Hell will freeze over before Havana gives in to Trump. But regular Cubans don’t have that long

Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

Can Cuba outlast Trump?

The US president has vowed that Cuba could be the next US adversary to face his wrath.

“What we’re going to do with Cuba is, we’re going to come back from Iran,” Trump said at campaign rally in Florida on Friday. “Those beautiful ships will pass Cuba. We’ll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast. They’ll raise up their hands.”

In his second term, Trump has already ramped up economic sanctions on the communist-run island to an unprecedented level, cut off the supply of oil required to power its collapsing electrical grid , and threatened military action.

But amid the saber rattling and pressure campaign, Cuba’s government has managed to hold on to power. Officials on the island say they won’t be strong-armed into accepting a deal — even as the island teeters on the verge of economic collapse, with growing disparities between Cuba’s haves and have nots.

“Sometimes we are asked, how has Cuba resisted what we have resisted? How was Cuba able to resist during the summer with the perverse aims to destabilize the country?” said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla at a news conference last week ahead of an annual General Assembly at the United Nations on the US economic embargo on Cuba.

After enduring 60 years of US economic sanctions, Cuba’s communist leadership seems to believe they can afford to wait out Trump and whatever comes next. There is little sign that the Cuban government is considering making the wide-ranging concessions the US is demanding of Havana.

The Trump administration says they will keep up the pressure until Havana opens the island’s political system and economy, allows Cuban exiles a greater ability to return and invest in their homeland, and ends their alliances with Russia, China and other US adversaries.

Hell will freeze over first seems to be the response from Havana.

“I am convinced that the policies of the US government have to change,” Rodríguez said, “With this government or the following or the one after that.”

There has been little progress in the talks that have been held and on Tuesday, ahead of the vote at the UN, Rodríguez attempted to interrupt US Ambassador Mike Waltz from giving a speech blasting the Cuban government.

“Back away, this isn’t Havana,” Waltz told Rodríguez from the UN podium as the Cuban diplomat approached him.

Ironically, as Cubans face the worst crisis of their lives, a small group here have made overnight fortunes importing gasoline, food and other hard-to-find items, profiting off the growing desperation. For those with the right connections, finding loopholes around the US embargo on Cuba and the tightly controlled Cuban economy has been a booming business.

It’s no longer uncommon to see women with children in their arms begging at stoplights as new Audis and Teslas drive by; an impossible-to-imagine sight just a few years ago.

I was recently in a gourmet store in Havana that opened up for Cuba’s elites where pricey Wagyu steaks, Russian caviar and Spanish olive oil were for sale, when a disheveled Cuban man walked in through the electric sliding door.

Glancing at a piece of frozen meat for sale at about 10 times the average monthly salary, the man turned to a hovering sales attendant.

“That price can’t be right, can it?” he said.

Cubans are coming up with creative ways to generate power when their island has almost none left

The Trump administration is hoping to take advantage of those glaring inequalities by recruiting disaffected officials within the Cuban government.

“To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba — now is the time,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American and longtime opponent to the Cuban government, posted on X on Friday.

“The disappointment of failed promises, corruption, and the privileged lives of only a few; seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA,” the post continued.

Cuban officials quickly fired back at the open effort to recruit spies inside the island.

“Now the USA is resorting to public recruitment ads. There must be a lot of desperation and poverty in the agency’s ranks when it has to sell its offerings like toothpaste,” Cuba’s top diplomat for US affairs Carlos Fernández de Cossío responded on X.

The US has already spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars trying to topple the Cuban government with little to show for those efforts.

Cuban officials quietly say that if Trump continues to be bogged down with the war in Iran and suffers a defeat that changes the US political landscape in the mid-term elections, regime change in Cuba could slip down his list of priorities.

​​Any deal with the Cuban government is likely to face intense blowback from anti-communist Cuban exiles in Miami who believe that Fidel Castro’s revolution is drawing its last breath.

But how long can regular Cubans hold out? The government has announced a series of reforms that so far seem to have done little to jump-start the floundering economy. Officials for the first time have said that Cubans can amass wealth as the island warily opens to more capitalism. But many Cubans complain only insiders with the right connections are able to cash in.

This nuclear plant was meant to free Cuba from dependence on oil. Now, it’s a symbol of its shattered dreams

On a recent morning, before the sun came up, a group of retired Cubans stood in a line outside a government-run bank three hours before the doors opened to try and collect their shrinking pensions. Several said they had been unable to receive their pension for several days as power kept going out in the neighborhood.

Retired construction worker Armando Ruiz said he was waiting for his monthly pension of 3,900 pesos, less than five dollars at black market exchange rates as the Cuban peso’s value plummets.

“It’s only enough to get a little bit to eat,” he told CNN. “Sometimes you say how long can this go on for?”

