Trump Says Cuba Won’t “Survive.” Just How Many Cubans Will Not Survive?

What the hell is Donald Trump’s preferred outcome, when it comes to the deepening international/humanitarian crisis that continues to develop in Cuba? Or perhaps we should phrase that as “What the hell is Marco Rubio’s preferred stance for Trump to take on the humanitarian crisis of Cuba?” It has long been clear that the U.S. Secretary of State, the son of Cuban immigrants and a persistent hawk when it comes to putting the screws to the embattled country, is the architect behind the administration’s various attempts to force regime change there via sheer, heartless cruelty. Rubio has referred to Cuba as “the head of the snake,” and well, what does one do to snake heads to neutralize them? What has long been frustratingly unclear is what the two men actually want regime change to look like, or how it would come about, short of boots-on-the-ground American invasion. Cuba has no opposition party; no clear alternative waiting in the wings. So far, Trump has simply settled for creating the conditions for mass death and chaos, while swearing that he definitely doesn’t want those things to occur.

Nevertheless, Trump keeps calling the fall of Cuba inevitable, telling reporters in Iowa last week that “Cuba will be failing pretty soon.” In classic Trump fashion, however, despite promising the country’s devastation Trump also objected to a reporter claiming that the U.S. would “choke off” the country by not allowing desperately needed oil shipments into it. “The word ‘choke off’ is awfully tough,” the President whined, while immediately promising destruction again afterward: “It looks like it’s not something that’s going to be able to survive. I think Cuba will not be able to survive.”

Note the way he always says that “Cuba” will not survive, a term stripped of personification, because he doesn’t want to acknowledge that when a country “doesn’t survive,” what exactly is meant to happen to the 11 million human beings who live in said country? Do they get to survive, or are they meant to be just as dead as the legacy of Castroism? Trump wants full credit for bringing about the end of communist Cuba as we know it, but no blame whatsoever for the fact that it’s unavoidably to be achieved by starving the Cuban people through waves of famine and death, with seemingly no clue of what waits on the other side. At the very least, you can bet that American industrialists will be waiting to pounce and steal whatever property they can.

The US has declared Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat”, authorising new sanctions and tightening its illegal blockade.

Trump is trying to starve Cuba into submission — and millions of people will suffer.

This is economic warfare, plain and simple. Hands off Cuba!

— Jeremy Corbyn (@jeremycorbyn.bsky.social) Jan 31, 2026 at 6:59 AM

Consider the absurdity of the executive order that Trump issued on Thursday, which declares yet another “national emergency” in order to allow Trump the ability to unilaterally levy tariffs for purposes of political and social manipulation and intimidation. It’s a grossly abused power co-opted by the Executive Branch that the Supreme Court is preparing to weigh in on, with far-reaching implications. In this case, the “emergency” states that the Cuban government constitutes “an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the security and foreign policy of the United States, which justifies the President’s use of tariffs as a punishment against any nation “directly or indirectly selling or otherwise providing any oil to Cuba.”

In case you missed that: We’re talking about Cuba, a country afflicted by constant rolling blackouts, which is running out of fuel, food and any way to provide for itself thanks to U.S. foreign policy, as “an extraordinary threat” to the United States. Which is it? Is Cuba a terrifying foe, or is it a failed state that is about to roll over and surrender? It can hardly be both of those things simultaneously. And how hypocritical do you have to be as Trump to cite the Cuban government’s “depredations” against the Cuban people in your executive order, while simultaneously declaring that you’ll stop any humanitarian aid from reaching those same people? Or deporting record numbers of Florida Cubans, one of his own key voter demographics, back to the same country he says is about to collapse? Is anyone in this administration even capable of recognizing hypocrisy in a purely academic sense?

In the absence of Venezuela, now kicking the tires on its own Trump-friendly puppet government tasked with reviving the heavy crude industry there, Cuba is being allowed to wither on the vine. Although the onetime Central American crude oil powerhouse had once provided the vast majority of Cuba’s oil, Venezuela’s own oily slide into corruption and obsolescence had reduced those figures in recent years to the point where it was providing less than half of what the island of Cuba needed. Still, that is a massive amount of oil, and neither Russia nor Mexico seem either willing or permitted (following the threat of this executive order) to make up the difference, meaning that Cuba is running on dwindling reserves. Mexico in particular has found itself in an exceedingly tricky spot, as President Claudia Sheinbaum finds herself trying to simultaneously appease her own left-wing Morena party while not economically jeopardizing the relationship with their most important trading partner, the United States. Trump has reportedly found Sheinbaum agreeable, stating flatly on Monday that Mexico would also be ceasing to send oil to Cuba. There’s little doubt that she wants to keep the critical relationship in place—if Trump says the plan is to let Cuba starve, it doesn’t seem like Mexico will defy him.

The US is gearing up to literally starve Cuba into submission. It is absolutely criminal and obscene. And this to a country that everyone knows poses *zero* threat to the US.

The people of Cuba need our full solidarity in resisting this onslaught.

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel.bsky.social) Feb 1, 2026 at 1:39 PM

There are already some indications that whatever is happening with Cuba seems to be coming to a head. Over the weekend, Trump told a gaggle of reporters at Mar-a-Lago that “we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens,” expressing confidence that “I think we’re going to make a deal.” He observed that, by his own design, “they have no money, they have no oil.” So what is this “deal” meant to be? Is it with Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, a man Rubio previously referred to as “incompetent” and “senile,” despite Trump being 14 years older than Canel? Are they trying to imply that Canel would make a deal to allow the U.S. to ransack Cuba for parts and effectively take over in its rebuilding, in exchange for being able to remain as a pliant, Delcy Rodríguez-style puppet? How does that jibe with reports that a Russian cargo plane arrived this weekend–the same exact plane that delivered weapons and air defense systems to Caracas in advance of the U.S. invasion there? Not that those weapons did the Venezuelans any good, mind you.

At the end of the day, if a warmongering Trump decides to take Cuba—or if Rubio can goad him into it—there will be very little that anyone, certainly not the Cuban people, will be able to do about it. The only question may be how many Cuban lives we’re willing to sacrifice on the altar of our imperialist ambitions.