Some years ago, during an interview with one of the major U.S. television networks, a journalist asked Marco Rubio, then a senator, why he didn't discuss the human rights situation in certain monarchies with the same force as in the Cuban case. The explanation of the current Secretary of State and National Security Advisor is, in summary, that Cuba is just 90 miles away, reproducing the logic that places the Island as a direct and major threat to U.S. national security. (And yes, it seems clear to me that they must assess to what extent it is, but I think that on the main issue that today could worry the U.S. policymaker more—immigration—, the American approach is totally counterproductive.) Thus, the problem of Cuba has to do with a sort of geographic fatalism beyond the (malevolent) essence that someone might want to pin on the political regime established here after 1959. And, obviously, with history and power games between Florida and Washington.
"Since joining the Trump administration, Mr. Rubio has pressed his cause directly, ordering new sanctions on Cuban government officials, activities and businesses," it is rightly claimed in this recent, long-form report by the New York Times. He has direct access and a lot of control over a critical set of tools to play harder in the regime change tournament. To confirm his hypothesis that toppling Maduro equates to topple the Cuban socialism. The NYT article, by the way, reproduces narratives that no one, even Reuters here, manages to anchor or support with sound, concrete evidence, such as that Cuba receives oil in exchange for providing Maduro with bodyguards and counterintelligence agents. To this has been added the claim that Havana resells crude contracted from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA.
I do not rule out the latter, but someone would have to demonstrate better that pattern of potential corruption, which suggests that while people here are bleeding due to the chronic lack of electricity, Cubametales, the state oil import company, resells Venezuelan fuel—obtained as a subsidy—through Asian murky brokers, without those potential returns being reflected in an economy that is leaking everywhere. I think that Cuba does not want, no one wants to be an outlaw in the international arena, yet the United States has such a long and strong arm to declare and to enforce that status. In this sense, the effects of the Republican White House's curse, particularly devastating since 2019, are not assessed with enough depth. Along the way, even Venezuela, which was (at) the heart of the problem, enjoyed some flexibility, although always in line with Western interests. Cubametales has been designated by the Treasury Department since 2019, without any interruption. This is what the Treasury Department announced then:
Cubametales is based in Havana, Cuba and is responsible for guaranteeing 100 percent of imports and exports of fuels and imports of additives and basic oils for lubricants to and from Cuba. Additionally, Cubametales has been the recipient, and charterer, of shipments of oil from Venezuela to Cuba and has expanded its operations to include non-traditionally traded oil products such as sulfur fuel and diluted crude oil.
(...)
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of this entity, and of any entities that are owned, directly or indirectly, 50 percent or more by the designated entity, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S. persons are blocked and must be reported to OFAC. OFAC’s regulations generally prohibit all dealings by U.S. persons or within (or transiting) the United States that involve any property or interests in property of blocked or designated persons.
If the world's greatest power is condemning the only fuel importer of Cuba, and any local alternative that arises, it is difficult not to see a forceful impact of that effort on the national economy, precisely because of the cross-cutting nature of the energy issue. An impact that in the Cuban case, more than any other, has as its ultimate goal to generate such a level of angriness in the people that they turn against power. This is the orgasmic dream of Rubio, who was, from Congress, one of the architects of the start of the escalation against Venezuela and Cuba in 2019. Then, the so-called dark fleet, which is not a new issue, is a direct result of U.S. sanctions policy, and the need of those targeted actors to continue living somehow. Meanwhile, the United States resolves its issues with Belarus, Rubio greets the communist Vietnamese in a very friendly tone on their National Day, Trump seems to favor Putin in the Russo-Ukrainian war, and even converses with Maduro, while consenting for Cuba to be thrown to any Florida-based, and Rubio-backed or -owned lion's den. We are an ongoing, floating experiment.
By the way, in recent years, we have seen many reports in the press, and statements from U.S. officials through it, expressing an apparent first-hand knowledge of certain very sensitive components and dynamics of the Cuban economy, such as the size and financial capacity of the business sector managed by the military, or now the alleged involvement of Cubametales in a scheme to resell Venezuelan crude. Could any of this, or all of it, have something to do with the alleged espionage for which former Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil was recently sentenced to life in prison?
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This is resonating a lot by these days among other similar trends 👇
8 in 10 Latinos say the Trump administration’s policies have been harmful to Hispanics. Those figures are up from 2019, late in Trump’s first term, among Latino Republicans and Democrats alike. https://t.co/YzoutoABYs pic.twitter.com/8iyRALDP1F
— Pew Research Center (@pewresearch) December 13, 2025
I had not read this story in extenso 👇
What to know about Kilmar Abrego Garcia's release from immigration custody https://t.co/eQ9VzDWCLa pic.twitter.com/sTIAxq2pR8
— The Independent (@Independent) December 13, 2025
This is all for today’s report.
