The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - What Does the Future Look Like for Cuba?

Episode Date: March 10, 2026

Cuba is facing a deepening economic and humanitarian crisis, with government agencies under an oil blockade and mounting pressure from the United States. As shortages worsen, can the Cuban government survive? What would the fallout be for the rest of the Caribbean if it doesn't? We break down the political and regional implications with Julio Fonseca, co-chair of the Canadian Network on Cuba and president of the Association of Cubans in Toronto, alongside Tamanisha John, assistant professor in the Department of Politics at York University. Then, Karen Dubinsky, professor emerita in Global Development Studies and History at Queen's University and author of "Strangely, Friends: A History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters," explores Canada's long-standing relationship with Cuba. From cultural and personal ties to diplomacy and influence, we examine how Canada's soft power has shaped that relationship and how it could be used to support Cubans during this moment of crisis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Under the so-called Donro Doctrine, Trump is asserting U.S. dominance in the Western Hemisphere. He's renamed the Gulf of Mexico. He's threatened to annex Canada and Greenland. And American troops have been attacking alleged drugboats in the Caribbean. But on January 3rd, the U.S. went even further. American forces launched a strike on Venezuela and captured President Nicholas Maduro. The fallout didn't stop there. Cuba, long dependent on Venezuelan oil, lost a critical supply line.

And the country was plunged deeper into crisis. For Trump, that seems to look less like a humanitarian crisis and more like leverage. We'll be together again soon, I suspect, celebrating what's going on in Cuba. They want to make a deal so badly. You have no idea. So what does the future look like for Cuba, where the people are already struggling through blackouts and shortages? And if governments in the Caribbean start falling under pressure like this, what happens to sovereignty across the region? And where does Canada fit into all of it? This is the rundown.

The situation right now in Cuba is grim. Government agencies are under an oil blockade, and the island is facing an escalating economic and humanitarian crisis. Can its government survive in the face of U.S. pressure? And what will the consequences be for the rest of the Caribbean if it falls? Julio Fonseco is the co-chair of the Canadian Network on Cuba and president of the Association of Cubans in Toronto. Tom Anisha John is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at York University, and they both join us.

Great to have you both on the program. How are you doing? Thank you for having us. All right, Leo, I'm going to start with you. You have family in Cuba. We understand there are blackouts, power outages. Are you able to reach them? Have you been in touch? Yes, I am actually in touch with them every day at different hours.

Sometimes I try to call them in the morning, but their phones are not recharged because they have had a blackout. But then in the afternoon, I certainly talk to them. And they are health-wise, they are fine, but they're going like all other Cubans through these rolling blackouts, shortages and difficulties that they are facing on an everyday basis. Basically, problems that are induced because of the aggressive policy of the United States, which for Cuba is not new. It's been like this for 67 years. So Cubans are used to shortages and to resist, but it is inconceivable that the world is silent in front of this genocide, silent genocide of the United States,

which has promised to submit the whole population into submission, totally unfair and really sad for the Cuban. I'm going to get you in here. Over the weekend, Trump said that Cuba is in its last moments of life. Now, Miguel Diaz-Canal is the president of Cuba. Help us understand what kind of support does he have among Cubans there? I think that the government in Cuba is still quite popular, which is why the United States has resorted to this tactic of trying to force the entire population into submission so that the people revolts against the government. Part of the reason that U.S. regime change in Cuba hasn't worked for decades is precisely because the Cuban people are educated. They're conscious of who is causing a lot of problems in their country. And when Donald Trump's make calls like that, the Cuban people recognize that it's an infringement on their sovereignty,

similar to what we're seeing happening in Venezuela and also in Iran. Julio, I'll get your take on that as well. What's that support look like? Well, obviously, if the whole population doesn't want a government, they will do away with it, and this is not the case of Cuba. The Cubans speak critically about the government and errors that the government has made in the past, but they are very well aware of who is the culprit here. And again, it's nothing new.

