President Trump calls Cuba a ‘failed nation’ as oil embargo negotiations continue
President Donald Trump on February 16 called Cuba a “failed nation”, saying the oil embargo has made it more difficult to operate the country’s flights and airports.
- Hostile relations between the United States and Cuba have continued for more than 60 years.
- Major historical conflicts include the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
- Relations briefly normalized under President Barack Obama but were later reversed by President Donald Trump.
- Tensions have escalated in recent days following the fatal speedboat crash and new Venezuela-related sanctions.
Hostilities between the United States and Cuba date back more than 60 years, if not longer.
The division further intensified on February 25 when Cuban troops opened fire on a speedboat from Florida off the coast of Cuba, killing four people on board, according to Cuba’s Interior Ministry in Havana.
It is unclear whether there were any Americans on board the ship.
Tensions between the two countries have increased recently, with President Donald Trump imposing new sanctions and tariffs on the Caribbean nation following the operation to capture Cuba’s ally and former Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro.
Here, we will introduce the history of major conflicts between the two countries.
cuban revolution
Fidel Castro assumed power in Cuba in 1959 and overthrew the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. Mr. Castro and a band of guerrilla fighters established a revolutionary socialist state in Cuba after a successful revolt against Mr. Batista, who was anti-communist and backed by the United States, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.
Mr. Batista fled Cuba after seven years of dictatorship, and Mr. Castro began to strengthen ties with the Soviet Union. The following year, Castro nationalized all foreign assets in Cuba, increased taxes on U.S. imports, and concluded a trade agreement with the Soviet Union.
President Dwight Eisenhower retaliated. He cut import quotas for Cuban sugar, froze Cuban assets in the United States, and imposed a near-total embargo. Eisenhower also severed diplomatic relations with the Castro regime.
Bay of Pigs invasion
In 1961, Cuban exiles trained by the CIA failed to overthrow Castro, leading to the severance of diplomatic relations.
President John F. Kennedy, implementing a strategy approved by the previous Eisenhower administration, dispatched a brigade of 1,400 Cuban exiles sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency by air, land, and sea in an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Castro.
After several mistakes by the exiles, the Cuban military finally defeated the exiles in three days after it became clear that the United States was involved. More than 100 members of the exile force were killed and nearly 1,100 were taken prisoner and held in Cuba for almost two years.
Prisoners were released from Cuba to the United States between 1962 and 1965 in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. Various reports estimate the total number of casualties among members of the Cuban Revolutionary Army to be up to 2,000.
Undeterred by the failed invasion, the Kennedy administration conducted Operation Mongoose to destabilize Cuba’s government and economy. This operation also included a plot to assassinate Castro.
Over the decades, several US presidential administrations conducted covert operations against Cuba.
cuba crisis
In 1961, the United States discovered that Soviet nuclear missiles were being manufactured in Cuba when an American U-2 reconnaissance plane photographed a nuclear missile site. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 caused widespread panic during the Cold War, when the United States appeared to be on the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.
Fearing a U.S. invasion, Cuban leader Castro allowed the Soviet Union to install missiles on his territory. The crisis was resolved when the Soviet Union promised to remove its missiles in exchange for the United States removing its missiles in Turkey.
Mariel’s Boatlift and “Escape from Cuba”
In 1980, after a lack of housing and employment caused a severe economic downturn, the Cuban government opened the coast to anyone with permission to flee the country by boat at Mariel Port, just west of Havana. As a result of the popular movement, nearly 125,000 Cubans were allowed to immigrate to the United States in five months.
Many moved to Florida. The Coast Guard has dubbed the wave of Cuban immigrants the “1980 Cuban exodus.”
After further economic turmoil, in 1993 Cuba legalized the American dollar and allowed privately owned businesses and services. Farmers can sell some of their produce individually, rather than just to the government.
But Cuba accused the United States of tightening economic trade measures and depriving Cubans of medical supplies and other necessary resources.
In 1994, U.S. authorities and Cuba reached an immigration agreement that allowed the United States to admit 20,000 Cubans a year, provided the Cuban government controlled the flow of Cuban refugees.
Helms-Burton method
After two U.S. civilian planes were shot down by Cuban Air Force planes in 1996, Congress passed legislation known as the Helms-Burton Act (Cuban Freedom and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996), which further strengthened the Cuban embargo between the two countries by punishing foreign companies doing business in Cuba.
When the Helms-Burton Act was passed, Congress gave the president the authority to suspend Title III on national security grounds. The provision has since been suspended by three presidents in hopes of avoiding diplomatic friction with U.S. allies, including Canada and Spain, whose companies have investments in Cuba.
However, President Donald Trump later lifted the suspension in 2019 during his first term in office.
cuba five
In 1998, the Clinton administration indicted five Cuban counterintelligence officers in the United States for conspiracy to commit espionage, among other illegal acts.
The officers were part of an organization known as the Wasp Network, sent by the Castro regime to infiltrate Cuban-American exile groups and politicians in South Florida opposed to the regime. They were convicted in 2001.
Two of the officers were released at the end of their terms in 2011 and 2014. The remaining three were released in late 2014 as part of a prisoner exchange with US intelligence officers held in Cuba.
Elian González custody battle
In 1999, a 6-year-old Cuban boy was rescued off the coast of Florida after the boat he was traveling with capsized.
Elian González became the symbol of an international custody battle and media firestorm as the boy’s uncle and relatives in Miami fought with his father and the Cuban government over where the boy would live.
In 2000, armed U.S. federal agents seized the boy from relatives in Miami and, after a long custody battle, eventually returned him to his father in Cuba. More than 20 years later, González is a member of the Cuban National Assembly.
Controversial boat-related murder case
In another boat-related shootout in 2022, the Cuban Coast Guard killed one person aboard a Florida-registered Dakota speedboat three nautical miles north of Bahia Honda.
Cuban authorities said at the time that they found evidence of drugs and firearms on board. In the same year, a speedboat carrying Cuban nationals collided with a Cuban Coast Guard vessel, killing five people, including an infant, according to the Cuban Ministry of Interior.
Survivors later said a Coast Guard vessel rammed their boat.
“Thaw in Cuba”
In 2016, President Barack Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro announced the historic normalization of diplomatic relations between the two countries, ending more than 50 years of hostility.
Nearly two years of talks resulted in a prisoner exchange, President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba in 2016, the reopening of the embassy, and the easing of banking and travel restrictions for Americans and Cubans.
A White House brief announcing a major review of U.S.-Cuba relations said, “The President has directed the Secretary of State to immediately begin discussions on restoring diplomatic relations with Cuba, which were severed in January 1961.” “In the coming months, we will re-establish our embassy in Havana and conduct high-level exchanges and visits between our two governments as part of the normalization process.”
President Trump changes policy
Shortly after taking over the White House in 2017, the first Trump administration reversed many Obama-era policies regarding Cuba. The administration reimposed harsh sanctions and redesignated Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Following Maduro’s arrest last month, the second Trump administration declared a national emergency regarding Cuba in January, calling the island an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to U.S. national security. The United States has blocked the flow of Venezuelan oil to Cuba and threatened to impose tariffs on countries that supply the fuel.
