"No light at end of tunnel": Clock ticks in Cuba as Trump cuts off Venezuelan oil

Cubans are bracing for impact after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to cut off a lifeline of Venezuelan oil from reaching Cuba, setting up a siege scenario for an island already reeling from crippling blackouts and shortages.

Venezuela, once the island's top supplier, has not sent crude or fuel to Cuba for about a month, according to shipping data and internal documents from state company PDVSA, with cargoes falling off due to a U.S. blockade even before the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro in early January.

The last cargo for refining on the island was sent from PDVSA's Jose port in mid-December onboard a tanker that sailed with its transponder off, carrying some 600,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude.

In 2025, Venezuela was Cuba's largest oil supplier with 26,500 barrels per day (bpd), or roughly one third of the island's daily needs, followed by Mexico with some 5,000 bpd, the data and documents showed.

"I just don't see any light at the end of the tunnel for Cuba to survive the next few months facing zero deliveries of oil from Venezuela," said Jorge Pinon, an energy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. "The situation is going to be catastrophic."

Trump has made no secret of his expectation that the recent U.S. intervention in Venezuela could push Cuba over the edge, but in recent days he has doubled down on the communist-run island, pushing the neighboring nation on Sunday to strike a deal "before it is too late."

The question of how long Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel and the country's communist-run government can hold out in the face of vastly reduced oil imports is now top of mind for the island's struggling residents, who already face daunting hurdles to find food, medicine and fuel.

"It's very stressful because we don't know what decision the Cuban government will make or what actions the United States government will take," said 75-year-old former state worker Victor Romero, of Havana.

Much of rural Cuba, in far-flung provinces with little economic output, already resembles a caricature of 19th century life.

Horse-drawn carriages and bicycles provide transportation in many villages and even in urban areas. The internet falters often, if it works at all. Electricity is fleeting, with more hours of darkness than light.

Deyanira Gonzalez, a 57-year-old housewife who lives in Havana's countryside, already prepares her morning coffee and her children's lunch over charcoal, she says, with electricity spotty and liquefied gas largely unavailable or too expensive.

"What will happen now? If Donald Trump doesn't let fuel into Cuba we'll be in the dark with our kids suffering," she said.

Cuba's capital of Havana has not yet felt the impacts of the plummeting Venezuelan fuel cargoes, observations backed by Cuba's daily generation deficit tallies.

Many city residents report that blackouts have subsided somewhat in early January amid decreased power demand since a peak in December, and gasoline and diesel service at the pump, while rationed in the peso currency, continues unabated.

Production: Mario Fuentes, Anett Rios, Hugo Monnet/Reuters