{"id":57563,"date":"2026-07-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/?p=57563"},"modified":"2026-07-09T21:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:23:45","slug":"washington-repeats-in-cuba-the-same-failed-strategy-of-60-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/washington-repeats-in-cuba-the-same-failed-strategy-of-60-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Washington repeats in Cuba the same failed strategy of 60 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On June 11, Secretary of State Marco Rubio added the state-owned company Uni\u00f3n Cuba-Petr\u00f3leo (CUPET), which imports and refines nearly all the fuel consumed on the island, to the list of entities blocked by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. This measure prohibits any company or bank with a presence in the U.S. market from doing business with the company. That same week, a Florida-based company had finalized the largest fuel agreement between the United States and Cuba since 1960<\/a>, intended to supply Cuba\u2019s private sector using storage tanks leased from an entity linked to CUPET. In other words, Washington spent four months building an alternative only to block it afterward. As if that were not enough, the refineries sanctioned today are the very same ones Washington blocked sixty years ago, a decision that ultimately shaped relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The historical parallel is striking. In June 1960, Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson summoned executives from Esso and Texaco to ask them, on behalf of President Eisenhower<\/a>, to refuse to refine the Soviet crude that Castro had exchanged for sugar. They complied with the request, and within weeks Castro confiscated the refineries. Eisenhower then cut Cuba\u2019s sugar quota, mass expropriations followed in August, and the embargo was imposed in October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The pressure did not break the Revolution; it pushed Cuba toward the Soviet bloc and handed Moscow a client just ninety miles from Florida\u2014the very outcome the United States had sought to avoid. Esso\u2019s old Belot refinery now operates as \u00d1ico L\u00f3pez, while Texaco\u2019s plant in Santiago is now known as Hermanos D\u00edaz. Rubio\u2019s statement describes these assets as having been \u201cillegally expropriated from U.S. owners.\u201d That is true, but it omits the fact that the expropriations were a response to a U.S. directive aimed at strangling the island\u2019s fuel supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The comparison with Venezuela<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are two fronts to consider. First, Cuba lacks an organized opposition like the one Mar\u00eda Corina Machado built in Venezuela. Second, Caracas entered a managed transition because Washington found domestic actors capable of negotiating it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does Cuba have a comparable figure? Possibly one. \u00d3scar P\u00e9rez-Oliva Fraga, the deputy prime minister who opened the door to private fuel imports, is regarded as a possible successor to D\u00edaz-Canel<\/a>. He also happens to be the great-grandnephew of Fidel and Ra\u00fal Castro\u2014a fact that mattered far less before Washington indicted Ra\u00fal three weeks ago. Negotiations require an interlocutor, and Washington is alienating one of the few available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The death this week of Ramiro Vald\u00e9s deepens that paradox. At 94, Vald\u00e9s was the last member of the Revolution\u2019s founding generation to maintain active institutional ties within the security apparatus he himself had helped build. With his passing, the bridge between the founding generation and the military-business establishment that effectively governs Cuba has disappeared. What remains is a structure with no ideological or historical anchor and every incentive to resist any transition that could jeopardize its assets, networks, and personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A new blockade<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In Cuba, there is no infrastructure outside the state company that operates the refineries, controls the import terminals in Matanzas, and owns the storage facilities through which every fuel shipment entering the island passes before being converted into electricity or diesel. The agreement reached by the Florida-based company provided for the sale of a quarter of a million barrels per month exclusively to private buyers, bypassing the state. But the blockade on CUPET freezes the storage contract, which relies on the only storage facilities available on the island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of ExxonMobil against CUPET over the 1960 confiscations, stripping the company of its sovereign immunity shield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequence of escalation is clear. The Department of Justice unsealed the indictment against Ra\u00fal Castro on May 20. The Treasury had already sanctioned GAESA and D\u00edaz-Canel. CIA Director John Ratcliffe quietly traveled to Havana. The USS Nimitz<\/em> completed exercises in the Caribbean. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited Guant\u00e1namo on June 10, and Rubio announced that Washington is willing to negotiate. The question is: with whom? Washington is intent on discrediting one of the few officials positioned to say yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On June 18, Cuba approved 176 measures that include private banking and foreign investment without joint ventures, described by international observers as the most far-reaching economic reform since the Revolution. Washington responded with new sanctions and rejected the measures because they did not include political changes. No matter how ambitious the economic opening may be, it still falls short of the threshold Washington has established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And here lies the most troubling paradox. The expropriations happened, the repression is real, and the blackouts are not propaganda. None of this resembles the fabricated intelligence that preceded the intervention in Iraq. As a result, every new designation that fails to move Havana adds another line to the record suggesting that every possible measure was tried before resorting to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lessons from the past<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The events of 1960 offer lessons that Washington refuses to consider, although this time the dependency runs in a different direction. Russia pledged one billion dollars in investment by 2030, vowed to oppose any military intervention, and managed to send only a single tanker to Cuba throughout the entire year\u2014with Washington\u2019s permission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

China, however, is another story. Chinese equipment and financing connected 49 solar parks to Cuba\u2019s power grid in just one year, increasing solar generation from less than 6% to more than 20%, with 92 parks scheduled to be completed by 2028. Every barrel of fuel that Washington blocks increases the value of the solar panels China supplies. Sixty years ago, Eisenhower\u2019s pressure handed Cuba\u2019s energy dependence to the Soviet Union; the Trump administration is handing the island\u2019s energy future to China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blackouts are wearing down the bakeries and small private workshops that make up the only segment of the Cuban economy with genuine independence from the state. But what this new blockade has achieved is a more hardline security apparatus, deeper dependence on Beijing, and an interlocutor with no credibility left to negotiate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington\u2019s previous blockade of these very same refineries cost it sixty years of problems. The odds have not improved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington is once again betting on a strategy that already failed more than six decades ago: using economic sanctions to force political change in Cuba. Yet, while it seeks to isolate the regime, it also hampers reforms and pushes Havana closer to China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":924,"featured_media":57545,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16898,16868,16855,16856],"tags":[15635],"gps":[],"class_list":["post-57563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cuba-es-en","category-relaiciones-internacionales-en","category-autoritarismo-en","category-eeuu-en","tag-debates"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/924"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57563"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57565,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57563\/revisions\/57565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57563"},{"taxonomy":"gps","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinoamerica21.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gps?post=57563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}