The long-standing financial embargo imposed on Cuba by the United States appears to have escalated into a military-enforced energy blockade.
Five oil tankers were seized within a single month, resulting in the confiscation of 7.3 million barrels of oil, including one vessel not subject to sanctions.
Additionally, the US carried out its largest naval deployment in the Caribbean since 1962, deployed drones to monitor regional tanker routes, and issued an executive order threatening punitive tariffs against any country supplying oil to Cuba.
Under this pressure, Mexico suspended shipments to Havana, Venezuelan supplies were forcibly disrupted, and no alternative suppliers intervened.
Notably, US officials have openly stated that the main objective of Cuba's financial blockade was regime change, with President Donald Trump asserting that the Cuban government would ultimately collapse.
"It looks like it's something that's just not going to be able to survive. It is a failed nation," Trump told reporters last month.
The US oil blockade has crippled life in the island country of 11 million people, forcing the President Miguel Diaz-Canel-led Communist government to announce emergency measures on Friday.
Despite being on the edge, Cuba's Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez‑Oliva Fraga denied that Communist Cuba was on the verge of collapse.
"This is an opportunity and a challenge that we have no doubt we will overcome. We are not going to collapse," Perez-Oliva stated.
Nonetheless, developments in Cuba do exhibit certain aspects of the Venezuela crisis in terms of energy blockade and political pressure being applied from outside, according to Dr Raj Kumar Sharma, a Senior Research Fellow at the strategic affairs think tank NatStrat in New Delhi.
Since the early 2000s, Venezuela has become very important for the Cuban economy and also its energy security.
"This is neo-imperialism, where regime change is engineered from outside using force and coercion. The choice of the people of a country is being questioned in the name of the national security of others. The idea is to follow the Monroe Doctrine in Latin America and enforce it. Defiance of certain countries will be punished in Latin America, even if it means chaos in the region. This could pave the way for America's dominance in the region," Sharma told Sputnik India.
The timing of American actions is important – Cuba seems weaker than at any point since the 2000s, Russia and China are overstretched with other more pressing priorities, Venezuela cannot help Cuba now, while Latin America as a region stands disunited, he concluded.