The United States has been doing this for years, for decades, and they always claim that the Cuban people is against the government, and there should be a force of good to come and liberate them. Cuba was liberated in 1959. Cubans do not need anything else. The only thing that Cubans need is the lifting of this blockade and the sanctions against our families. That is the only thing Cuba needs right now.

And the government is facing a very difficult moment, probably like never before in our history. And they are trying to do the best they can to satisfy the needs of the population. But obviously because of these problems that they are facing right now, in many cases, it's not possible. But the Cubans are aware. Cubans are aware and they are really fed up with the sanctions and the blockade and the attempt of the United States to determine, to decide, to decide, inside their future. And they want us to do away with our principle of self-determination.

That will never happen. All right. I want to get Tom Mnisha in here. I want to talk about influence. We talk about the United States, but I actually want to talk about China. Ten Caribbean nations are part of China's Belt and Road initiative and trade between Caribbean nations and China is rising. Tom Mnisha, how much does China's growing influence in the region have to do with what we're seeing

with the U.S. right now in their actions. Yeah, so the U.S. is very concerned about China's development. It wants to place a cap on China's development. I think that when it comes to the Caribbean region, however, the sort of U.S. tactics to basically stop states from engaging in trade with China comes off as nefarious, since the U.S. is not invested in development projects in the Caribbean the same way that China has.

And also, even though China has this Belt and Road initiative that some states have signed onto, China is still a very small trading partner to most Caribbean states. What I mean by this is most Caribbean states only have 2% or less of their trade with China actually registering in their GDP, whereas for the United States, since a large Caribbean diaspora lives in the United States in Canada and in Europe, most Caribbean trading is with those countries, since us in the diaspora, we love the niche sort of Caribbean products. And so what's really happening is that the U.S. doesn't want China to make any headway in terms of global influence at all. And in the Caribbean, it comes off as irrational since the Caribbean is not a stronghold of China's influence. I think what we need, though, is for the Caribbean countries to be less dependent on the United States precisely because the United States has shown it doesn't care about self-determination or sovereignty. It is not above bombing these countries, bombing fishermen in the ocean and not receiving any sort of international. outrage. And so people are asking these questions, but states are still scared since the United

States is a major power that is using military force against them. All right. With that being said, Julio, U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is reported to be negotiating with Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, who is the grandson of Fidel Castro's brother. What can you tell us about the younger Raul and the kind of support he has in Cuba? Well, I don't know that. very well, this younger Raul, I've seen him a couple of times. He's part of the personal security of the personal security detail of his grandfather. I don't know. Cuba has repeatedly said and denied that there are any conversations going on. So I am not part of the government. I don't know that. But Cuba has said no. So they claim that they are in

touch and with this person, I don't know. I have no idea. We will have to ask the Cuban government. Tom, Anisha, I want to get your take on there. Do we know much about the younger Raoul, 41 years old, not the 94-year-old, obviously the grandfather, who many, you know, is retired, but still has a lot of say in the country? So I would say that I highly doubt, this is the sort of U.S. narratives in terms of them talking to people for support. And the reason why I highly doubt that is they also claim to have support to sort of spark a revolution in Iran, and that has not happened. The U.S. is frequently overstating the amount of times that it's been in contact with people in these countries that they have carried out interventions in. And so I don't want to

sort of speculate on sort of U.S. claims of talking to someone in the government or not talking to someone in the government because more often than not, it's born out to not be true. And so I wouldn't want to claim someone is in talks with the United States and then it's just not true. But I highly doubt that that would be the case, especially if he is a part of the security detail of his grandfather still. All right. I want to follow up with you. You talk about what's called progressive development in the Caribbean region. I want to have better understanding. What's the connection between Cuban sovereignty and what you call progressive development? Yes. And so, So one of the biggest aspects of progressive development is how responsive it is to local needs.

