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Posted by Joshua Scheer
While U.S. officials publicly thump their chests about “freedom” and “democracy” in Cuba, the real work of empire continues in the shadows — and sometimes in the most absurd places. According to Axios, Senator‑turned‑shadow‑Secretary‑of‑State Marco Rubio has been conducting secret talks with Raul Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, grandson and gatekeeper of Cuba’s aging leader Raul Castro, bypassing official diplomatic channels altogether.
The Trump administration, Axios reports, sees the 94‑year‑old revolutionary as the island’s “true decision‑maker,” and Rubio — long the Senate’s most theatrical Cuba hawk — has apparently appointed himself the point man for deciding Cuba’s future. A senior Trump official tried to downplay the meetings, insisting they’re not “negotiations” but merely “discussions about the future.”
But when Washington talks about “the future” of a country it has spent six decades sanctioning, isolating, and economically strangling, the meaning is rarely ambiguous.
The Oil Squeeze: A Manufactured Crisis With Predictable Victims
While Rubio plays diplomat in the dark, the administration’s economic warfare is playing out in broad daylight. A Reuters investigation shows how Trump’s oil blockade — designed to choke off Venezuela’s fuel shipments to Cuba — has triggered a cascading crisis across the island’s most vital industries.
Tourism, Cuba’s economic lifeline, is collapsing under the weight of fuel shortages so severe that airlines are simply abandoning the island. Air Canada, WestJet, Copa, and Transat — the major carriers from Cuba’s largest tourist market — have suspended flights, wiping out as many as 1,700 flights through April. That’s a projected 25% drop in visitors during peak season.
Russia, Cuba’s third‑largest source of tourists, is preparing to evacuate its travelers as well, after its aviation regulator issued a warning about the island’s fuel crisis.
This is not an accidental byproduct of U.S. policy. It is the policy.
The Old Script, Replayed Again
Washington has always understood that if you can’t overthrow a government militarily, you can starve it economically — and then blame the resulting suffering on the government you’re trying to topple. The embargo, the Helms‑Burton Act, the endless sanctions, the pressure campaigns: they all follow the same script.
But the Rubio back‑channel revelation adds a new layer of cynicism. While the U.S. publicly insists Cuba is a dictatorship unworthy of engagement, its own officials are quietly meeting with the very family they claim is illegitimate — not to negotiate peace, but to shape the island’s political future behind closed doors.
It’s regime change by conversation, conducted in the shadows while the island’s economy is pushed toward collapse.
Empty Beaches, Full Hypocrisy
The image of “sun, sand, and empty beaches” isn’t just a tourism crisis — it’s a metaphor for U.S. policy itself. Washington has spent decades trying to turn Cuba into a blank slate, a place where the U.S. can dictate terms without resistance. The oil squeeze is simply the latest attempt to force the island to its knees.
But Cuba has survived invasions, sabotage campaigns, assassination attempts, and economic warfare. It will survive Marco Rubio’s secret meetings too.
What remains to be seen is whether the American public will ever recognize the pattern: the U.S. creates a crisis, blames the victim, and then uses the chaos as justification for deeper intervention.
Cuba is just the latest chapter in a very old book.
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