Is Cuba on the Brink of Collapse?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
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**Jessica Mendoza** (0:37)
At night, across Cuba, the sound seems to be everywhere. Metal on metal, the banging of pots and pans. Angry Cubans leaning out their windows, making noise in the dark.

**Vera Bergengruen** (0:53)
The entire island is basically under a massive blackout.

**Jessica Mendoza** (0:58)
That's our colleague Vera Bergengruen, who's been following the situation in Cuba.

**Vera Bergengruen** (1:02)
And at night, for the last week or so, we've been seeing people in different cities across the island come out, bang pots and pans in a sign of protest, of discontent with the government.

**Jessica Mendoza** (1:14)
The island's infrastructure has always been brittle, often vulnerable to power failures. But for the last three months, Cuba has been completely cut off from oil imports. And that's paralyzed the country.

**Vera Bergengruen** (1:26)
Conditions have been bad in Cuba for a long time, but this is really reaching a crisis point. You know, if you live on an upper floor, you can't get water, you have to kind of go downstairs with your bucket every time you need water for cooking. Public transportation is ground to a halt. Hospitals have been canceling surgeries. Some people we've spoken with say the cost of food has really skyrocketed. One woman we spoke with said that a liter of milk and one small package of chicken was basically her entire monthly budget. And we are really starting to see this wear down the population.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:02)
How much does this story have to do with the US?

**Vera Bergengruen** (2:05)
This current crisis that we're seeing is largely due to the United States.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:10)
In the Oval Office this week, President Trump told reporters about his interest in the island.

**Donald Trump** (2:15)
I do believe I'll be the honor of having the honor of taking Cuba. That'd be good, that's a big honor.

**SPEAKER_5** (2:23)
Taking Cuba.

**Donald Trump** (2:24)
Taking Cuba in some form, yeah. Taking Cuba. I mean, whether I free it, take it, I can do anything I want with it.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:36)
What does the US want out of this?

**Vera Bergengruen** (2:39)
Ultimately, they want regime change at the very top. What the Trump administration wants is for Cuba's government to be dismantled, for all of it to go away.

**Jessica Mendoza** (2:53)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Thursday, March 19th. Coming up on the show, is Cuba on the brink of collapse?

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**Jessica Mendoza** (3:55)
Cubans have lived under tough conditions for a long time. The country's economy has been devastated by the communist government's mismanagement and a decades-old US embargo. To get by, Cuba depends on tourism, remittances from Cubans living abroad, and the services the government sells to friendly nations. Cuba has also kept trade relationships with some countries, like Russia and Mexico. And until recently, one of its biggest and most important partners had been Venezuela. In 1994, socialist leader Hugo Chávez visited Cuba for the first time, five years before he became Venezuela's president. He delivered a speech in Havana, in front of Fidel Castro.
In his speech, Chávez described Cuba as a bastion of Latin American dignity, and he said Venezuela's duty was to follow Cuba's lead and to support the communist regime.

**Hugo Chávez** (4:52)
Cuba is a bastion of Latin American dignity, and as such, we must see it, and as such, we must follow it, and as such, we must feed it.

**Jessica Mendoza** (5:08)
When Chávez became Venezuela's president in 1999, his government quickly turned on the oil spigot, exporting fuel to Cuba to feed its power grid. And that system stayed in place for years, until this January.

**SPEAKER_5** (5:25)
The US bombed the capital of Caracas and other locations in a lightning military operation in the early hours of the morning local time.