For decades, Cuba has been a rare geopolitical anomaly — a socialist island just off the coast of its longtime rival, the United States. After the 1959 revolution, Havana found itself at the centre of a global standoff between the world’s great powers, a role that didn’t fade when the Cold War ended. Today, in the twenty-first century, the island is once again where global interests intersect — now in a fragmented, multipolar world.
Three important factors shape Cuba’s position. First, Havana is actively building international partnerships to offset economic isolation and persistent resource shortages. Second, Russia is slowly reasserting itself in the Caribbean, offering Cuba limited but strategically important support. Third, Washington’s ongoing economic and political pressure — particularly during Trump’s hardline policies — continues to weigh on the island.
These forces mean Cuba is more than just a target of larger powers. The island now reflects broader shifts: the renewed tensions between the United States and Russia, the evolving use of sanctions as a tool of influence, and the way smaller states try to navigate between the world’s centres of power.
Cuba and the Russian factor
Russia is looking to claw back influence by using Cuba as a political foothold. Analysts often describe the island as “Moscow’s outpost on Washington’s doorstep” — a relationship that has long carried both symbolic and strategic weight in pushing back against US dominance.
That relationship is not just rhetorical. It’s showing up in concrete terms, particularly in energy supplies. Just days ago, the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin delivered roughly 700,000 barrels of crude to Cuba’s Matanzas oil terminal — the first major shipment to reach the island since Donald Trump’s administration cut off fuel supplies.
The vessel, currently under US sanctions, entered Cuban waters late on Sunday near the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, despite ongoing American restrictions on oil deliveries to Cuba, including those originating from Russia. Washington said it allowed the shipment to go ahead on humanitarian grounds.
Cuba had gone three months without receiving a single oil tanker — a gap that, according to President Miguel Díaz-Canel, deepened an already severe energy crisis, further straining the island’s ageing power grid, healthcare system, public transport and agriculture. For many Cubans, worn down by months of blackouts, the ship’s arrival brought a rare sense of relief. The shipment shows that Russia is prepared to back Cuba’s economy while maintaining its influence in the region, taking advantage of the ongoing tensions with the United States and its allies.
Impact of US Policy on Cuba
Donald Trump’s second-term approach has sharply reshaped US–Cuba relations, shifting away from the periods of tentative easing seen in the past toward a strategy built on “maximum pressure”, sanctions and sustained political leverage over Havana.
At the core of that approach is intensified economic pressure, particularly targeting energy imports — above all oil, one of the most vulnerable pillars of the Cuban economy. Washington moved to block supplies of Venezuelan crude, once a lifeline for Havana, and signalled it could impose tariffs on countries that continue shipping fuel to the island.
Trump, in a series of public statements, directly framed Cuba as the “next” target of US policy following other geopolitical crises. These remarks caused serious concern in Havana, which views them as a threat not only to the country’s political stability but also to its physical security.
At an investment forum in Miami on 27 March, Trump praised the success of US military actions in Venezuela and Iran and said that Cuba was next. “I built this powerful army. I said: ‘You will never have to use it.’ But sometimes you do have to use it. And Cuba, by the way, is next,” he said during the conference. Earlier in March, Trump also stated that Cuba could become the object of a “friendly takeover.”
New diplomatic distancing from Cuba in Latin America
Costa Rica’s decision to pull Cuban diplomats and close its embassy in Havana has been one of this year’s most striking developments. President Rodrigo Chaves said San José does not recognise the legitimacy of the Cuban government.
“Costa Rica does not recognise the legitimacy of Cuba’s communist regime, given the harsh treatment, repression, and degrading conditions endured by the people of this beautiful island. We must cleanse the hemisphere of communists,” Chaves said.
The government framed the move as a response to human rights abuses and pressure on Cuban citizens, but Havana pointedly linked the decision to US influence. The fallout marks one of the sharpest diplomatic crises between Latin America and Cuba in recent years. Previous breaks in relations during the twentieth century were largely tied to Cold War politics.
Ecuador also closed its embassy, effectively halting full diplomatic relations. Cuba’s mission in Quito was shut down, and its diplomats were declared persona non grata. The Ecuadorian government pointed to differences over Cuba’s internal politics — especially on democracy and human rights — as well as a wider desire among some regional leaders to step back from Cuban policies.
Honduras and Jamaica, while keeping formal diplomatic ties, ended key intergovernmental cooperation agreements, including those covering Cuban medical missions on their soil. These programmes, long a cornerstone of Cuba’s foreign policy, were cancelled under pressure from Washington, which criticised “unfair labour conditions,” and amid a broader cooling of regional relations with Havana. Several other Caribbean countries, including the Bahamas, Antigua, Dominica, and Saint Lucia, have also signalled interest in changing how Cuban doctors are paid.
Taken together, these moves point to a period of diplomatic reshuffling for Cuba and a gradual fragmentation of its international ties — a process tied both to its domestic political and economic crisis and to pressure from major powers, above all the United States.
