Donald Trump has threatened to cut Venezuelan shipments of oil to Cuba, exerting further pressure on its economy.

“I have two bits of news for you: one good and one bad.”

Those were the first words Elena Garcia, a 28-year-old web designer, heard when she woke up on the morning of January 3, hours after a United States military operation abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

“The good news is that the water has arrived,” her boyfriend continued. “The bad news is that they kidnapped Maduro, and that means that this year we will surely have blackouts.”

By January 11, US President Donald Trump announced Venezuela would no longer supply Cuba with oil or money.

The threat of ending Venezuela’s support is expected to further devastate the Cuban economy — and possibly trigger unrest.

So far, since the US attack on Venezuela, the streets of Havana have been calm, and the Cuban government has pledged to maintain ties with Venezuela.

The Cuban government has indicated a willingness to establish better relations with the US, and in 2014, then-leader Raul Castro struck a brief detente with his US counterpart Barack Obama.

But Trump’s first election in 2016 put an end to that rapprochement. Since his first term, the US has pummelled Cuba with increased economic restrictions, leading to one of the worst economic crises in the island’s history.

  • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.caEnglish
    3·
    2 days ago

    From wiki:

    A combination of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the end of prohibition, and World War II severely dampened Cuba’s tourist industry, and it wasn’t until the 1950s that numbers began to return to the island in any significant force. During this period, American organized crime came to dominate the leisure and tourist industries, a modus operandi outlined at the infamous Havana Conference of 1946. By the mid-1950s Havana became one of the main markets and the favourite route for the narcotics trade to the United States. Despite this, tourist numbers grew steadily at a rate of 8% a year and Havana became known as “the Latin Las Vegas”.[49][50]

    This was also common before the depression, as far as I read.