Latin America Regional Update | The current situation in Cuba is serious, but not solely because of the island’s well-known structural crisis. What will become apparent in March 2026 is a new phase in which an internal systemic crisis coincides with external geopolitical pressure. In large parts of the country, power cuts lasting twenty hours or more have become the norm, with direct consequences for water, healthcare, transport and food supplies. All this is taking place against a backdrop in which, according to the Centre for Cuban Economic Studies (CEEC), the Cuban economy contracted by around 5% in 2025 and has lost more than 15% of its economic activity since 2020. Furthermore, since 2021 there has been a sharp rise in emigration, not only to the US but also to countries such as Brazil, Mexico and Spain.
The question is not only how poorly Cuba is currently faring, but above all what kind of pressure is being exerted here exactly. The current phase bears less resemblance to the classic metaphor of the American ‘backyard’ and the associated Monroe Doctrine – which is primarily about excluding rivals – and more to a geopolitical playground in which instruments for regime change are being tested on a weakened Cuba, perhaps without direct military conflict but one that does claim victims.
The United States is testing how far economic strangulation, secondary pressure on third countries and negotiation under threat can go. Havana is testing how far limited market opening can go without political liberalisation. Cuba is now opening up the possibility for foreigners to invest in private enterprises, something that has been possible for Cubans themselves since 2021. In doing so, it hopes to use emigration as a financial stimulus.
The build-up
To understand the current phase, we must look back at Cuba’s longer history as a pivotal point in US hemispheric politics. As early as after the Spanish-American War of 1898, it became clear that formal Cuban independence did not equate to strategic autonomy. The Platt Amendment of 1901 gave Washington the right to intervene, and the American presence in Guantanamo became a lasting symbol of limited sovereignty. Even then, Cuba was no ordinary Caribbean state, but a geopolitical outpost.
The 1959 revolution broke that relationship, but immediately made Cuba the prize of the Cold War. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the US embargo from 1962 and the Cuban Missile Crisis of that same year anchored the island in a rhetoric of security risk and confrontation between superpowers. Since then, the Cuban regime has been legitimised internally through resistance to external pressure, whilst that external pressure simultaneously helped the regime to justify repression and economic centralisation.
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba entered the so-called Special Period of the 1990s. Even then, it became clear just how much geopolitical dependence determined the regime’s economic viability. The island survived through tourism, limited private enterprise and, later, primarily through its alliance with Venezuela. Under Chávez and subsequently Maduro, Cuba received oil, financial leeway and political cover.
In return, Cuba provided expertise in the fields of security (it was mainly Cubans who lost their lives during the attempt to kidnap Maduro), organisation, intelligence and medical missions. Such relationships formed the external pillar underpinning the regime’s post-Soviet order.
The brief thaw under Obama did not alter that structural pattern. The diplomatic opening of 2014–2016 raised expectations, but did not create a sustainable new model. Under Trump, the line was hardened once more, the sanctions regime tightened, and Cuba was again more explicitly placed on the list of hostile states. The pandemic, the collapse of tourism, inflation, currency problems and the protests of 11 July 2021 subsequently accelerated the internal decline. The numerous political prisoners and the protests make it clear that social unrest is possible, but that the costs of open resistance are also exceptionally high.
The years 2024 and 2025 then formed the bridge to the current crisis. The energy infrastructure continued to age, fuel shortages increased and the population began to leave at a significant rate. Estimates vary, but the trend is undeniable. Infobae has already reported, based on US border data, that since October 2021 more than 850,000 Cubans have reached the United States. El País cites estimates of a population decline between 2022 and 2024 from around 11 million to 8.5 million. Even if the exact figures are debated, the political significance remains the same: a regime that sees its population leaving at a rapid pace loses not only labour and tax revenue, but also legitimacy and administrative capacity.
The current state of affairs
Anyone who looks only at the regime misses the geopolitical significance of the crisis. Those who look only at geopolitics miss the price the Cuban people are paying. The acute deterioration of Cuba’s position began in this phase with two interrelated developments. Firstly, Cuba was once again directly affected by the US realignment of the region following the fall of Maduro in Venezuela. At the end of January this year, Washington declared a national emergency regarding Cuba and threatened to impose sanctions on countries supplying oil to the island. According to El País, Cuba had previously received an average of around 46,500 barrels of oil per day from Venezuela, and Mexican supplies – averaging 17,200 barrels per day in 2025 – also began to dry up in early January. This transformed a chronic energy shortage into an acute geopolitical vulnerability.
Secondly, it has become clear that Washington defines its pressure much more broadly than merely in terms of oil or sanctions.
US pressure to economically strangle Cuba is having repercussions throughout Latin America and beyond, where Cuban doctors are crucial to regional healthcare. This is significant because the export of medical services is not only a source of income for Cuba, but also of diplomatic influence. By targeting precisely that channel, Washington is hitting both Cuba’s revenue and its international reach.
Meanwhile, the Cuban government is trying to buy time. For the first time in nearly seventy years, it is opening up to foreign investment in private enterprises. According to El País, Cuba had around 9,900 private companies last year, accounting for more than 30% of employment. President Diaz-Canel spoke openly of “urgent” changes and of doing business with Cubans abroad. This is not an ideological conversion, but a desperate measure: the state is effectively acknowledging that it can no longer function without private and diaspora resources.
