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0:00 Is Donald Trump trying to save Cuba or destroy it? >> Conditions continue to worsen in Cuba as the US cuts off critical supplies to the communist regime there. >> The people there have suffered for many, many years and I think Cuba is going to be something we'll end up talking about. >> Trump's White House accuses the Cuban government of persecution and torture, a denier of free speech, corrupt, inhumane. But the Cuban government, according to state media, calls what Trump is doing henocidio economical. That's economic genocide in Spanish. >> Corruption, aging infrastructure, hurricanes, a struggling economy, international isolation, all pushing today's Cuba to the brink of a humanitarian crisis. >> By many accounts, US sanctions on oil
0:47 applied to a country with almost none left. They are esphixxiating, suffocating Cuba and its people to the point where Cuba itself has put out a warning to the world. If you're thinking of flying in or out, we have a serious problem. There will be no more oil or money going to Cuba. Zero, says Donald Trump. Then there's this ominous or else. So the question is why? What explains a country that has hit rock bottom, drawing so much aggressive attention from the most powerful country on earth and why now? When the Trump administration looks at the state of Cuba today, it sees darkness and it sees a country on its
1:32 knees. That's opportunity. >> Cuba is a failing nation right now. Very badly failing nation >> in a few ways. Cuba is almost literally powerless. There are widespread blackouts. They've forced the shutdown of schools, businesses. A state-run TV and radio broadcaster went off the air last month. In some cases, no power also means no running water. And the country's profoundly important tourism industry has all but collapsed. The only way many Cubans survive is from foreign money sent in from family and friends abroad. Because if you're trying to make do on a pension, let's say in local currency, you're pulling in monthly roughly what it costs to buy one carton of eggs at that price and that income,
2:18 you're more likely to buy eggs individually, which is something people do in Havana. >> Life in Cuba has long been difficult for many Cuban citizens, but over the last few years, it's just gotten seemingly unbearable for many. >> At the heart of this crippled state is oil. Many of Cuba's power plants to generate electricity run on oil, and it doesn't produce enough oil to keep the lights on. It also can't buy enough oil because decades of US sanctions have choked off the country's access to financial markets, insurance, foreign currency, and even willing sellers. Because oil is so hard to buy and difficult to deliver, Cuba relies on just a small handful of countries to supply it. In 2025, about 4% of incoming
3:04 oil came from Algeria, 10% came from Russia, 25% from Mexico, and the rest, more than half of all incoming oil from Venezuela. Shown in a slightly different way, here's the oil from Algeria, Russia, Mexico, and these bars are Venezuela. But you see this empty space representing the here and now. That's not missing information. That's as close to zero as you can get. Oil shipments have almost entirely dried up. >> President Trump says the US carried out large-scale strikes on Venezuela overnight. >> The US is turning up the pressure on Maduro's key ally Cuba. >> They lived off Venezuelan money and oil and none of that's coming now. >> Venezuela was pres providing between 27
3:50 to 35,000 barrels of oil per day and cut rate prices to basically stave off Cuba's energy crisis. So, the loss of that Venezuelan supply is a gut punch because it was one of the uh it was the steadiest supply of imported oil that Cuba had access to. >> Yes. The Trump administration's capture of Venezuela's president and the unprecedented level of control Trump now has over Venezuela's economy as a result has strangled Cuba. Cuba's energy security is intimately intertwined with Venezuela, which Trump has now choked off. But then the threat of additional tariffs against countries like Mexico has brought Cuba to an even lower low. In late January, one estimate figured the country had just a few weeks worth
4:35 of oil left. Cuba is on the ropes and Trump knows it. So that's the why now. But what about the why period? Like what is Trump's interest in a so-called failed state? Well, to understand motivation, let's understand Trump's relationship with Cuba as president, he's implying something very threatening. >> Well, Cuba is an interesting case. Cuba is, you know, not doing very well right now. And I think Cuba is going to be something we'll end up talking about. >> Even if it's vague, there's something quite coercive about that, right? But there was a time when Trump saw Cuba not as an enemy but as an opportunity for
