Why Cuba Might Be the First Casualty of Maduro’s Fall

Why Cuba Might Be the First Casualty of Maduro’s Fall

Despite the Left’s blistering criticism of the capture of Nicolás Maduro, the operation was a very positive development not only for the United States but for the wider world — one whose consequences are likely to shape the international landscape for months and years to come.

And one of the first dominoes to fall just might be Cuba’s communist regime. Venezuela has long supplied the Cuban government with oil — enough to meet its domestic power needs while allowing the island nation to sell surplus supplies to countries such as China at discounted rates, generating a substantial and essential stream of revenue.

Over the past two decades, Venezuela has essentially bankrolled the Cuban regime via these oil shipments. In return, Cuba has dispatched security personnel, doctors, and other necessary service workers to Venezuela.

While I recognize that the Madero regime is still in power even if he is not, there’s no question that his loss of power is a game changer, especially for governments that depended upon his largesse for their economic survival.

In a Sunday article, WION editor Tarun Mishra made a compelling case that the collapse of the Cuban government now appears not just likely, but “inevitable.” He began by examining the Barrio Adentro agreement — established in the early 2000s during the presidency of Hugo Chávez — under which Venezuela shipped roughly 50,000 barrels of oil per day to Cuba in exchange for Havana dispatching an estimated 15,000 intelligence agents, military advisers, and doctors.

Mishra described the arrangement as “the single most important pillar of the Cuban economy,” adding that “with the U.S. military now securing Venezuelan ports and oil fields following [Saturday’s] operation, those shipments dropped to zero overnight.”

Cuba has grown reliant on Venezuelan oil as an economic lifeline. Without these shipments, Cuba lacks the energy to keep its economy afloat and the U.S. dollars necessary to import critical necessities such as food and medicine. This, Mishra explained, “will accelerate the humanitarian crisis to [the] breaking point.”

Since Maduro’s capture, Cuban personnel operating inside Venezuela are reportedly in the process of fleeing.

According to Mishra, they will return to “a country with no food, no power, and crucially, no money to pay them. A disgruntled, unpaid security apparatus returning from a failed war is a classic recipe for instability and potential coups inside Havana itself.”

Mishra noted:

Cuba’s power grid is ancient, crumbling, and runs almost entirely on the heavy crude oil that arrived weekly from PDVSA tankers. Even with that steady supply, the island faced punishing 12-hour blackouts throughout 2025. Without the Venezuelan shipments, energy experts predict the island’s thermoelectric plants will go offline indefinitely within two weeks. This “Total National Blackout” will shut down water pumps, destroy refrigerated food stocks, and cripple hospitals, making daily life physically impossible for millions.

Exacerbating the situation for Cuba is a “maximum pressure” campaign from Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has called the Cuban government the “head of the snake.”

Not only is the U.S. denying humanitarian aid, the Navy is “expected to tighten” its blockade of Cuba “to ensure that no other actors, such as Iran or Russia, can step in to replace the Venezuelan oil supply, effectively besieging the island until political change occurs.”

Cuba has faced hardship before — most notably after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, which had propped up the regime for decades. In those moments, the island nation managed to survive by finding new sponsors. At the moment, however, none of its allies are in a position to help. Russia is bogged down with problems of its own.

China has already stopped extending credit due to non-payment, and while Mexico sent emergency fuel in late 2025, they cannot afford to permanently bankroll Cuba’s energy needs, especially with President Trump threatening massive tariffs on any nation that interferes with his regional strategy.

The Cuban regime has always relied on repression to stay in power, but repression itself runs on fuel. Police convoys, troop carriers, and surveillance vehicles require gasoline to operate.

Mishra estimated that Cuba’s strategic fuel reserves will be depleted within about 20 days — an outcome that would severely undermine the Cuban military’s capacity to control any unrest that follows.

And he concludes: “If the population rises up in a desperate ‘Maleconazo’ style rebellion and the police cannot physically deploy to stop it, the 67-year-old dictatorship risks collapsing simply because it ran out of gas.”

But there’s an additional factor at play in the current situation — one that could make all the difference in the world.

On Tuesday morning, The Washington Post reported that “the collapse of Cuba’s communist government is not only a likely side benefit of Maduro’s ouster,” but the Trump administration’s goal.

Titled Trump team puts a target on Cuba, with threats and oil blockade, the article quotes Rubio from his weekend appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, who “indicat[ed] that the United States might be willing to give it a push.”

Rubio said, “I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be. But if I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.”

For Rubio, it’s personal. His parents fled Cuba before Fidel Castro took over.

For Donald Trump, toppling the communist regime in Havana would be an irresistible foreign-policy triumph.

The article quoted “experts” who said that Cuba could likely weather this storm if not for the Trump administration. “But,” noted the Post, “the emboldened second Trump administration presents an entirely new threat to Cuba’s leaders.”

We’ll see.

Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.

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