Cuba and the United States: The Communism That Went Dark - critical summary review

Imagine a neighbor who's lived across the street for over sixty years. You had a nasty falling out, stopped talking, and now he's sitting in the dark, no power, no food in the fridge, and you have the key to the generator. That's more or less what's happening between the United States and Cuba right now. Except this story involves oil, politics, a revolution, a six-decade embargo, and an American president who said, bluntly, that he wants to "take" the island.

To understand what's happening today, we need to go back in time. Not too far... but far enough.

Cuba wasn't always America's enemy. In fact, for much of the twentieth century, the island was practically an American backyard. U.S. companies controlled banks, transportation, communications, and a large share of Cuban sugar production. Havana was a vacation destination for wealthy Americans. Casinos, cigars, music... everything revolved around that close, if unequal, relationship.

That changed in nineteen fifty-nine, when Fidel Castro and his guerrillas came down from the Sierra Maestra and overthrew the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. At first, Washington even tried to coexist with the new government. But Castro began nationalizing American companies, seizing properties, and redistributing land. The U.S. government didn't like that. It cut Cuban sugar imports. Cuba responded by moving closer to the Soviet Union. And so began a feud that would last decades.

In nineteen sixty-one, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba. Shortly after, it backed a failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs, using Cuban exiles trained by the CIA. In nineteen sixty-two, John Kennedy signed the trade embargo... a total economic blockade that banned virtually any transaction between the two countries. That same year, the Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear war, when the Soviet Union installed nuclear warheads on Cuban soil.

The diplomatic solution came through a deal: the Soviets withdrew their missiles, the Americans promised not to invade Cuba and removed their own missiles from Turkey. But the embargo stayed. And stayed. And stayed for over sixty years.

During the Cold War, Cuba survived thanks to the Soviet Union. Moscow bought Cuban sugar at inflated prices and sold oil on the cheap. It was a relationship built on dependency, but it worked. When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early nineties, Cuba lost its main economic lifeline. The island plunged into what became known as the "Special Period"... years of hunger, rationing, and an economy that shrank by nearly forty percent.

Then came Venezuela. With Hugo Chávez in power, Caracas stepped into the role of patron. Venezuelan oil in exchange for Cuban doctors and teachers. That arrangement kept the island running for nearly two decades. But Venezuela also spiraled into economic collapse. And the final blow came in January twenty twenty-six, when the United States intervened militarily in Venezuela, captured Nicolás Maduro, and cut off the flow of oil to Cuba for good.

The island was left without its last protector.

Over those six decades, there were attempts at rapprochement. In nineteen seventy-seven, Jimmy Carter eased travel restrictions. In twenty fourteen, Barack Obama and Raúl Castro stunned the world by announcing the restoration of diplomatic relations, after eighteen months of secret negotiations mediated by the Vatican and Canada. In twenty fifteen, embassies reopened in both countries. In twenty sixteen, Obama visited Havana... the first sitting American president to set foot on the island since nineteen twenty-eight. Commercial flights resumed, travel restrictions were eased, and Cuba was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Mandy Pruna, a Cuban who runs classic car tours in Havana, remembers that era as the best stretch for tourism on the island. Celebrities like Will Smith and Rihanna paid to ride in his red nineteen fifty-seven Chevrolet. It felt like a new chapter was beginning.

But it didn't last. When Donald Trump took office in twenty seventeen, he reversed much of what Obama had done. He tightened sanctions, restricted travel, and put Cuba back on the terrorism sponsors list. The brief thaw froze over again.

Now, in March twenty twenty-six, Cuba is living through what many analysts consider its worst crisis since the revolution. The island hasn't received oil shipments in over three months. The reason is an executive order signed by Trump in January, classifying Cuba as an "extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security and imposing tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to the island.

The effect has been devastating. About eighty percent of Cuba's energy comes from thermoelectric plants that run on imported fuel. Without oil, the power grid became a roulette wheel. Twenty-hour daily blackouts became routine across several provinces. On Monday, March sixteenth, the national power grid collapsed entirely, leaving ten million Cubans in the dark. It was the third total blackout in four months.

The situation goes well beyond the lack of electricity. Airlines including Air France, American Airlines, Delta, and JetBlue canceled flights to the island due to jet fuel shortages. Tourism, one of the island's main sources of revenue, has virtually disappeared. Hospitals have scaled back services and postponed tens of thousands of surgeries. Garbage trucks ran out of fuel, and trash is piling up in the streets of Havana. Private companies that import food from the United States suspended operations because they can't maintain refrigeration during the blackouts.

