The second Trump administration is not a fun time to be a socialist in the Western hemisphere. On Sunday, Cuba’s socialist regime relayed a clipped, curt message to aviators. “JET A1 FUEL NOT AVBL,” read the “Notice to Airmen” (NOTAM). From February 10 through at least March 11 (if not extended longer), flights landing at Cuba’s nine international airports will not be able to refuel for the simple reason that the country does not have any.

Already, Air Canada and WestJet announced plans to cancel all flights to Cuba. The airlines will send empty aircraft with tanker jets to pick up thousands of stranded passengers, dealing a blow to the island’s tourism industry, which made billions of dollars per year, but has fallen by two-thirds since 2018. Some airlines (Aeroflot and Air Europa) plan to continue operations with extra refueling stops on neighboring islands, while others that run shorter flights (American) can make a return journey without refueling.

Cuba’s jet fuel shortage comes as a direct result of the oil blockade imposed by President Donald Trump on January 29, which threatened an additional tariff of 30% on any nation that exported oil to Cuba.

In an executive order titled “Addressing Threats to the United States by the Government of Cuba,” Trump declared that “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat … to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

“The regime aligns itself with — and provides support for — numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups, and malign actors adverse to the United States,” Trump explained, “including the Government of the Russian Federation (Russia), the People’s Republic of China (PRC), the Government of Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. For example, Cuba blatantly hosts dangerous adversaries of the United States, inviting them to base sophisticated military and intelligence capabilities in Cuba that directly threaten the national security of the United States.”

“The Cuban communist regime supports terrorism and destabilizes the region through migration and violence,” Trump continued his recitation of the regime’s long litany of crimes. “The communist regime persecutes and tortures its political opponents; denies the Cuban people free speech and press; corruptly profits from their misery; and commits other human-rights violations.”

“For example, families of political prisoners face retaliation for peacefully protesting the improper confinement of their loved ones,” Trump said, getting more specific. “Cuban authorities harass worshippers, block free association by civil society organizations, prohibit free press, and deny the ability to speak freely, including on the internet. The Cuban regime continues to spread its communist ideas, policies, and practices around the Western Hemisphere, threatening the foreign policy of the United States.”

The Cuban regime has long relied on purchasing oil from its ideological ally, socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro’s regime in oil-rich Venezuela. But that pipeline reached a terminal end last month, after U.S. forces captured Maduro in a surprise raid on January 3. The remnants of Maduro’s regime have chosen to cooperate with President Trump rather than find themselves in the same cell block, and that cooperation includes sending no oil shipments to Cuba.

The swift neutralization of Venezuela left Cuba scrambling to find another oil supplier. For a few weeks, they procured oil from Mexico, where leftist President Claudia Sheinbaum has no love lost for the United States. But Trump’s steep tariff threat dissuaded Mexico from supplying any more oil to Cuba. Ten days after Trump’s embargo order and tariff threat, Cuban reserves of jet fuel have finally run dry.

Various news outlets have reported the dilapidated state of Cuba’s economy. Havana is shutting down some popular hotels, crowding what tourists there are into fewer hotels like so many penguins. Empty roads and long gas lines testify to the oil shortage, and the government is reportedly now rationing fuel through an app, requiring users to join an online queue — if they can navigate the problematic online system.

The regime has implemented further energy- and cost-saving measures: cutting school hours, reducing hospital activity, postponing sports and cultural events, and furloughing workers. Some reports reveal that Cuban subjects can spend their entire salary on a liter of milk and a small pack of chicken legs.

However, State Department official Jeremy Lewin argued that some of these deprivations are due to the Cuban regime’s longstanding economic problems, saying, “This idea that a short-term change in some amount of oil shipments is what’s responsible for the humanitarian situation in Cuba is simply not true.”

The U.S. government “maintains a comprehensive economic embargo on the Republic of Cuba,” first implemented under President John F. Kennedy in 1962, according to the State Department. The sanctions came in response to the communist regime confiscating American property in the country, and the socialist policies the regime has pursued across six decades have not helped the country’s economic condition.

In 2017, the first Trump administration took actions to strengthen the sanctions on Cuba. President Barack Obama had loosened restrictions on Cuba, treating its violations of religious freedom and other human rights like an ostrich with its head in the sand.

President Trump’s latest oil embargo is designed to escalate the economic pressure on Cuba to the point that the regime relaxes its socialist stranglehold on economic productivity. “Cuba is a failing nation. It has been for a long time, but now it doesn’t have Venezuela to prop it up. So we’re talking to the people from Cuba, the highest people in Cuba, to see what happens,” said Trump.

In recent testimony before Congress, Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed what every freedom-loving American thinks about Cuba: that its outdated regime deserves to go the way of the dodo. “There’s no doubt about the fact that it would be a great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime,” said Rubio. “That doesn’t mean that we’re going to make a change, but we would love to see a change.”

Thus far, Cuban authorities remain defiant. “To surrender isn’t an option for Cuba,” insisted Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel. “Tough times are coming. We will overcome this together with creative resistance.” But the flightless island’s lack of jet fuel is a clear sign that Trump’s oil squeeze is causing pain. The only question is, how much pain is Cuba willing to endure?