Yamil Lage/AFP/Getty Images

古巴能比特朗普坚持得更久吗？

美国总统誓言，古巴可能是下一个将面临他怒火的美国对手。

“我们打算对古巴采取的措施是，我们从伊朗回来之后，”特朗普周五在佛罗里达州的竞选集会上说。“那些漂亮的船只将经过古巴。我们会让其中一艘船在离海岸大约50码的地方停下。他们会举起双手。”

特朗普在其第二个任期内，已经将对这个共产主义岛国的经济制裁提升到了前所未有的水平，切断了为其崩溃的电网提供动力所需的石油供应，并威胁采取军事行动。

但在各方剑拔弩张、施压不断的背景下，古巴政府仍设法保住了权力。岛上官员表示，他们不会被迫接受任何协议——即便古巴正处于经济崩溃的边缘，贫富差距日益扩大。

“有时我们会被问到，古巴是如何抵抗我们所抵抗的？古巴是如何在夏季抵御那些旨在破坏国家稳定的邪恶企图的？”古巴外交部长布鲁诺·罗德里格斯·帕里利亚上周在联合国大会召开前举行的新闻发布会上说道。此次大会旨在讨论美国对古巴的经济封锁问题。

在经历了长达60年的美国经济制裁之后，古巴共产党领导层似乎认为他们可以熬过特朗普时代以及随之而来的一切。几乎没有迹象表明古巴政府正在考虑做出美国要求哈瓦那做出的广泛让步。

特朗普政府表示，他们将继续施压，直到哈瓦那开放该岛的政治体系和经济，允许古巴流亡者更有能力返回祖国投资，并结束与俄罗斯、中国和其他美国对手的联盟。

哈瓦那方面的回应似乎是：除非太阳从西边出来，否则地狱都不会结冰。

罗德里格斯说：“我确信美国政府的政策必须改变，无论是本届政府、下一届政府还是下下届政府。”

已经举行的会谈进展甚微。周二，在联合国投票之前，罗德里格斯试图打断美国大使迈克·沃尔兹发表抨击古巴政府的演讲。

“退后，这里不是哈瓦那，”当古巴外交官罗德里格斯走近沃尔兹时，沃尔兹在联合国讲台上对他说。

具有讽刺意味的是，当古巴人民面临有史以来最严重的危机时，一小撮人却通过进口汽油、食品和其他稀缺物资一夜暴富，从中牟取暴利，利用了古巴人民日益增长的绝望情绪。对于那些拥有门路的人来说，找到美国对古巴禁运和古巴严格管控的经济体系中的漏洞，已经成为一项蓬勃发展的生意。

如今，经常可以看到抱着孩子的妇女在红绿灯路口乞讨，而崭新的奥迪和特斯拉则从旁边驶过；这在几年前还是难以想象的景象。

我最近去了哈瓦那一家专供古巴精英阶层的精品店，那里出售价格昂贵的和牛牛排、俄罗斯鱼子酱和西班牙橄榄油。这时，一个衣衫褴褛的古巴男人从电动滑门走了进来。

男人瞥了一眼售价约为平均月薪 10 倍的冷冻肉，然后转向一位徘徊在一旁的售货员。

“这个价格肯定不对吧？”他说道。

古巴人正在想方设法以创造性的方式发电，因为他们的岛屿几乎已经没有电力了。

特朗普政府希望利用这些显而易见的不平等现象，招募古巴政府内部心怀不满的官员。

“对于那些寻求在古巴创造积极变革的人来说——现在正是时候，”美国国务卿马可·卢比奥（古巴裔美国人，长期以来反对古巴政府）周五在X上发帖说。

帖子继续写道：“未能兑现的承诺、腐败以及少数人享有的特权令人失望；抓住这个机会，通过与中央情报局的秘密合作，创造你想要的改变。”

古巴官员迅速对这种公开在岛内招募间谍的行为予以反击。

“现在美国竟然开始公开招聘广告了。如果该机构不得不像推销牙膏一样推销自己的产品，那它内部肯定存在着很多绝望和贫困，”古巴负责美国事务的最高外交官卡洛斯·费尔南德斯·德·科西奥在X上回应道。

美国已经花费数十年时间和数亿美元试图推翻古巴政府，但这些努力几乎没有取得任何成果。

古巴官员私下表示，如果特朗普继续深陷伊朗战争泥潭，并在中期选举中遭遇失败，从而改变美国的政治格局，那么古巴政权更迭可能会从他的优先事项清单中下降。

与古巴政府达成的任何协议都可能遭到迈阿密反共古巴流亡者的强烈反对，他们认为菲德尔·卡斯特罗的革命已奄奄一息。

但普通古巴民众还能坚持多久？政府宣布了一系列改革措施，但迄今为止，这些措施似乎并未对提振疲软的经济起到多大作用。官员们首次表示，随着古巴谨慎地向资本主义开放，民众可以积累财富。但许多古巴人抱怨说，只有那些拥有内部关系的人才能从中获利。

这座核电站原本是为了使古巴摆脱对石油的依赖。如今，它却成了古巴梦想破碎的象征。

最近一个清晨，太阳还没升起，一群古巴退休人员就排起了长队，在一家国营银行开门前三个小时就到了，希望能领取他们日益缩水的养老金。几位退休人员说，由于附近地区持续停电，他们已经好几天没能领到养老金了。

退休建筑工人阿曼多·鲁伊斯说，他正在等待每月3900比索的养老金，由于古巴比索贬值，按黑市汇率计算，这笔钱还不到5美元。

“只够勉强吃点东西，”他告诉CNN。“有时候你会想，这种情况还要持续多久？”