A lot of Caribbean countries focused on development that creates industries, but those industries are largely extractive and they repatriate a lot of their profits outside of the Caribbean so that locals do not benefit. And so when we look at something like the tourism industry, tourism is technically regarded as an industry that is extractive and that takes away from local communities instead of giving back to them. However, even though that is the trend throughout most Caribbean countries that engage in tourism, it's not the case in Cuba. So when you engage in tourism in Cuba, you're staying at a hotel and you're engaged in services that pay back to the government. And the government is then able

to use those tourism funds to publicly distribute it to public functions and services in the country like trash, like public transportation and all of those things. And Cuba has the best public transportation system in the Caribbean region because of that, that locals need and depend and rely on. And so when I talk about progressive development, I'm talking about the impact that developments in the country have to meet the needs of the local population versus enriching people who don't live in the country, which is how tourism and other Caribbean countries are done. Julio, help us understand. How is Cuba viewed by its Caribbean and Latin American neighbors? Well, since the triumph of the revolution, the government of Cuba has viewed the Caribbean as their brothers and sisters.

Even Cuba with the very little, it has shared everything with the Caribbean community. Cuba has sent help with doctors and nurses. Cuba has sent technicians, teachers, etc., to every... one of these countries, Cuba has been very, very open to solidarity and to help the Caribbean, because we see the Caribbean as our own family, as we are family, regardless of the linguistic differences and cultured differences. We are one family, and that is the view from Cuba towards the Caribbean. Tom Mnisha, I'll get your take on that as well.

Yes, I agree with that. So my family is from Guyana. and they live in the interior of the country. And for a long time and still continuing to this day, there is not as much interior development in Guyana as there is on sort of the coastal areas. And so my family has benefited from having Cuban doctors who are willing to go into the interior to provide them with medical services.

And this is the same throughout the Caribbean, especially in many rural areas where the government institutions just don't have the strength or the capacity to reach people. And so when Cuban medical missions are brigaded and said like, oh, they're engaged in human trafficking or slavery, which is just false. What ends up happening is that the most vulnerable Caribbean people end up suffering. And I think that we have a lot of governments falsely dittoing the line of the United States

to say that Cuban medical missions are human trafficking or slavery, because many of these governments don't care about further vulnerabilities or marginalizing already vulnerable populations within their countries. Pamina, I want to talk about sort of what sort of the allies can do in that region. We have the Caribbean community, also known as Caracom. It's a block of 15 states that promotes cooperation in the region. Cuba is not a member, but does have economic agreements with Caracom. What kind of support are its members giving to Cuba right now?

So Caracom has always been comprised of the smaller Caribbean countries, and it was formed as an organization where they could, collaborate and cooperate on foreign and economic policy so that they weren't competing against each other and being further fragmented. Even though Cuba is not a member in 1972 when Caracom was formed, Caracom actually took an oppositional stance to the United States that wanted the Caribbean countries to isolate Cuba and said, no, we will not isolate our brother and sisters in Cuba. Today, we see the same sort of the U.S. trying to fragment Caracom, namely through what was initially Jamaica, Trinidad, and Tobago, and Guyana, but less so Jamaica, since Jamaica call for

diplomacy with Cuba. So now you see the U.S. even further fragmenting the community by entering a new security arrangement with Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago. Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, the prime minister is there in Guyana, Irfan Ali, the president, and in Trinidad and Tobago, Kamla Persard B. Sissar, the prime minister, they've taken very hostile and aggressive stances towards Cuba, actually supporting U.S. calls for regime change and frustratingly, the other countries that are a part of the Caribbean community Caracom have been quite silent on this. And there is a fear that if any one of them speaks up or brands itself as a hero, they will face sanction from the U.S., which was directly threatened by Jamaica simply calling for diplomacy with Cuba instead of regime change or going in and trying to bomb and kill people. And so right now, the Caribbean has been frustratingly quiet.

However, civil society organizations and new groups are forming, calling on their states to be anti-imperialist. And so we could only hope that it is the pressure that comes from the people that actually changes these government's policies so that they do speak up in defense of the Cuban people that have shown them solidarity for over 60 years. Tominisha, Julio, we are actually going to leave it there. I really appreciate your insights on this and your passion. and, Louia, I wish your family well, of course, who are in Cuba. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me.

