Trump Warns Cuba to Make a Deal as He Cuts Off Venezuelan Oil

I thin we all sort of assumed this was going to happen last week but wasn’t official until yesterday when President Trump made an early morning post on his Truth Social account.

Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided “Security Services” for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE! Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years. Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will. THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA – ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT

No more oil or money going to Cuba. Again, it seemed likely from the moment we seized Maduro but now it’s clear Cuba is cut off. And that means a country that was already struggling to keep the lights on is now going to have to get by with about 40% less oil.

Cuba is still receiving a slightly larger share of its total oil from Mexico and President Trump has not attempted to pressure Mexico to cut that supply off so far. But it’s hard to see how Cuba can keep the lights on for much longer. Hence, Trump’s recommendation that they make a deal now. What kind of deal? He didn’t say, but the deal that was being offered to Maduro, prior to the military action, was one in which he left and took his money but never returned.

Cuba’s current leader responded to Trump on X:

No tienen moral para señalar a Cuba en nada, absolutamente en nada, quienes convierten todo en negocio, incluso las vidas humanas.

Quienes hoy drenan histéricos contra nuestra nación lo hacen enfermos de rabia por la decisión soberana de este pueblo de elegir su modelo político.

— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) January 11, 2026

They have no moral authority to point fingers at Cuba on anything, absolutely anything, those who turn everything into a business, even human lives.

Those who today hysterically drain their rage against our nation do so sick with fury over this people’s sovereign decision to choose its political model.

He then repeated the usual excuse made by failed communists, that their failure was entirely the fault of the United States.

Those who blame the Revolution for the severe economic shortages we suffer should hold their tongues out of shame. Because they know it and acknowledge it: they are the fruit of the draconian measures of extreme strangulation that the U.S. has been applying to us for six decades and now threatens to surpass.

Why should the US trade with a communist state that steals our investments (by nationalizing them), befriends our enemies and helps fellow communists undermine civil rights in the region? Even left-wing news outlets like the NY Times recognize that the US isn’t to blame for all of Cuba’s failures. Part of this is their own top-down mismanagement going back decades.

So is Cuba destined to collapse without Venezuelan oil? It seems that way but the Atlantic published a counter-argument yesterday suggesting that maybe it won’t happen. 

For now, those who want to see the Cuban government fall hope that Maduro’s removal will be enough to sink the regime that Castro’s revolution installed in 1959.

Many experts I spoke with are skeptical. Yes, the future looks bleak for the island of 11 million people, who are already suffering from a dismal economy and aggressive state repression. Yes, the regime appears fatigued, having lost the leadership of both Fidel (who died in 2016) and his brother, Raúl, who is 94 and has yielded power to President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

But Cuba has survived many periods of severe hardship over the past six decades, and it remains difficult to discern any real impetus for dramatic change, absent a major U.S. military attack…There is no opposition capable of igniting change from the inside.

I don’t think it’s a convincing argument. There may not be any opposition in Cuba now, but if the power goes out for a week, some opposition will arise. Cubans seem to have been trained to tolerate almost any level of abuse for the revolution but I don’t think they are ready to starve to death for it. And that’s what will begin to happen if there is no way to refrigerate or store food anymore.

One thing that does seem clear is that the leaders, just like the ones in Iran, are willing to put up with anything to hold on to their positions. The people of Cuba may not be willing to starve for Miguel Díaz-Canel and the fading memories of Fidel Castro, but Miguel Díaz-Canel isn’t going anywhere until someone removes him from office one way or another.

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