“And when he woke up, the oil was still there…”
Dinosaurus is a one-sentence tale written in 1959 through Guatemalan creator Augusto Monterroso. Some of the shortest tales ever written, it most certainly issues the “dinosaurs” of energy, the various long-time dictators of Central The usa, and the ghosts that live to tell the tale the plain adjustments.
Within the aforementioned adaptation of the tale, the dinosaur is not just authoritarianism, ideologies and slogans of the sixties, but in addition oil as a structural issue that conditioned political selections, ideological alliances and fashions of state survival in Cuba and Venezuela.
The connection between the 2 countries, a cornerstone of Latin American politics for greater than six many years, has been completely outlined through oil. The new arrest of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela thus marks a geopolitical turning level for Havana, whose power, strategic and political ties to Caracas have sustained a lot of its survival as a state.
Donald Trump stated that Cuba is “ready to fall”. Certainly, the historical past of Venezuela and Cuba within the twentieth century may also be understood as two parallel trajectories that started in the similar 12 months.
In 1958, Marcos Pérez Jiménez fell and the following starting of Venezuelan democracy, in addition to the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, which is able to culminate in 1959 when Fidel Castro got here to energy. Two political initiatives have been born concurrently, however destined to observe radically other paths.
The comparability has lasting importance. When Fidel Castro died in 2016, in his mattress after a life-time as dictator, Venezuela had already had ten elected presidents in energy. This distinction represents two fashions of relation to energy, society and freedom.
Castro’s mistrust of Venezuela
From the start, Castro interested in Venezuela as a part of a strategic calculation. The unexpectedly increasing oil-based democracy had key power sources and critical regional affect.
Within the early days of the federal government of Venezuelan President Romulo Betancourt, Castro used to be hailed as an international hero, the chief who defeated the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Alternatively, the honeymoon used to be short-lived. When Castro requested for monetary and political strengthen for his revolution, Bettencourt flatly refused. From that second, the connection changed into overtly opposed.
The results quickly changed into obvious, as Cuba promoted and tried to export the armed fight to Venezuela. This incorporated an tried invasion during the the town of Machurucuto in 1967, all the way through the Raul Leoni govt, when guerrillas skilled at the Castro type of the Sierra Maestra tried to duplicate the Cuban enjoy on Venezuelan soil. Different dramatic shows, together with an alleged assassination strive on Bettencourt involving a syringe containing cobra venom, illustrate the depth of the battle.
A long time later, the connection between the 2 international locations would take a decisive flip with the emergence of Hugo Chávez. After two coup makes an attempt in 1992 and his next amnesty beneath the federal government of Rafael Caldera, Chávez used to be invited to Cuba and gained through Fidel Castro with the honors of the top of state. Chávez used to be deeply inspired through Castro and the Cuban progressive fight. From that second, a political and private dating used to be established that might have profound penalties for Venezuela.
Shut members of the family with Chávez
When Chávez got here to energy via elections in 1998, a chain of cooperation agreements with Cuba have been temporarily formalized within the spaces of well being, schooling, sports activities and social welfare. Cuban medical doctors arrived in traditionally deprived spaces of Venezuela, laying the principles for a story of cohesion and social justice.
Alternatively, there used to be any other much less particular part to the connection. The Cuban regime shared its enjoy in political keep watch over, intelligence, espionage, repression and authoritarian survival in trade for sources, basically oil. By means of supplying Cuba with tens of 1000’s of barrels of crude oil an afternoon, Venezuela has eased power at the Cuban economic system, serving to to take care of crucial products and services and export well being employees to Cuban fraternal networks in Latin The usa and Africa.
This used to be most certainly Cuba’s most vital contribution to the Chávez undertaking. The island survived many years of disagreement with america due to Soviet subsidies. After the autumn of the USSR, it went via a length of utmost lack of confidence till it discovered a brand new supply of strengthen in Venezuela. In trade for Venezuelan oil, Cuba exported a confirmed and efficient type of energy keep watch over.
As well as, Chávez regarded as Castro now not best an best friend, but in addition a mentor. This apprenticeship explains a lot of Venezuela’s next authoritarian shift. What started as a political undertaking with electoral legitimacy ended up adopting the observe of a regime designed by no means to depart energy. And so the parallel paths of Venezuela and Cuba met once more, many years later, in authoritarianism.
Cuban forces in Venezuela
Venezuela’s subservience to the Cuban safety equipment used to be firmly underlined on January 3, 2026, when 32 Cuban officials have been killed protecting Nicolás Maduro all the way through a US army operation that culminated in his arrest. Havana described those as “combat actions” within the efficiency of reliable tasks.
The deployment of Cuban army team of workers to give protection to the President of Venezuela and their deaths in fight explicitly display the lack of independent keep watch over over Venezuela’s protection through its personal military. In addition they expose the lifestyles of a parallel safety construction directed through Havana.
Either side have formally denied this army presence on a number of events. Alternatively, it obviously displays that the Chávez regime has delegated a central serve as of sovereignty – presidential safety – to brokers of the Cuban state. That is remarkable within the fashionable historical past of the area.
There is not any oil and the tourism trade is suffering
The members of the family between Cuba and Venezuela can’t be understood with out spotting oil as its true commonplace thread: first as a strategic promise, then as an financial and political salvation, and these days as a void that redefines the Cuban regime’s room for maneuver in an an increasing number of opposed global context.
For the reason that center of the 20 th century, it’s been the mainstay of members of the family between Havana and Caracas. Recently, Mexico may be the most important power provider for the island, however oil is the fashionable an identical of Monteroso’s dinosaur: a undying presence.
Some other key part of Cuba’s financial woes is the cave in of its tourism sector. Traditionally, this has been one of the vital few vital non-oil assets of foreign currency.
A up to date research through International Affairs discovered that the island has didn’t get better pre-pandemic ranges of global tourism – in 2019 it gained greater than 4.2 million overseas guests, whilst in 2023 there have been best 2.4 million. Figures for 2024 and 2025 display an additional downward pattern.
With out Venezuela as an power provider or a powerful tourism trade to herald money, the Cuban economic system faces a crucial deficit in exterior sources. The decline of each assets of source of revenue finds the fragility of a dependent financial type that can not be sustained in unfavourable exterior prerequisites.
A turning level for Cuba
Trump’s strict controls on oil exports from Venezuela are exacerbating the present disaster in Cuba, which is now at a tipping level that threatens the survival of the regime.
On this landscape, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has emerged as a central determine, combining his private background because the son of Cuban immigrants and his political imaginative and prescient, which puts Cuba on the epicenter of diplomatic and strategic disagreement in recent US overseas coverage.
The end result of this new bankruptcy can be decided through a mixture of sanctions, interior pressures and geopolitical realignment.
For Cuba, oil continues to be there, however not as an automated supply of strengthen for the regime. It’s now a crucial absence, one who exposes the rustic’s structural weaknesses and can play a decisive position in its long term within the coming months.
