Cuba has been under an oil embargo by the United States since last January. However, President Donald Trump’s administration allowed — on humanitarian grounds — a Russian oil tanker to enter the island in late March. This May, the White House tightened economic pressure against the mining industry, which the regime operated jointly with a Canadian company. Yet, it stated its willingness to provide direct assistance to the Cuban people — valued at $100 million — should the Cuban regime permit it.

Through these actions, Washington makes it clear to Cubans that its aim is to suffocate the totalitarian state, not the common man. A recent poll — answered by over 42,000 Cubans both on and off the island — views Trump in a positive light, while taking the opposite stance toward the entire socialist leadership. The poll also revealed that nearly 61% support military intervention.

Amidst hardships and a heightened “besieged fortress” mentality currently gripping Cuba, many live in anticipation of a swift resolution — one that might alter their destiny after 60 years of socialist tyranny.

From Weariness to Protest: ‘If You Can’t Guarantee the Basics, Leave and Let Others Take Over’

In the island’s small towns, conditions are deteriorating even faster than in Havana.

In Candelaria — a municipality of 20,000 inhabitants located about 50 miles southwest of the capital — a young man named José Jorge Gutiérrez tells me that the local branch of the state telecommunications monopoly, ETECSA, went offline this week due to a lack of fuel.

On Saturday, “They were supplied with 100 liters of gasoline, which were intended, in principle, to provide service from 9 to 11 in the morning and from 7 to 9 in the evening.” The rest of the time — without electricity — the municipality is generally left ‘cut off,’” he said, referring to access to social media networks, the primary avenue for obtaining information independent of the socialist media apparatus.

In an interview broadcast Wednesday night on state-run national television, the news was no better. Cuba’s Minister of Energy, Vicente de la O Levy, declared that the country’s reserves of diesel and fuel oil have been completely depleted and that the energy system is on life support due to the U.S. oil embargo in effect since January.

Gutiérrez says that over the past week, Candelaria has received — at most — only four consecutive hours of electricity service. “We have now surpassed 36 hours of continuous outages.”

In this context, he feels as though he is living in a survival movie. “You can’t store anything because the food spoils; the heat is terrible, and the water runs out,” he lists. In a WhatsApp group, the local pro-government delegate reported that, after testing whether it was possible to pump water to Candelaria, she concluded it was not feasible because the municipality was consuming too much.

“The solution is to conserve — always — and to show ‘more creative resistance,’” Gutiérrez remarked ironically, repeating the slogan with which the leadership rallies the masses amidst the shortages. “Now, we are told, we have to collect rainwater — as if we were living in the era before Christopher Columbus arrived on the island.”

The young man, an evangelical leader and father of a young daughter, asks himself: “If they can’t even guarantee water, why do they keep governing? I speak for myself: I don’t want to ‘resist’ anymore. If they can’t guarantee the basics, they should step aside and let others try — we Cubans are certainly capable enough.”

To the Castroist hierarchs, Gutiérrez offers this wish: “May they repent and turn to Jesus Christ.” But he reminds them: “You may be able to escape human justice, but never divine justice!”

For Cubans like him, the current peak of this cyclical socialist crisis, which has been unfolding since 2019 under the popular moniker La Coyuntura (The Juncture), has served as a turning point, compelling them to speak out or demonstrate directly against the tyranny. A few days ago, he decided to stop sharing sales promotions for his small business on his WhatsApp Status updates, opting instead to fill them with information that exposes the regime — “until Cuba is free,” as he puts it.

Three Visions for the Immediate Future

From his exile in Mexico, academic and Doctor of Communication José Raul Gallego maintains close contact with activists and reporters on the island. In his view, there are three distinct positions evident among the general population. On one side are the regime’s sympathizers, who openly oppose any form of pressure or action — whether military, economic, or political — that could potentially lead to its downfall. In his opinion, this does not represent the majority view within Cuba today.