Canada has had a relationship with Cuba for decades, and I'm not just talking politics. The two countries also have close personal and professional ties. We dig into the significance of soft power and how it could be used to support Cubans now. Karen Dabinsky is a professor, Emerita in Global Development Studies, and history at Queens University, an author of Strangely Friends,

a History of Cuban-Canadian Encounters. Karen, how are you doing? I'm fine, thanks. Remind me, were you in Cuba? Was it in February? I was just like, yeah. I just got back a couple of weeks ago. So I was there for, I saw the, you know, things have been bad there for a really long time.

I saw normal bad and then I saw like, you know, ramped up bad with when the oil blockade started. And that, the effects, it was actually amazing. The effects were almost immediate. You can see, you know, all of a sudden there's no buses on the street. All of a sudden, school kids are on the street, not at school, things like that. I didn't see yet the, you know, the grocery shelves dwindling, but that must be happening now. All right. Well, let's talk about it. Soft power is described as diplomacy without diplomats. How has Canada exercised soft power in? Cuba? Canada's been actually doing that for really quite a long time. My book studies the period from the Cuban Revolution on, so that's 1959 on. That was a bit of an arbitrary decision.

It's not like soft power was invented in 1959, but Canada and Cuba famously and uniquely, it was only Canada and Mexico that maintained unbroken diplomatic ties with Cuba after the revolution. And in Canada's case, at least, Canada got involved in aid projects, development aid projects. There's been a long history of education exchange projects, of which, which is where I, which drew me into this story. Personally, I used to help to coordinate an exchange between my university, Queens University and the University of Havana that brought Canadian students to Cuba for almost 20 years. And my other interest and the interest of many people in Canada is Cuban culture.

And there's been ties, musical ties between the two countries for decades. And in fact, many Cuban musicians, excellent Cuban musicians, make their home in Canada now. I want to talk about education as a soft power in your book, Strangely Friends, A History of Canadian Cuban Encounters. you write, the goal of the Ciudad Universitaria Jose Antonio Echeverria project, also known as the CUJAE, was straightforward to establish a graduate program in engineering staffed by Cubans, but with strong professional and fraternal links with Canadian universities. The pilot project began in February 1972. 25 Canadian engineering professors gave three-week summer courses to graduate students of CUJAE, as well as engineers, working in industry. The universities of Toronto, Waterloo, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan participated, presided over by an academic advisory board chaired by Canadian University

Services Overseas. How much of Cuba's technical and cultural development has been a result of Canada exercising those soft powers? Yeah, that's a really, that project was fascinating. I teach in a global, I taught for many years in a global development studies program. And so one of the things that's fascinating about the the acronym goes by or the the the title goes by the acronym ku hi the kuhai project worked because it did what it planned to do and its goals were in some ways modest I mean it's a big project help the university develop an engineering program a graduate level engineering program so that those people that were in the program could then go on and teach themselves right So it worked in that sense because it had the modest goal, not of saving Cuba, not of creating a kind of dependent relationship on Canadian superior technology, superior education, but rather a one time, several years, excuse me, multi-year project that taught Cubans in order for them to continue teaching themselves.

And that was Cuba's, sorry, that was Cuso, the organization, the Canadian organization that developed it. That was their philosophy in those years, and that tied meshed perfectly with what the Cuban authorities wanted in those years as well. All right. I want to talk a little bit about the Canadian students that you have taken on to the exchanges that you had talked about. What did they learn outside of the classroom? Oh, my goodness. Yes, well, one of the, there were so many fascinating things to observe as a professor, Cuba, or sorry, Havana in those years that it took place, the whole course took place in the city of Havana. I could barely imagine taking 20 to 30 young, 20-year-old, mostly unilingual, or at least certainly not Spanish-speaking, students with me to a big global South City or a big, let's even just, just, say Latin American city and basically letting them, you know, letting them go where they wanted to go.

It is, it was, that's changing, but it was an incredibly safe place for students to be. So they could go off on their own and, you know, and talk to people and all kinds of people. You know, Havana is, of course, on the tourist route, but less so than some of the resorts. So the site of Canadian students often, you know, congregating in large numbers on the seawall or at a restaurant or at any kind, you know, any kind of downtown location, certainly around the university, that was a site. That was a site. That was not a usual site. And so they struck up all kinds of friendships and had all kinds of conversations, which was also great because they heard things from Cubans on the street that didn't always correspond to what they were here. from their professors, their Cuban professors in the classroom. And so that made for, especially around things like racism, actually. Well, yeah, what were they saying? Really.