Tomás David Velázquez, a sixty-one-year-old Havana resident, summed up what many are feeling when he said that any Cuban who can should pack their bags and leave. The little food they manage to buy spoils without a working fridge.

And the exodus is already real. More than one million Cubans have left the island since twenty twenty-one... the largest migratory wave since the revolution.

It's in this collapse scenario that something unexpected emerges. On March thirteenth, President Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared on state television and confirmed, for the first time, that Cuba is in negotiations with the United States. According to him, the talks seek solutions through dialogue for the bilateral differences between the two nations. Díaz-Canel himself is leading the negotiations on the Cuban side, alongside former president Raúl Castro and other senior members of the Communist Party.

On the American side, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, of Cuban descent and historically one of the regime's fiercest critics, is identified as one of the key interlocutors. Reports from the New York Times and the Miami Herald indicate that the Trump administration had been in contact with Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, Raúl Castro's grandson, who was present at the meeting where Díaz-Canel made the announcement.

Before the official confirmation, Cuba had already signaled an opening. On March twelfth, it announced the release of fifty-one prisoners, with Vatican mediation... continuing the same bridge-building role the Holy See played during the twenty fourteen rapprochement.

And on March sixteenth came the most surprising announcement. The Minister of Foreign Trade, Oscar Pérez-Oliva, told NBC that Cuba is open to receiving investments from Cubans living abroad, including those in the United States. For the first time since the revolution, emigrants and their descendants will be able to acquire stakes in private businesses and even open financial institutions on the island. The opening isn't limited to small ventures. According to the minister, it includes major investments, especially in infrastructure, tourism, and mining.

To put this in perspective... in twenty twenty-one, Cuba allowed island residents to open small private businesses. By the end of twenty twenty-five, roughly ten thousand private companies already accounted for fifteen percent of Cuba's GDP and employed more than thirty percent of the economically active population. Private retail sales surpassed public-sector sales for the first time, representing fifty-five percent of total commerce. Now, with the opening to emigrants, the government is trying to tap a source of capital that had been off-limits until now.

But Trump's tone isn't exactly that of someone extending a hand for a friendly shake. On Monday, March sixteenth, while Cuba was plunging into darkness, the American president said from the White House that he would have the "honor of taking Cuba." And added... "whether it's liberating or taking, I think I can do whatever I want with it."

The rhetoric swings between the carrot and the stick. Sometimes Trump says Cuba "very much wants to make a deal," sometimes he suggests there could be a "not-so-friendly takeover." Secretary Rubio has already stated that the only thing he intends to discuss with the communist leadership is when they're going to step down. And sources cited by the New York Times confirm that the Trump administration wants to see Díaz-Canel out of power as part of any agreement.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez responded by saying the negotiations "in no way involve the internal affairs, the constitutional frameworks, or the political, economic, and social models of either country." In other words... Cuba is willing to talk about economics, but not about changing its political system.

That standoff between what Washington demands and what Havana is willing to give up is the central knot of this story.

Those who support American pressure argue that the embargo and the oil blockade are the only way to force real change in Cuba. The regime never reformed on its own, they say. Without the crutch of Venezuela, Russia, or China, Cuba's elite is finally forced to face the reality of an economic model that doesn't work. Rubio, at the Munich Security Conference, said this is a regime that survived almost entirely on subsidies... first from the Soviet Union, then from Hugo Chávez. For the first time, there are no subsidies coming from anyone, and the model has been exposed.

Those who criticize this approach point out that the human cost is enormous and falls on the population, not on the leadership. The United Nations warns that the fuel blockade threatens the food supply, compromises the water system, and is collapsing hospitals. UN human rights experts have classified the blockade as a serious violation of international law. And the UN General Assembly has condemned the embargo every year since nineteen ninety-two, with votes reaching one hundred and eighty-seven countries in favor and only two against... the United States and Israel.

Comparisons with recent history also raise questions. Obama's rapprochement brought visible benefits: tourism grew, small businesses flourished, ordinary Cubans saw their lives improve. But political opening didn't advance at the pace Washington expected. And the Trump administration argues the soft approach didn't work.

Economist Paolo Spadoni, of Augusta University, described the Cuban reforms as pragmatic and potentially impactful. According to him, they could serve as a catalyst for deeper economic ties between the two countries, though significant obstacles remain.

William LeoGrande, a professor at American University who has followed Cuba for decades, paints a darker picture. He says Cuba's electrical infrastructure is long past its useful life and that the technicians keeping the system running are nothing short of miracle workers. If the island drastically cuts consumption and expands renewable energy, it can limp along for a while. But without imported oil, the economy could collapse entirely, triggering social chaos and mass migration.

