By Kyle Castellanos
In continuance of President Trump’s war on communism — or, depending on how you look at it, his attempt to win the Hispanic vote in Florida — the U.S. is poised to impose additional sanctions on Cuba. This time, Trump appears to be targeting Cuba for supporting Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whose rise to power is widely considered illegal. The Trump administration is gearing up for another round of sanctions on Cuba in order to push Cuban relations back to Russia and China, isolating Venezuela in the process.
In addition to the oil sanctions already imposed, the Trump administration is threatening to cut off the last few connections to Venezuelan oil accessible to Cuba. These sanctions on oil will conjoin with already-existing restrictions on U.S.-Cuban relations, including but not limited to a halt on issuing visas for Cuban visitors, lawsuits by American companies with financial restitution claims following the 1959 revolution, U.S. pressure on international banks to freeze payments to Cuban clients, and stringent limitations on American tourism to Cuba.
However, the problem with these additional sanctions is that they do not work as intended. As with previous rounds of punitive measures, Cuban officials remain economically stable while the Cuban people bear the brunt of the sanctions. The existing U.S. oil sanctions on Cuba have created a severe energy shortage. The Cuban government announced last week it did not have enough oil for normal operations for the month of September.
Miles of lines for gas rations, overcrowded public transportation, a faltering industrial sector, ongoing infrastructure projects ceased, wood replacing gas for ovens in bakeries, and oxen replacing tractors are just a few of the effects of U.S. oil sanctions on Cuba. Perhaps most dangerous of all is that the Cuban government has shut off air conditioning in public buildings, where most Cubans work and go to school, leaving them susceptible to heat exhaustion, dehydration, and heatstroke by the country’s scorching tropical climate. Instead, the Cuban government is saving oil almost exclusively for the lucrative tourism industry.
Not only will U.S. sanctions on Cuba fail to dislodge those in power, but they will feed into the Cuban government’s narrative: painting the United States as the international community’s villains. For the last 60 years, the Cuban government has told its people that any economic failures are the fault of U.S. sanctions — and not because of any domestic economic mismanagement.
Relying solely on U.S. sanctions on Cuba will not produce political change. Rather, it is hurting hundreds of thousands of innocent people with no relation to Trump and Maduro’s chess game. Indeed, the Cuban people have no association with Venezuela; they barely have any association with the outside world at all. The U.S. will have to look beyond sanctions if it hopes to genuinely change the political situation in long-suffering Cuba or Venezuela.