Oh, I'll stick with the example of racism. They were sometimes heard a rosy picture from their predominantly white, not exclusively by any means, but from their predominantly white Cuban instructors about how the revolution had solved the problems of racism. because there was no racial discrimination in the law. And in that, you know, in the legal sense, that was completely true, as it is and was in Canada. People on the street would approach our, again, predominantly white students.

But sometimes with, you know, sometimes with a racial mix among the Canadian students. And that led to conversations about racism in Canada compared to racism in Cuba. And they would hear stories. they would definitely hear stories about racism in Cuba from the street level that they weren't getting at the, you know, at the heights of the university classroom. So things like that were always, and so the students would sometimes wonder who, you know, who to believe, which helped us to encourage them to think that lots of things can be true at the same time, right? That there wasn't a who to believe. There was, you know, people speak from their experience. You have to take all of those experiences into account.

Well, let's take those experiences and talk a little bit about influence. In what ways does soft power influence, you know, official policy at higher levels of government? Yeah, that's always the question. When you're talking about things like popular or cultural diplomasies, it's really clear. And, you know, it was clear to me from my experience teaching there. And then later on from the research that I did,

that, you know, I picked development aid and education. and music, but I could have also studied sport, and I could have also certainly studied tourism, to look at the ways of which, the many ways in which ties between people at the ground level, at the popular level are profound, and in the case of Canada, Cuba, multiple that have been going on for decades.

What does that have to do with Canadian-Cuban relations at the more elite level, at the level of external affairs ministers and prime ministers. I think Canadian, you know, speaking on the Canadian side, Canadian government policy is obviously informed by what is perceived to be the mood of the country at any one place and at any one time or on any one issue. And the fact, we've just seen it recently when the Canadian government made the, or excuse me, it wasn't the government, when the Canadian travel industry, airline industry made the decision very,

quickly to stop flying to Cuba in the, in the midst of this oil crisis that they're having, there was a huge reaction and not, you know, sometimes from thwarted vacationers in the middle of February looking forward to going to a beach. That's understandable. But also what that really showed, I think, was that Canadian tourists have, many Canadian tourists have longstanding ties with Cuba, with visiting, with people who they meet in their travels, with people who they stay with and those ties continue maybe beyond the initial

kind of business relationship and continue into friendships. And so when dramatic things happen like is happening now you see a kind of an outpouring of concern that isn't abstract, that isn't philosophical but it's actually based on

concern about people. Well let's... About people's friendships. Well let's move that concern into action. If the Canadian government chooses to, how could it soft power to help Cubans right now? Well, I mean, we don't live in much of us. Soft power is less of a practice, let's say, these days,

thanks to the largely, I think thanks to the government, at least from our, you know, from our Canadian perspective, from the government of Donald Trump is using, you know, soft power is not strangling a country by refusing anybody to sell them oil, and soft power is certainly not bombing other countries, as we've seen, as is going on now in Iran. How do the sharp edges of hard power, how do those function with the softer edges of soft power is a really good question? And I guess I would go back to what I was saying. When you have a whole, a long history, decades long, let's say, in the case of Cuba,

When you have a long history of relations between people, whether they be sports teams or tourists or Canadian students and Cuban instructors, it's harder to demonize a country. It's harder to talk about a country as an enemy when people have their actual own experience of relations. So maybe that's the best example that I can come up with, that when a country with whom you have had relations, is in trouble and asks for help, maybe it becomes less of an official abs direct request and more helping a friend. Karen, we are going to leave it there. Really appreciate your insights on this.

Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm Jan. Thanks for watching The Rundown. What do you want to know more about? Email us at the rundown at tbO.org or reach out to me on social media. And as always, let us know what you think. Until then, see you tomorrow.

Thank you.