Oil Talks with Maduro and Russia's War in Ukraine Could Affect Cuba's Alliances

Cuba’s reluctance to openly side with Russia at the United Nations recently speaks volumes about the difficult position in which the island finds itself, the future of its economy and the political alliances that depend much on what happens with the war in Ukraine and negotiations between the U.S. and the Nicolás Maduro regime in Venezuela.

That Cuba is once again trapped in the crossfire of a geopolitical confrontation between larger foreign powers became evident during the days when Russia was planning the attack on Ukraine: A Russian diplomat threatened the U.S. with military deployments to the Caribbean nation, invoking the memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. But unlike those days, when Fidel Castro vociferously sided with the former Soviet Union because it helped in its own battles against the United States, the Cuban government has remained silent.[…]

If U.S. talks resume with Maduro, Cuba could benefit from the increased oil production in Venezuela, which would run counter to the Biden administration’s policies that try to reduce the money flowing to Cuban government coffers, said Eric Farnsworth, the vice president of the Council of the Americas in Washington.[…]

“If you get more resources to the Maduro regime, he’s going to ship increasing amounts of oil to Cuba,” Farnsworth said. The Cuban government resells part of that oil in the open market, “so what the U.S. is doing in this circumstance is providing additional resources to enrich the Cuban regime.”…

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