Cuba’s communist government confirmed on Friday what many of us predicted months ago: The island nation has officially run out of oil.
On May 14, Energy and Mines Minister Vicente de la O Levy delivered the stark admission: “We have absolutely no fuel oil, absolutely no diesel.” Blackouts in Havana now exceed 20-22 hours daily, with electricity returning for as little as 90 minutes. Power plants sit idle, reserves are exhausted and the socialist regime’s long-running energy crisis has reached its breaking point.
How did it happen? It wasn’t bad luck or an act of God. It was the direct, deliberate result of the Trump administration’s energy policy and the implementation of what has come to be referred to as the “Donroe Doctrine.”
For decades, Cuba survived on underpriced — sometime even free — Venezuelan crude shipped by the Nicolas Maduro regime in Venezuela. That lifeline ended abruptly in January 2026 when the Trump administration removed Maduro, seized effective control of Venezuela’s oil industry and redirected those resources toward legitimate hemispheric interests.
No more using Venezuelan oil to prop up another failed socialist dictatorship in America’s backyard.
The Trump administration followed with an effective energy blockade. An executive order imposed tariffs on any nation supplying oil to Cuba, effectively slamming the door on workarounds from Mexico and elsewhere. Cuba’s domestic production, always minimal and hampered by decades of mismanagement, couldn’t begin to fill the gap.
Crumbling Soviet-era infrastructure, already began to collapse under the strain. President Donald Trump followed up with additional sanctions targeting the Cuban regime on May 1. The regime’s own mismanagement, corruption and refusal to embrace market reforms sealed the deal.
Some critics have called this cruelty, but what it really amounts to is strategic realism. Previous U.S. administrations allowed Cuba to leech off other people’s energy while exporting repression, doctors-for-hire schemes and anti-American influence throughout Latin America. The Donroe Doctrine ended that era of weakness.
It reasserts American primacy in the Western Hemisphere, expels Chinese, Russian and Iranian footholds, and secures reliable supply chains under U.S. leadership. Energy dominance isn’t just about American shale and LNG exports: It’s about geopolitical leverage.
What happens next? The regime is already blinking. Not-so-secret negotiations between Havana and Washington have been underway for weeks. The Cuban government itself announced that CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited Havana this week.
Cuba’s goal is simple: Lift the blockade and restore the flow of cheap foreign oil. America’s goal is transformative: force the regime to loosen its stranglehold on the economy, end political repression, and move toward real reform that could enable the long-repressed nation to move into the modern world.
The U.S. leverage is enormous. With hospitals running on generators (when they have fuel), food spoiling, water systems failing and the private sector gasping for air, the pressure is mounting.
Protests are bubbling up. The regime knows it cannot sustain this indefinitely without serious concessions.
For America First advocates, this moment represents a historic opportunity. A post-Castro Cuba aligned with free markets and U.S. interests could become a prosperous partner rather than the perpetual headache it has represented across the last 67 years. It would deny adversaries a platform in our hemisphere and open new avenues for American energy and investment.
Critics will decry the “humanitarian crisis,” ignoring that the true humanitarian disaster has been suffering under the yoke of communism for 2/3rds of a century. The Cuban people have suffered under rationing, repression and poverty not because of U.S. policy, but because their government chose ideology over results.
Socialism always runs out of other people’s money – and oil, as it turns out – eventually. The Donroe Doctrine simply sped up the inevitable.
President Trump has made clear his intent to expel the Chinese/Russian influence from the Western Hemisphere. The Donroe Doctrine puts American security, prosperity and dominance first.
Cuba’s oil collapse is painful proof that the policy works. The coming weeks and months will test whether the regime chooses survival through reform or doubles down on failure.
One thing is certain: the lights may be out across Havana today, but the path to a brighter future for the Cuban people has never been clearer. Energy dominance delivered the pressure.
U.S. pressure and diplomacy can now deliver the change. Like it or not, The Donroe Doctrine is rewriting the future of the Americas.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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