"[Havana] aligns itself -- and provides support to numerous hostile countries, transnational terrorist groups and malign actors adverse to the United States [including Russia, China and Iran]."

"[The communist government provides] defense, intelligence and security assistance to adversaries in the Western Hemisphere [while violating the human rights of its citizens]."

"[Cuba] will be failing pretty soon. They got their oil from Venezuela. They're not getting that anymore."

"[I will impose tariffs on any country that] directly or indirectly provides oil to Cuba."  

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"We did not touch on the topic of Cuba [during their 40-minute telephone conversation], and in the evening then this [executive order] came out."

"The imposition of tariffs on countries that provide oil to Cuba could create a far-reaching humanitarian crisis [severely impacting the operations of hospitals, the electrical grid and the food supply]." 

"[Cuba is currently] going through a difficult moment [but Mexico cannot be put] at risk in terms of the tariffs."  

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum  

A drone view shows the Pajaritos terminal of Mexico's state-owned oil company Pemex, in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz state. (Angel Hernandez/Reuters)

 

An executive order was signed on Thursday by U.S. President Donald Trump when he declared Cuba represented an "unusual and extraordinary threat" to U.S. national security for which tariffs would be imposed on all U.S. imports from any country supplying Cuba with oil. In the wake of the lightning military raid on Caracas in mid-January that took Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro into U.S. custody for trucking with drug cartels, Mr. Trump turned his attention directly on Cuba.

 

Subsequent to the raid, the Trump administration now controls Venezuela's oil exports and took the occasion to block deliveries of oil to Cuba, long reliant on its regional ally in Venezuela to supply it with petroleum. Mexico, under critical trade duress found it necessary to cancel its latest scheduled delivery for the month to Cuba, taking into account the looming renegotiation of Mexico's free-trade pact with the United States and Canada.

 

Under these constraining issues, the sobering 'sovereign decision' was made to temporarily halt Mexican oil shipments to Cuba. Earlier in the day following the Trump order appearing on the White House website, the Cuban government attempted to rally Latin American and Caribbean neighbours to its rescue. "The peace, security and stability of Our America are in danger", Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez stated in a social media post, denouncing the U.S. for imposing "peace through force".

 

In an appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the day before, Secretary of State Marco Rubio -- of Cuban descent -- was asked whether he would rule out forcing "regime change" in Cuba. "I think we would like to see that regime change", responded Mr. Rubio. "That doesn't mean that we're going to make a change, but we would love to see a change. There's no doubt about the fact that it would be of great benefit to the United States if Cuba was no longer governed by an autocratic regime". 

 

Long dependent on Venezuelan supplies of oil which it trades for security and medical personnel with Venezuela under Maduro and previously Hugh Chavez, Cuba produces little oil of its own. Imports averaged 37,000 barrels daily, the bulk of which arrived from Venezuela in 2025. Cuba is now left with a mere 15 to 20 days of oil, according to the Financial Times. Island-wide blackouts are common and frequent, impacting basic human services like drinking water.

 

Preparing dinner during a blackout in Havana on Wednesday, as Cubans from all walks of life hunker into survival mode, navigating seemingly interminable blackouts and soaring prices for food, fuel and transport as the U.S. increases pressure on the communist‑run nation. (Reuters)

 

Signing a new defence co-operation pact with Havana last fall, Moscow pledged $1 billion in investment over the next five years in efforts to retain a hemispheric foothold. Diplomatic support has emanated to Cuba by both China and Russia. The determination of the U.S. to direct oil supplies away from Cuba along with a fleet of navy and coast guard ships in the Caribbean for operations against Venezuela tasked to stop drug smuggling, the oil blockade of Cuba was next on the agenda.

 

Seven sanctioned oil tankers carrying Venezuelan crude have been seized by the U.S. to date -- blockading legitimate shipments to Cuba risks global criticism of violating international law, according to maritime experts. In response to questions in the immediate aftermath of the Caracas raid, the U.S. president responded that he felt no additional actions were required against Cuba, since lacking oil from Venezuela, "Cuba looks like it's ready to fall". 

 

 

In Hindsight : Losing Canada

"Unfortunately, literally everything I said would  happen in 2015 has now come to pass."

"Trudeau's deficits will not be small. Mr. Trudeau has made tens of billions of dollars of spending promises; he said the budget will balance itself, he has no idea what he is talking about when it comes to these things." 2015

"These guys [2015 leadership opponents] would have had, in the last two weeks, us throwing open our borders and literally hundreds of thousands of people coming in without any kind of security checks or documentation."

"That would have been an enormous mistake."

