Cuban officials are facing an energy and trade disruption that comes after decades in which the Communist Party government has survived U.S. hostilities and other setbacks, but now threatens daily life and public services in a new way. In March, supplies of oil, food and other goods reaching the island fell sharply, and the shipping slowdown has been tied to fuel shortages that Cuba’s government says are affecting blackouts and medical care, according to shipping data reviewed by Windward. While Washington has described its actions as pressure short of a formal blockade, the practical effect for the island has been a steep decline in inbound fuel shipments and related commerce.
The shipping picture presented in the reporting was stark: in 2025, the average number of port calls, including tankers moving from one Cuban port to another, was around 50 per month. In March, that figure dropped to just 11, all of them arriving from domestic ports, and Windward’s analysis described it as the lowest level since 2017. The review also found little immediate relief, with only three container ships listing Cuba as a planned destination, originating from China, India and the Netherlands.
The reporting said Cuba’s heavy reliance on oil to generate electricity has left the island particularly vulnerable as fuel becomes harder to obtain. Cuba produces barely 40% of the oil needed to cover its energy needs, the story said, and the shortfall has contributed to massive blackouts and a breakdown in medical care, including a lack of fuel to power ambulances and hospital generators. In the same thread of disruptions, the Associated Press reported that two vessels—one described as sanctioned by the U.S.—could arrive carrying Russian fuel in the coming days.
The trade disruption also arrived amid a U.S. policy environment in which officials have escalated rhetoric about Cuba’s leadership. The story said President Donald Trump this week told supporters he believes he will have “the honor of taking Cuba” soon, and it described that U.S. interest as seeking President Miguel Díaz-Canel to leave power as part of ongoing talks with Havana that could avert a kind of military intervention. Companies and countries that do business with Cuba, the story said, have increasingly self-policed their activity, in part because U.S. warships in the Caribbean have been used in strikes against Maduro, another U.S. adversary whose ouster the story linked to the timing of intensified pressure on Cuba.
The Associated Press reporting described that the administration’s pressure has unfolded even without a wholesale reapplication of older export restrictions that had been loosened during the Biden administration. It said shipments of U.S.-produced poultry, pork and other foodstuffs to Cuba—described as the bulk of U.S. exports—rose last year to $490 million, the most since 2009, and that non-agricultural exports and humanitarian donations more than doubled, including assistance aimed at Cuba’s private sector.
Rubio and U.S. officials have also pointed to steps framed as enabling limited private activity and providing aid. The story said the State Department sent $3 million in food kits, water purification tablets and other humanitarian assistance items to the island in January, and later described the White House announcing that U.S. companies would be allowed to send fuel, including Venezuelan oil, to private businesses in Cuba. Rubio’s stated goal, the reporting said, was to encourage development of Cuba’s small private sector, and it cited Rubio saying industries have not flourished because “the regime has not allowed them to flourish.”
Even with those signals, the reporting described skepticism about whether fuel shipments will quickly reach businesses that can use them, noting that critics say the strategy is unrealistic because most Cuban companies lack capital and the Cuban government has a monopoly on gasoline distribution. The Cuban government’s own position has emphasized defiance rather than acceptance, and the story cited Díaz-Canel’s January social media post saying: “Cuba is a free, independent and sovereign state — nobody dictates what we do,” and “Cuba does not attack; we are the victims of U.S. attacks for 66 years and we will prepare ourselves to defend the homeland with our last drop of blood.”
Outside analysts and industry figures cited in the reporting also questioned the likely impact on public sentiment. Ian Ralby, head of I.R. Consilium, said the U.S. aggressiveness will not endear Trump to Cubans “long eager for change,” and he described the situation as: “Every Cuban resident is suffering the acute inaccessibility to fuel and all the knock-on consequences in terms of access to food, hospitals and free movement.” John Kavulich, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, said: “Nobody wants to be on the radar of Trump’s Truth Social account,” framing fear of U.S. scrutiny as a driver of self-limiting behavior by others.
In practical terms, the story also described how the pressure connected to Venezuela has shaped Cuban access to energy. It said that during the U.S. military’s ousting of Nicolás Maduro in a nighttime raid on Jan. 3, Trump declared that the U.S. would block all Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and seized tankers to enforce what it called a “quarantine,” borrowing a term associated with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Later, the story said Trump signed an executive order threatening tariffs on any country that supplies oil to Cuba, with the warning alarming Mexico officials and with Mexico’s state-run oil company, Pemex, described as a lifeline last year as Venezuelan oil exports declined.
As a result, critics and Cuban officials have described the U.S. steps as a “fuel blockade,” while the administration disputed that characterization. The reporting said the administration’s dispute reflects an awareness that under international law a naval operation seen as punishing civilians can be treated as an illegal act of aggression outside wartime. John Felder, owner of Premier Automotive Export, told the Associated Press that during a recent trip to Havana he had not seen conditions worse, and he described a desire for change paired with resistance to control from the United States, saying: “U.S. policies have created the most resilient people in the world and yet all they want to do is buy things in Miami like you and me,” and adding, “They want change but they don’t want to be controlled by the United States.”
At the center of the latest warning is the risk that fuel shortages could deepen in ways that compound existing strains across electricity and healthcare. With the shipping data showing an abrupt fall in inbound tankers and uncertainty about replacement shipments, the reporting describes Cuba’s leadership facing a major test of endurance in a crisis shaped less by trade talks or sanctions paperwork than by the practical mechanics of fuel getting to the island.