THE NEW YORK TIMES: The Trump administration, which has tightened the U.S. chokehold on Cuba by cutting off foreign oil, is betting that this is the Cuban communist revolution’s last year.
Celebrations broke out in front of Miami’s Versailles restaurant nearly 20 years ago after Fidel Castro announced that he was so sick he had to temporarily step down as president of Cuba.
Cuban exiles rejoiced again two years later when he quit for good — and once more when he died in 2016, though his brother Raúl Castro was president at the time.
Now, the country’s economy is in free fall, its electric grid is failing, millions of its citizens have left and the Cuban government is facing off against perhaps its most menacing foe: President Trump.
Mr. Trump has closed off Cuba’s access to oil shipments, helped cripple its vital tourism industry and declared that Cuba’s government is “going down for the count.”
The Trump administration and the many Cuban exiles who have been waiting nearly seven decades for the fall of Cuba’s Communist government said they believed this might finally be their moment.
After years of U.S. presidents trying various economic pressure tactics to hasten the demise of the Cuban government, the Trump administration’s cutoff of fuel has raised the ante drastically because oil keeps the country — from public transit to factories to farms — running.
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After the U.S. military captured the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, Mr. Trump halted Venezuelan oil to Cuba. Venezuela had long kept Cuba afloat with 35,000 barrels of oil a day in exchange for medical services by Cuban doctors. Read the whole article in today’s NYT HERE ». Y en español AQUÍ.