Former (2006-2015) Prime Minister Stephen Harper 

Stephen Joseph Harper, who led the Conservatives for 13 years, saw his party win the first majority government in over a decade in the May 2, 2011, election, with 166 seats, representing an increase of 23 seats from the October 2008 election, in which Harper won a strong minority. (Geoff Robins/AFP/Getty)

 

He was one of the most effectively reliable prime ministers Canada has had; principled, intelligent, informed, a man of earnest integrity and love of country. Some of those who voted him into office -- one minority and two majority governments -- missed him from the moment the Conservative Party of Canada lost the 2015 election and the Liberal Party of Canada became the governing body under the most unsuitable, unprepared and unprincipled prime minister Canada has ever had; Justin Trudeau. 

 

Now, the current Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney promises to be the second-most unsuitable, out-of-his-depth prime minister of Canada.

 

Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was an economist before he became prime minister and his administration bears no resemblance whatever to the current office-holder, a central banker, whose grasp of economics seems fairly incompetent. Perhaps not so much as his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, who felt the economy would look after itself:  "The commitment needs to be a commitment to grow the economy, and the budget will balance itself".

 

To that end, after inheriting a balanced budget, the Liberals claimed they would run a $10B deficit for three years to 'build infrastructure' after which a balanced budget would be produced by 2019. The first three years of Liberal mismanagement of the economy saw the deficit come in at $19 billion for starters. By 2025, when Trudeau left the prime ministership the national debt was $1.2 trillion, somewhat higher than the $612 billion he had inherited a decade earlier.

 

While in office, when the opposition Liberals and NDP insisted the government bring Syrian refugees into Canada en masse, PM Harper responded: "We do not want to pick up our entire communities ... and move them out of the region where they have lived for as long as history has been written. They do not want that. They want us to help them. That is why we provide refugee placements, friends. That is why we provide humanitarian aid." 

 

August 2015 long weekend, Harper stood outside Rideau Hall — dressed in Conservative blue — after asking Gov. Gen. David Johnston to dissolve Parliament, launching his fifth federal election campaign as party leader. He appealed to Canadians to consider leadership (and his experience) as the central issue at play. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

 

Fast forward ten years and "hundreds of thousands of people" entered Canada with scant security checks as the Liberal government ignored entire categories of quotas and checks on temporary immigration  (many dating from the Harper government); in the process seeing an unprecedented surge of temporary migrants entering Canada The number of 'non-permanent' residents soared by 1.7 million in three years, overwhelming the capacity to screen them. Leading to a 'standard' of foreign nationals claiming refugee status through an ever-so-convenient app. 

 

The Harper-era government brought in a measure to prevent corruption in awarding of contracts by government, leading to the Public Prosecutions Act, designed to prevent political interference in criminal prosecutions. The law enacted by the Harper government placed the situation in control of a politically independent 'director of public prosecutions'. It was this act that succeeded in revealing the 2019 episode when Trudeau pressed his then-justice minister to forgo a bribery case against a Quebec engineering company with close ties to the Liberals.

 

During his administration, PM Harper removed home delivery at the request of Canada Post management, reflecting the downward spiral of mail volumes making it too costly for letter-carriers to continue door-to-door daily deliveries. At that juncture, the national mail corporation still turned a profit and closing down home delivery meant the spigot of losing money was turned off. The Liberals campaigned on a promise to restore home delivery. Almost immediately it was restored hundreds of billions annually began hemorrhaging for Canada Post, leading it to the door of bankruptcy. 

 

In 2010 the Harper government suspended Canada's contributions to the UNRWA agency, a central provider of aid ad-infinitum to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Accusations the agency was intermingled with Palestinian terror groups such as Hamas led to that cancellation. The Liberals restored funding to UNRWA in 2015. By 2023 following the October 7 terrorist attack on southern Israel, hard evidence emerged of UNRWA employing members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad; including a top Hamas commander.

 

When the Liberals took the reins of power in Canada they spoke of an intention to 'modernize' the criminal justice system with the introduction of 'restorative justice' to reduce the number of Indigenous offenders in prison. Bill C-75, a crime bill, was made law in 2018 to simplify bail for accused criminals and codifying treating offenders more leniently based on race. Stemming from a 'vulnerable population', criminals received bail faster and were released earlier from prison. 

 

Since then, Statistics Canada's crime severity stats reflect that when Mr. Harper left office, homicides and violent crime were at lows never before seen in the history of Canada. Since his departure from office as prime minister, however, crime began trending uphill steadily, sitting now at the point where  homicides have hit 30-year highs. This represents the Liberal version of progress.

 

Mr. Harper and his wife, Laureen, visit the Mount of Olives, in Jerusalem in 2014. The Mideast featured throughout Harper's tenure, including most recently the exodus of refugees from the war in Syria. Harper pointed to ISIS as the root cause of the refugee crisis in Europe and reiterated Canada's military commitment to combating the extremist group. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)