Concrete foreign initiatives are limited. Spain promised humanitarian aid in the form of food and medical supplies, but no oil. Although China has pledged a financial aid package of around 68 million euros and 60,000 tonnes of rice, such aid covers only part of the needs. On 29 March 2026, it was announced that the sanctioned Russian tanker Sakhalin Horizon, carrying a much-needed cargo of crude oil, would nevertheless be allowed to proceed to Cuba. This delivery temporarily eases the pressure and thus buys time for the regime, but is unlikely to alter Cuba’s structural weakness. It also demonstrates that the US strategy is not entirely linear or consistent. The pressure is being ramped up, tested and, where necessary, partially eased again. It is difficult to assess the strength of Cuba’s allies, in this case Russia, relative to the US.
Moreover, interests within Washington do not run entirely parallel. For Trump, Cuba is a relatively low-cost foreign policy success story: a place where he can demonstrate decisiveness with limited resources. For Marco Rubio, it is simultaneously an issue laden with ideological, familial and electoral significance. It is precisely this mix that increases the likelihood of ill-coordinated pressure tactics and of policies in which symbolic toughness takes precedence over a realistic assessment of the consequences.
Cuba has not collapsed, but is now functioning solely through emergency management, limited external support, the informal economy and the population’s ever-increasing social adaptation. The government negotiates, reforms and improvises, but does so from an extremely weak position. From other Latin American countries, notably Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, which still maintain some ideological ties with the Cuban government, things remain relatively quiet for the time being, as they are once again facing the usual threats of tariffs.
Not a back garden but a playground?
The classic metaphor of the American back garden is about spheres of influence: who is allowed in, who must stay out, who determines the order. That logic is very much alive.
But by 2026, Cuba is more than that. The island is also becoming a testing ground where power tactics are being tried out on a state that is too weak and lacks powerful and committed allies to truly withdraw, yet is too symbolic to be ignored. We see this first and foremost in the American approach. At present, Washington does not appear to be primarily aiming for a classic military intervention. The preference seems rather to be for economic strangulation, deterrence towards third countries, selective humanitarian posturing and negotiations under pressure.
Secondly, Cuba is a testing ground for controlled economic restructuring. The partial opening up to private enterprises and the diaspora is not merely crisis management, but also an attempt to improvise a new social contract under external pressure, allowing slightly more room for capital, provided political power remains untouched. This may be attractive to Washington, as it enables reform without the direct costs of occupation. For the Cuban elite, it is attractive because it can alleviate scarcity without political opening. For the population, it primarily means further inequality between those who have access to dollars, diaspora networks and private trade, and those who remain dependent on an exhausted state distribution system.
Thirdly, Cuba is becoming a playground for symbolic support from rivals of the United States. China and Russia can present themselves as defenders of sovereignty without bearing the full cost of stabilising Cuba. Chinese aid is relevant, but not transformative. Russian solidarity is geopolitically useful, but materially limited. This shows that the multipolar world order does not always mean protection for small and vulnerable states. Sometimes it mainly means that several great powers have a strategic interest in you, but none of them enough to truly sustain your system.
Cuba is also an awkward test for Europe. Spain combines humanitarian aid, diplomatic contact and concern for its own companies in the tourism sector. The EU has humanitarian instruments and experience in crisis response in the Caribbean, but has not found a clear common language for a situation in which both US pressure and Cuban repression are problematic. Precisely for this reason, Europe risks remaining reactive. There is moral outrage over the humanitarian consequences, but a strategic absence.
Prospects for action by the Netherlands and the EU
It is important for the Netherlands and the EU not to fall into a false dichotomy between tacit support for the Cuban state and going along with US rhetoric of escalation. A sustainable approach must be based on three principles: humanitarian protection of the population, consistency with international law, and targeted support for societal resilience.
Firstly, the Netherlands and the EU must prepare for a humanitarian crisis that is not only set to begin after the regime’s collapse, but is already underway. This requires contingency plans for support to hospitals and for medicines, water infrastructure, emergency power supplies and decentralised energy.
The Netherlands and the EU can invest in churches, local aid networks, independent or semi-independent civil society organisations, small businesses, academic contacts and diaspora links, particularly outside the US. The partial opening up to private enterprises does not mean that the Cuban economy is being liberalised, but rather that more grey areas are emerging. Europe must be present precisely in these areas, as they may later prove crucial for stabilisation without full state control.
Europe must not normalise the extraterritorial logic of US pressure. This does not mean that the EU should spare the Cuban regime. It does mean, however, that it must openly maintain the distinction between pressure on perpetrators of repression and the collective suffocation of a population. The EU already has a human rights sanctions regime; should repression escalate further, targeted sanctions against responsible officials should be on the table. However, broad economic pressure that exacerbates the energy, food and healthcare crises is strategically counterproductive and difficult to defend on normative grounds.
Preparation for regional spillover is necessary. A further deterioration in Cuba will have repercussions for migration, maritime security, smuggling and political tensions in the wider Caribbean region. For the Netherlands, this is not an abstract issue, precisely because the Kingdom has a Caribbean component and because broader instability in the region also affects European interests. This calls for early coordination with Spain, the European Commission, Caribbean partners and, where necessary, the Kingdom’s services in the areas of coastguard, reception and maritime monitoring.
A credible European position also means that sovereignty must not be eroded by great power politics and that political imprisonment, repression and the curtailment of civil society remain unacceptable. This double standard is more difficult than simply taking sides, but precisely for that reason it is of greater strategic value.