Full Analysis Summary
Cuba: Hardship and Geopolitics
The article opens in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana and uses its exhibit of pre-1959 poverty to contrast present hardship with the revolution's achievements.
Lisandra Botey and her family live in a cobbled-together home in Havana and now cook with firewood because they receive no gas, and her nine-year-old daughter often goes to school hungry.
The piece reports that US troops forcibly removed Cuba's closest ally, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, from power on 3 January, and says Washington has since seemingly taken control of Venezuela's oil industry so Cuba's crude supply has dried up.
The decades-long US economic embargo has been intensified, with US President Donald Trump threatening tariffs on any nation which sends oil to the island, and the US Treasury this week saying it would relax restrictions on a limited number of oil sales to 'support the Cuban people for commercial and humanitarian use.'
The article also says the Cuban government reported its border guards fatally shot four people travelling in a US-registered speedboat, and that Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said the US was investigating the 'highly unusual' incident.
Cuba fuel crisis effects
The piece documents widespread disruption across the island, with blackouts in Havana that can last for 15 hours a day or more.
Hospitals are operating only for emergency cases.
Schools are often shuttered.
Rubbish piles up because there is no fuel for collection.
Fuel is being rationed at pumps to 20 litres per person, paid in US dollars via a government-run app called Ticket.
Virtual queues on the app sometimes list more than 10,000 people ahead.
Black-market fuel prices have skyrocketed.
Cuban economist Ricardo Torres suggests "Perhaps the oil inventories could last for six to eight weeks," but he concedes "it's hard to know with any degree of precision" because "Cuba doesn't publish figures on fuel inventories."
The humanitarian impact has prompted Mexico to send tonnes of emergency aid including powdered milk and personal hygiene items.
Drivers and tourism operators such as Esteban Bello Rodríguez report severe economic effects.
Cuba crisis and US policy
The article frames the crisis as part of a deliberate US strategy.
It says Trump has declared that "Cuba is ready to fall."
Some commentators view the removal of Maduro as intended to deepen Cuba's economic crisis and pressure the Cuban government toward regime change.
Ricardo Torres argues Washington's ultimate goal remains regime change.
Former US ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis says the administration is "trying to take coercive steps to bring the government to the table or capitulate but not necessarily collapse," a strategy he calls risky.
The Cuban government has repeatedly described US policy as inhumane, cruel and illegal under international law.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel asked, "What right does a world power have to deny fuel and the ability to function to a smaller nation?"
The article notes that none of Cuba's traditional allies — Mexico, Russia, China, Vietnam or Iran — have stepped up to fill the void left by Venezuela, whose oil support was worth some 35,000 barrels of crude a day to Cuba.
It says Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodríguez travelled to Moscow, China, Vietnam and Spain but no Russian fuel tankers have docked.
Reports from Axios that Raúl Rodríguez Castro ("El Cangrejo") is the Trump administration's point of contact are unconfirmed.
The piece closes by noting the Museum of the Revolution has been closed for over a year for refurbishments and now has no fuel to continue work.
It asks whether only the museum will be renovated this year — or the Cuban Revolution itself.