A second group, susceptible to the Castro regime’s propaganda claiming that the Americans will ravage the country, drop bombs, and so forth, is driven by fear. Gallego asserts that this group would, in fact, prefer to maintain the current state of affairs or seek alternative paths that rule out military intervention. “I would also include in that group those individuals who, subscribing to that fallacious rhetoric of sovereignty and self-determination, likewise oppose any form of foreign intervention in the country.” That, he believes, “constitutes a considerable segment.”

And, finally, Gallego also identifies a portion of the population that “has reached a point — whether out of a conviction that the regime will not change by any other means, or because their personal, economic, and political circumstances have become so stifling — where they say: ‘Let whatever has to happen, happen; but let something happen.’This cannot go on like this.”

According to the expert, the possibility of external armed intervention to topple the tyranny is becoming increasingly accepted by Cubans — particularly after they witnessed the operation to extract Venezuelan socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro on January 3. “They saw that it was a surgical strike that left barely two civilian casualties.”

Speaking for this report, Gallego highlighted that this support for U.S. military action is even reflected in videos he has seen on social media. People are gradually losing their fear of speaking out — even though “it could cost you the death penalty or 30 years in prison for sedition.” Nevertheless, many Cubans are saying it openly, and “every day, signs appear on the streets bearing messages such as ‘Trump, how long?’ or ‘Trump, mete mano (step in)!’”

Food and Hope

Magdalena Hernández, a 60-year-old Havana native born alongside the Revolution, stopped following the news via state radio or television in 2021. This was not only due to the constant blackouts but also because she had lost faith in the State’s word.

That year, she saw a video on Facebook of one of Fidel Castro’s grandsons strutting around while driving a luxury car on the island. She looked at her aging, Soviet-style apartment and at her empty refrigerator, which had defrosted after breaking down. “I don’t believe them. They’ve ruined the country,” she says.

For nearly seven decades, authorities have instilled in the population a fear of a possible U.S. invasion, yet it was Cubans themselves who wrecked Cuba’s economy, infrastructure, and institutions. Amid a new surge in tensions these days, the regime released a Family Guide for Protection Against Military Aggression — doing so in the midst of an oil embargo in place since January and promises from the Trump administration to take Cuba.

Hernández’s response mirrors that of many other Cubans: “What we need is for Trump to come in and finally meta mano (step in)!” Her despair is tempered by hope: that the mounting pressure will force a change of regime. Relying on a monthly pension equivalent to less than $10, she depends on an evangelical church that provides her with a daily meal.

Mariana, who requested anonymity for security reasons, co-pastors, alongside her husband, one of the many churches providing aid to Cuba’s impoverished and aging population. In the western part of the capital, the “Ambassadors of the Kingdom” Ministry prepares meals in a private home to feed needy Havana residents whom they encounter during their weekly evangelizing rounds.

The city has changed drastically. Mariana sees more people sleeping on the streets or scavenging for food in the trash. Her congregation is filled with single mothers and people with disabilities. Just a few days ago, she walked through the neighborhood distributing food, finally finishing her rounds at 11:00 p.m.

Establishing this ministry had been a dream of theirs since she and her husband were still courting. They began by dipping into their own salaries and savings to cook extra meals for a few needy neighbors. Today, they carry on with the help of Cubans living in the United States, as well as small business owners who donate their tithes to the ministry.

Mariana procures simple ingredients — which have become luxuries in today’s Cuba — by standing in long lines under the merciless tropical sun: rice, root vegetables, and chicken. She works discreetly, she says, so as not to attract the attention of the State — the very same State that refuses to legally register any churches established after 1959.

Since mid-January 2026, Cuban religious organizations have taken on an increasingly prominent role in the distribution of humanitarian aid. It was at that time that aid shipments began arriving from the United States to be distributed across the country through local churches. The hope was that this aid would remain untouched by the State, reaching instead directly into the hands of those left destitute by Hurricane Melissa in the eastern region of the country.

“God has placed us here to serve as a pillar of support for those who have lost everything,” says Mariana. “Bringing food and hope to Cuba is a mission of life and death.”