The Peter Zeihan Podcast Series - Cuba Faces a Humanitarian Crisis || Peter Zeihan

Episode Date: May 22, 2026

Collapsing fuel supplies have left Cuba with a severe energy and humanitarian crisis. While a single Russian fuel shipment bought them some time, with the lack of Venezuelan oil imports and the U.S. Navy restricting access, things aren't looking good.Join the Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/PeterZeihanFull Newsletter: https://bit.ly/4tJpbI1

Hey all, Peter Zine here. Come to you from Umbria in Italy, and that's the Trevi over there, I think. Anyway, today we're talking about Cuba. You may recall that a lot has gone down in the American-Cuban relationship, especially since the Americans went in and nab Nicholas Maduro from Venezuela next door a few months ago. Well, we're, again, at a crisis point for the Cubans. Domestic energy production is very, very, very low. They have a very, very small amount of electricity that can get.

from alternatives like solar, really only like a megawater too. And they need 100 times that. But most importantly, they run on fuel oil. That fuel oil used to come from Venezuela. That has gone to zero. And we now have a functional blockade in place by the U.S. Navy against the island for the first time, really, since the 60s. And it's only allowed one vessel to come in in April, a Russian ship to unload fuel oil. That bought them about three weeks, and now they are out. The energy minister has said that we're completely dry. They're now limited to the energy they can boost themselves, which only covers about 10% their needs on a good day. And so we're seeing rolling blackouts throughout the country that oftentimes last more than 20 hours a day. Even in Havana, which is

the least bad, they've had several days already this month where they've had 22-hour blackouts. And with us starting to move into summer and electricity demands going through the roof, we are looking at a potential de-civilizational event in Cuba. And because there's no fuel, the normal release valve of crossing into Florida is somewhat limited. You'd have to do it on raft. So we're going to see two things here.

Number one, when the energy goes, everything else goes with it, especially things like food production. So we are nearing a humanitarian catastrophe in Cuba. The hope of the American administration is that will trigger mass protests that will tear down the Cuban. government. I don't want to say that that can't happen, but number one, people have to be really

desperate to go against a government that will shoot them. And there is not a lot of outside support from the United States coming to help them. And if you are in the leadership of the Cuban government right now, it really is all or nothing for you. There is really no alternative for leaving. Second problem, let's assume that this works and that the Cuban government is overthrown or withdraws. When you break a society by turning off the energy, you can't just turn back on the energy. You're talking about a ground-up reconstruction of the entire system that will be required because agriculture has failed and industry has failed. And the United States is setting itself up for a multi-year, multi-billion dollar reconstruction program or you simply get a failed state near Florida

that just sends spasms of migrants every once in a while as things get really, really, really, really, In a pre-industrialized Cuba that is optimized for agriculture, you can probably support two, maybe three million people. That's not where they are right now. They're an industrialized system that is designed to produce a lot of sugar for export, then they import things like wheat and corn and rice and the rest. And they have a population of 10 million. So you're talking about a massive overpopulation if the lights stay off for any appreciable amount of time, regardless of what happens to the government. Which brings us to the final issue is negotiations with the American government.

Trump administration very clearly wants the Cuban government gone, but it really, like everything else that's been doing recently, hasn't thought about what happens the next day. And so the tool that they're using may well break the government, but it'll break society as well and not necessarily leave anyone that is willing to have a conversation with the United States who can also then impose some sort of new order on the country.

It's rapidly setting the system up to be a protectorate that would require a military intervention to install some sort of replacement system and then rebuild the country from the ground up. That best case scenario is a 20-year program. And while you can make the argument that for American security and in the long term, American economic strength, having a partnership with a friendly Cuba is a great idea. Getting from here to there, especially with this intermediate. step of smashing the place first is definitely the harder more expensive way to do it