The government of Canada says it is still thinking about whether to send humanitarian aid to Cuba, as the island confronts a looming disaster under an American oil embargo that is, in practice, a full blockade.
“Canada is monitoring the situation carefully and is concerned about the increasing risk of a humanitarian crisis on the island,” said Global Affairs Canada’s Charlotte MacLeod in a written statement shared with CBC News.
“As the situation continues to evolve, Canada is evaluating options to support Cuba’s most vulnerable people. Canada has a long-standing record of providing life-saving humanitarian assistance to Cuba in response to acute crises.”
Global Affairs also encouraged any Canadians still on the island to “consider leaving while options remain available.”
Interim NDP leader Don Davies and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet have both called on the Liberal government to send immediate aid to Cuba, where people are facing blackouts and shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Ben Rowswell, former Canadian ambassador to Venezuela, says Canada must assist Cuba through this crisis and support its sovereignty as a sign of unity against U.S. agression.
MacLeod said more than 27,900 travellers returned from Cuba on Canadian airlines before they suspended service.
“Commercial flights remain available through international airlines; however, they may become limited on short notice,” she said.
The disappearance of Canadian tourists, long a mainstay of Cuba’s economy, is one of several ominous signs for the Cuban government that the end may be near.
A true blockade
Cuba has long referred to the U.S. embargo on the island as a “blockade,” an argument that the U.S. has rejected. Only during the Cuban Missile Crisis did Washington ever really try to control non-American ships’ access to the island.
But at least as far as oil is concerned, what the Trump administration is doing to Cuba right now can only be described as a blockade. (The administration has resisted using that term because international law typically considers a blockade to be an act of war).
The United States Navy and Coast Guard have been relentless in pursuing tankers Washington suspects of trying to bring oil to Cuba, boarding ships as far away as the Indian Ocean, and shadowing others around the Caribbean to ensure they can’t make a dash for the Port of Havana.
The Cuban government has had to risk some of the little fuel it has available to send empty tankers out to try to buy oil in unusual places such as Curaçao, but those vessels so far appear to have been met with no success.
Ricardo Torres, a Cuban economist at American University in Washington, D.C., says without published inventories from the country, it’s hard to know exactly when Cuba’s oil will run out.
“I don’t think they were preparing for an escalation of this type. So, they are some weeks before running out completely,” he said.
“Even though there could be some actions by governments such as Russia, a country cannot survive on humanitarian aid forever. And those numbers will not be anywhere close to what the country actually needs — around 90,000 to 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.”
Calls for Canadian intervention
This week NDP interim Leader Don Davies called on the Carney government to “support Cuba in the face of aggressive U.S. imperialism.” Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand responded that Canada was “deeply concerned by the deteriorating conditions in Cuba,” but suggested the government was more focused on getting Canadian visitors out than getting aid in.
There is no reason to believe that Canada would risk provoking the Trump administration if it were to send humanitarian aid to Cuba in the form of food, medicine or other basic supplies.
The United States itself sent aid this month even as it tightened the noose on Cuba’s oil supply, prompting the Cuban government to accuse it of cynicism.
Food, medicine and humanitarian supplies are not subject to the U.S. embargo on Cuba, and imported American chicken has in recent years been the main source of animal protein on the island.
U.S. President Donald Trump is applying severe economic pressure to an already-strained Cuba mired in a food and power crisis. Andrew Chang explains why the U.S. is choosing now to cut off the country’s oil supply, and why, for Trump and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, it’s also personal.
The Trump administration has in fact portrayed the United States as bringing relief to the Cuban people despite an indifferent regime’s attempts to block it.
“Let there be no doubt: the regime must not make any effort to interfere with the provision of this life-saving support,” said a U.S. State Department statement accompanying the $6 million US of “prepackaged commodities transported from Miami and delivered by local parish representatives” of the Catholic Church and charity Caritas.
“The regime will be accountable to the United States and its own people for any interference … the United States stands ready to surge even greater direct support to the Cuban people. The corrupt regime must simply permit it.”
Not even the most diehard opponents of communist rule in the Cuban diaspora are calling for a blockade on food and medicine to Cuba.
Trying to send Canadian oil to Cuba, though — as some have suggested — would be a very different matter.
Mexico not willing to confront U.S. over Cuba
Last week, when Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum sent two ships of the Mexican Navy to Cuba carrying 800 tonnes of humanitarian supplies, the Trump administration made no protest.
But the aid listed did not include oil. Sheinbaum had already announced that Mexico would stop supplying oil to Cuba, which had turned to Mexico after the Trump administration cut off the supply from Venezuela.
“Suspending is a sovereign decision and is taken when necessary,” Sheinbaum said in her morning news briefing on Jan. 28, just a day before U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that threatened tariffs against “products of any other country that directly or indirectly sells or otherwise provides any oil to Cuba.”
Despite Sheinbaum’s protestations of sovereignty, and the face-saving interval between the suspension of oil deliveries and Trump’s executive order, it seems clear that Sheinbaum was prioritizing Mexico’s relationship with the U.S. over her party’s historic solidarity with the Cuban government.
The Trump administration is not seeking to starve the government of Cuba into submission so much as to deprive it of energy until it collapses. Making it clear that the goal is to force the government to its knees, Trump has described Cuba as a “failing nation,” saying “it is down for the count.”
Cuba’s Ministry of Energy says it is making do partly with its own domestic oil production, which provides about 40 per cent of the oil it uses. “Amid the intensified blockade that tries to strangle us, we keep working on our energy sovereignty,” it declared this week.
Cuba’s oil wells also produce natural gas that is captured and used to generate electricity in a joint venture between the Cuban state and the Canadian company Sherritt International. That operation provides Cuba with about 10 per cent of its electricity.
Sherritt told investors this week that its biggest operation on the island, the nickel and cobalt mine at Moa, had to suspend operations due to lack of fuel. It did not say when they would resume.
A downward spiral
Cuba has been trying to interest Australian companies in making new investments in gold and copper mining on the island. The disastrous fuel situation and uncertainty have killed any such hopes for the time being.
“The government has suspended the sale of diesel to the public,” said Torres, “trying to save as much as possible for transport and distribution of merchandise” in addition to keeping essential services like hospitals running.
Tourists — a major source of revenue — are fleeing the island, and Cuba appears to be locked into a vicious cycle of declining revenues.
Cuba’s own oil, heavy sour (sulphurous) crude is not only insufficient in quantity, but also poor in quality. It has typically been mixed with sweeter imported crude to make it easier to use.
Juan Antonio Blanco, a former Cuban government official-turned-dissident who heads the Madrid-based group Cuba Siglo 21, said the economic effect of the power shortage is like that of the general strike that Cuban opposition groups long talked about holding but were never able to co-ordinate. But he expects to see even longer blackouts.
“That is something that would paralyze virtually all activities in Cuba. Transportation, electricity for sure, and when you stop electricity, you cannot pump water in the city. So there’s no water,” he said.
“Once that happens, all the other economic activities would have little meaning.”
Those who have watched the Cuban Communist Party over the years always add the caveat that it has a proven record of weathering crises and surviving periodic U.S. campaigns against it.
But the oil blockade is a level of pressure that Cuba has never really experienced before.
Torres says the signs are that the U.S. is trying to steer Cuba toward a managed and negotiated transition, rather than just push it to an unpredictable and potentially violent collapse.
“I hope something is worked out before we get to that point,” he said. “But I’m mostly thinking about the difficulties that people are going to face in the coming weeks, if not months, which are going to be terrible.”
