditions, and people who hadn’t considered leaving will feel the need to do so.”
At the Spanish embassy in Havana on Friday, Ernesto Macías, a 53-year-old doctor, stood in line to request a family member visa for his daughter, having already obtained Spanish citizenship.
“I wouldn’t want Cuba to be invaded or anything like that. I hope it doesn’t happen, but I’m sure people will continue to emigrate because there is no other way,” Macías said.
Experts warn of unrest; debate whether pressure will work
Galant said he believes the Trump administration’s strategy is to cause “such an indiscriminate suffering in the civilian population as to instigate some sort of uprising, regime change.”
“This sort of besiegement of Cuba is very intentional,” Galant said. “I think it’s very difficult to predict what will and will not spark actual regime instability. From the perspective of” Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Galant said, “it’s a sort of wait them out. … There’s always a breaking point.”
Jorge Duany, with the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University, said a total suspension of Venezuelan oil shipments — a scenario he described as “no longer so impossible to imagine” — could lead to an indefinite shutdown of Cuba’s electrical grid.
“It would lead us to imagine the possibility of mass protests,” Duany said.
Andy S. Gómez, retired dean of the School of International Studies and senior fellow in Cuban Studies at the University of Miami, said he does not envision Cuba’s government collapsing as long as Raúl Castro remains alive and in control of the military. Cuba’s civilian population is unarmed, he said, and no faction of the island’s military appears likely to break with the ruling elite.
“Are they concerned? You bet,” Gómez said. “They’re not well armed; their equipment is outdated.”
Gómez said Cuba retains one significant card to play in any confrontation with Washington: the threat of mass migration, which he said Cuban authorities “can absolutely control.”
“Cuban military forces are on high alert,” he said.
What Cubans say they need
It is not clear whether any of the five tankers seized so far were bound specifically for Cuba. Experts said any disruption to the broader supply chain would nonetheless deliver an immediate shock, given the fragility of the island’s energy infrastructure.
Gómez said that even if the worsening crisis produces unrest and the removal of a top government official, the resulting leadership would likely be drawn from familiar figures within the existing structure.
“It would just be a continuation of the government,” he said.
As the uncertainty deepens, Gómez said the immediate concerns driving Cuban life have little to do with political calculations.
“The Cuban people only care about one thing right now, unfortunately,” he said. “They want to put food on the table, have electricity, have a place to live, have a job.”