Cuba defiant because it braces for post-Maduro period

[ad_1] Will Grant BBC's Mexico, Central America and Cuba correspondent, Colombia

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/0428/live/4fd83570-ea78-11f0-b385-5f48925de19a.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="EPA/Shutterstock Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel holds Cuban and Venezuelan flags as he speaks at a rally in Havana in support of Venezuela. Photo: 3 January 2026" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> EPA/Shutterstock Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel addressed a rally in Havana in help of Venezuela, condemning Washington's operation

After Venezuela, there is no such thing as a nation within the Americas extra affected by the occasions in Caracas than Cuba.

The 2 nations have shared a political imaginative and prescient of state-led socialism since a fresh-faced Venezuelan presidential candidate, Hugo Chávez, met the aged chief of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, on the tarmac at Havana airport in 1999.

For years, their mutual ties solely deepened, as Venezuelan crude oil flowed to the communist-run island in change for Cuban docs and medics travelling within the different route.

After the deaths of the 2 males, it was Nicolás Maduro - skilled and instructed in Cuba - who grew to become Chávez's handpicked successor, chosen partly as a result of he was acceptable to the Castro brothers. He represented continuity for the Cuban revolution as a lot because the Venezuelan one.

Now he, too, is gone from the seat of energy in Caracas, forcibly eliminated by the US's elite Delta Pressure staff. The prospects for Cuba in his absence are bleak.

For now, the Cuban authorities has robustly denounced the assault as unlawful and declared two days of nationwide mourning for 32 Cuban nationals killed within the US navy operation.

Their deaths revealed a key truth long-known about Cuban affect over the Venezuelan presidency and navy: Maduro's safety element was nearly totally made up of Cuban bodyguards. Cuban nationals are in place in quite a few positions in Venezuela's intelligence companies and navy too.

Cuba had lengthy denied having lively troopers or safety brokers inside Venezuela, however freed political prisoners have typically claimed they have been interrogated by males with Cuban accents whereas in custody.

Moreover, regardless of countless public proclamations of solidarity between the 2 nations, in fact the Cuban affect behind the scenes of the Venezuelan state is believed to have pushed a wedge between ministers most-closely aligned with Havana and those that really feel that the connection first established by Chávez and Castro has grow to be basically unbalanced.

In essence, that faction considers that as of late Venezuela will get little in return for its oil.

Venezuela is believed to ship round 35,000 barrels of oil a day to Cuba - not one of the island's different important vitality companions, Russia and Mexico, even come shut.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/40b8/live/e113ed40-ea78-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Getty Images A man rummages through a dumpster in Havana, Cuba. Photo: 15 July 2025" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Getty Photos Meals shortages have worsened in Cuba because it grapples with a extreme financial disaster

The Trump administration's tactic of confiscating sanctioned Venezuelan oil tankers has already begun to worsen the gas and electrical energy disaster in Cuba and has the potential to grow to be very acute, in a short time.

At greatest, the longer term seems to be more and more complicated for the beleaguered Caribbean island with out Maduro on the helm in Caracas. Cuba was already within the grip of its worst financial disaster for the reason that Chilly Struggle.

There have been rolling blackouts from finish to finish of the island for months. And the influence on abnormal Cubans has been taxing within the excessive: weeks with out dependable electrical energy, meals rotting in fridges, followers and air-conditioning not working, mosquitoes swarming within the warmth and the fester of uncollected garbage.

The island has skilled a widespread outbreak of mosquito-borne illnesses in current weeks with big numbers of individuals affected by dengue fever and chikungunya. Cuba's healthcare system, as soon as the jewel within the revolution's crown, has struggled to manage.

It's not a reasonably image. But it's the each day actuality for many Cubans.

The concept the movement of Venezuelan oil to Cuba may very well be turned off by Delcy Rodríguez fills Cubans with dread, particularly if she seems to be to placate the Trump administration following the US raid towards her predecessor and stave off the spectre of extra violence.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/9ad1/live/908bf880-ea79-11f0-b5f7-49f0357294ff.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="EPA/Shutterstock Venezuelans in Miami, Florida, hold a picture of US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during a rally in support of the US operation in Venezuela. Photo: 3 January 2026" class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> EPA/Shutterstock President Trump insists Washington is looking the photographs in Venezuela now.

Whereas these feedback have been walked again - to an extent - by his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, there is no such thing as a doubt that the Trump administration now expects nothing lower than complete compliance from Rodríguez as performing president.

There can be additional, doubtlessly worse penalties, Trump threatened, if she "does not behave", as he put it.

Such language - to not point out the US operation in Venezuela itself - has shocked and angered Washington's critics, who say the White Home is responsible of the worst type of US imperialism and interventionism seen in Latin America for the reason that Chilly Struggle.

The elimination of Maduro from energy amounted to kidnapping, these critics argue, and the case towards him should be thrown out at his eventual trial in New York.

Unsurprisingly, Trump seems unfazed by such arguments, warning he would possibly even carry it out once more towards the president of Colombia if want be.

He has dubbed the worrying new circumstances in Latin America the "Donroe Doctrine", in a nod to the Monroe Doctrine - a nineteenth Century colonialist international coverage precept which warned European powers towards meddling within the US sphere of affect within the Western hemisphere.

So as phrases, Latin America is the US's "yard", and Washington has the unalienable proper to find out what occurs there. Rubio used that very time period - yard - concerning the area as he justified the actions towards Venezuela on US Sunday discuss exhibits.

He additionally stays key to what comes subsequent for Cuba. The US financial embargo has been in place for greater than six many years and didn't take away the Castro brothers or their political challenge from energy.

Rubio - a Cuban American former Florida senator and son of Cuban exiles - would love nothing greater than to be the person, or the person behind the person, who introduced an finish to 60 years of communist rule in his mother and father' homeland.

He sees the technique of eradicating Maduro and laying down stark circumstances to a more-compliant Rodríguez authorities in Caracas as the important thing to reaching that self-professed aim in Havana.

Cuba has confronted robust occasions previously, and the federal government stays defiant within the face of this newest act of US navy intervention within the area.

The 32 "courageous Cuban combatants" who died in Venezuela can be honoured, mentioned Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, for "taking up the terrorists in imperial uniforms".