Some compare the current moment to the Soviet perestroika of the eighties... when Gorbachev tried to reform the system from within to prevent collapse. It worked for a while, but ended up accelerating the end of the Soviet Union. The question is whether Cuba can manage a controlled transition or whether the reforms will open floodgates the government won't be able to close.

China offers an interesting counterpoint. Deng Xiaoping launched economic reforms in the late seventies without giving up political control. The Chinese economy took off while the Communist Party held power. But China had a massive population, natural resources, and strategic value for the United States as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. Cuba is an island of ten million people, with no significant energy resources and ninety miles from Florida. The conditions are radically different.

Vietnam is another case. It opened its economy in the nineties, attracted foreign investment, and maintained one-party rule. But it took decades for that to work, and the process was gradual, without the pressure of a neighbor threatening to "take" the country.

For Cuba, the most likely path involves significant economic concessions in exchange for sanctions relief. The opening to exile investments is already a step in that direction. The release of prisoners is another. But the political question... who governs, how they govern, and whether the Communist Party keeps or loses its monopoly on power... remains the red line.

And there's a factor few people are discussing: oil. Or rather, the lack of it. Cuba produces less than half the fuel it consumes. Solar energy already accounts for nearly half of daytime generation, but at night the country depends on thermoelectric plants. Without oil, there's no power at night. And without power, there's no economy.

Trump knows this. The oil blockade is the primary pressure tool. And Cuba knows that without solving this equation, no economic reform will get off the ground. Opening the door to exile investments matters, but no investor is going to put money into an economy that only runs half the day.

Meanwhile, the international community is divided. Mexico sent more than two thousand tons of food as humanitarian aid. Vietnam donated two hundred and fifty tons of rice. Russia promised to keep sending oil despite American threats, but tanker ships were blocked. A humanitarian convoy backed by activist Greta Thunberg is planning to reach Havana with medicine and solar equipment.

In Miami, the stronghold of Cuban exiles, the reaction to the economic opening has been mixed. Some see a historic opportunity. Others say they'll only invest when there's real political change. The Cuban-American community, which wields enormous political influence in Florida, is split between those who want to help their relatives on the island and those who refuse to give oxygen to the regime that drove them out.

What's taking shape now is a kind of tug of war between necessity and pride. Cuba desperately needs money, oil, and investment. The United States wants regime change, or at least reforms deep enough to claim a political victory. The Vatican is trying to mediate. And ten million Cubans are waiting for someone to turn the lights on.

Some analysts have started calling this moment Cuba-stroika... a nod to the Soviet perestroika. Others are more cautious and point out that the Cuban regime has already survived the fall of the Soviet Union, the Special Period, hurricanes, pandemics, and decades of embargo. But it has never faced all of that at once, with no ally willing to foot the bill.

The coming week could be decisive. The Cuban government has promised to officially announce the details of its new investment policy. Washington is assessing whether the changes are real or merely cosmetic before deciding on licenses that would allow investment on the island. And Trump, preoccupied with the war in Iran, said Cuba is the next priority once the Middle East conflict is resolved.

What to do with this information

If you're an investor or entrepreneur with ties to Latin America, this moment deserves your attention. Cuba may be at the start of a historic economic opening, but the risks are proportional to the opportunities. There's no consolidated legal framework, the American embargo is still in effect, and the political outcome is uncertain. The most sensible approach is to follow the situation closely, study the sectors Cuba is prioritizing... tourism, renewable energy, agriculture, and infrastructure... and wait for clearer signals before committing resources.

If you work in international relations, geopolitics, or foreign trade, this is a real-time case study. The dynamics between economic pressure and political concessions, the Vatican's role as mediator, and the parallels with Soviet perestroika and China's opening are topics that will fuel debate for years. It's worth documenting and analyzing every move.

If you're someone who simply wants to understand the world, this story illustrates how geography, history, and economics intertwine in ways that affect millions of lives. Cuba sits ninety miles from Florida. What happens there has a direct impact on immigration to the United States, the balance of power in Latin America, and the future of an entire generation of Cubans. Following this story is understanding how the world works when theory meets reality.

And if you're Cuban, or have family in Cuba, this is probably the moment of greatest uncertainty and, at the same time, greatest possibility the island has experienced in decades. The announced reforms may be the start of something genuine, or they may be a temporary maneuver to relieve the pressure. Cuba's history teaches that promised changes don't always materialize. But it also teaches that, when the pressure is strong enough, even systems that seem immovable find ways to adapt.