5:22 business while he was still the chair of Trump hotels and casino resorts which made sense. One of Trump's greatest successes is in hospitality and tourism is Cuba's most important industry. But all those years ago there was just one problem. Since the 60s US embargos closed the Cuban market to most American companies. So for a hotel magnate like Trump, US policy was a bit of a pain. Take a look at this from reporting at the time. Consultants for Trump's hotel business requesting reimbursement for a business trip to Havana. More than $68,000 worth of work, but made legal only if it was technically on behalf of a charity. The consultants even suggested one that might work for their purposes. It's possible that Trump, like
6:10 with the war in Gaza, sees some kind of development future here. >> I don't want to be cute. I don't want to be a wise guy, but the Riviera of the Middle East, this could be something that could be so bad. This could be so magnificent. >> But also, when I last saw Trump speak to reporters about his position on Cuba, he did something that I think is very telling. It's very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country. Do you want to say something about that, Marco, please? >> Well, I mean, I just gave you a statement a few minutes ago about uh, you know, when the president speaks, you should take him seriously. >> To Donald Trump, Marco Rubio is Secretary of State. That makes him Trump's principal foreign policy adviser. But Rubio himself is the son of
6:58 Cuban immigrants who came to Florida in the 1950s. His family came to the United States before the Caster regime, but he grew up and cut his political teeth in the very sort of hot house environment of Cuban-American politics in South Florida. >> And for many CubanAmerican exiles, Castro's socialist revolution represented a big loss of property, of a sense of home. It felt like a betrayal. >> You know, Cuba is a disaster. It's it's run by incompetent, scenile men. and and in some cases not seen now but incompetent nonetheless. >> He made his political career based on hostility toward the Cuban government. And so in some ways the policy of hostility towards Cuba is very much his
7:46 personal policy. >> Yeah. Look, if I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I'd be concerned. And importantly, Trump knows this policy position really resonates with Cubanameans, particularly in Florida, the historical swing state that's not so swingy anymore where so many Cubanameans live. >> For Cubanameans, this really is a very important topic. And it's if you go to Little Havana in in South Florida, you go to the cafes, you go to the restaurants, um they still live and dream about returning to Cuba. They still stew in their hatred over Fidel Castro. This is very much relevant to their lives. >> So when self-described conservative Californian golf lover, future Mars resident Cliff Smith posts online,
8:31 "Marco Rubio will be president of Cuba," Trump was quick to reply, "Sounds good to me." But let's add one more dimension to the mix, one that's very personal for Trump. The real fact of the matter is that Trump clearly isn't the first American president to be openly hostile towards Cuba. >> 13 US presidents have come and gone and the Castro regime remains in power. >> The United States has been trying to destabilize the Cuban government ever since 1959. >> 1959, the rise of Fidel Castro and the Cold War getting colder. It's the closest the world has ever come to nuclear war. That's the Cuban missile
9:17 crisis. >> Good evening, my fellow citizens. This government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba. It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States requiring a full retaratory response upon the Soviet Union. Again, just to underline, Cuba's communist existence just 200 some kilometers off the south coast of Florida has been a real knot of tension for the better part of a century. If Donald Trump were to
10:03 undo that knot, >> finally bringing down a communist regime that's been 90 miles off the coast of the US would be a huge feather in the cap of Donald Trump. you know being able to say that I am the US president who did the thing that no other US president since 1959 was able to do. >> It is more about legacy that Trump would be the president that finally overthrew the Cuban revolutionary government after 60 some odd years. This would be a crowning achievement for a president who repeatedly brags about how many wars he solved because strictly pragmatically compared to other geopolitical hotspots of the 21st century, Cuba figures fairly small. It is in the throws of economic
10:51 collapse. It has no oil, no money, no influence, but its history that to the United States is unique. And Trump may see that as being ripe for the taking.
