Trump's oil squeeze is choking Cuban tourism

Cuba's Varadero Peninsula is the postcard image of a tropical paradise: turquoise water, powder-white sandy beaches and palm trees.

Cuba's announcement on February 8, that it had run out of jet-fuel, caused the beaches to empty. They may not return anytime soon.

In a survey of airline workers, hotel and travel industry employees, and island tourism industry workers it was found that 'virtually all sectors were suddenly crippled due to the fuel shortage. This could be a death sentence for an industry that is already hampered and vital to the shattered economy of Cuba.

Air Canada, WestJet, and Transat, Canada's top three airlines, which are the main sources of tourists to Cuba, have announced that they will suspend flights to Cuba. Cirium estimates that up to 1,709 flights will be cancelled through April. This disruption is likely to reduce visitor numbers in the northern hemisphere by hundreds of thousands.

Rosaviatsia, the aviation regulator, said that Russia, which is the third largest visitor group to Cuba, will fly out its tourists in the next few days, and then suspend flights until fuel supplies improve.

The hotel giant NH announced on Friday that it has closed all its hotels in Cuba. Melia, the biggest Spanish?hotel chain in Cuba, also said the same day that it had shut three of its thirty Cuban hotels. It had started concentrating tourists into better-equipped Cuban hotels with a higher occupancy rate.

"There's just total uncertainty," Alejandro Morejon said, a 53 year-old?tourism-guide who began working in Varadero soon after Cuba opened to international tourism in 1990s. "Everything's falling apart."

The U.S. is attempting to force Cuba's government to submit by blocking oil shipments to the island nation.

The Trump administration declared Cuba to be a "unusual and extraordinary threat" for U.S. security. They cut off Venezuelan oil supplies to the island, and threatened to impose tariffs on nations that supply fuel to Cuba.

The last time these statistics were reported, in dollars, in 2024, tourism brought the communist?nation $1.3billion in foreign exchange, or around 10% of its export earnings.

Paolo Spadoni is an economist who studies Cuban economy at Augusta University, Georgia. He said that the tourism industry, along with exports of Cuban doctors, and remittances, are the top sources for the desperately needed hard currency in the country.

The Trump administration has renewed its attacks on all, after imposing tough sanctions that had prevented the island's tourism sector from fully recovering from the pandemic.

Spadoni stated that the collapse of Cuba's tourist sector would be a threat to Cuban economic survival.

Cuba only attracted 1.8 million tourists in 2025. This is down from the 2.2 million that visited in 2018. It was also its lowest level in over two decades.

Visitors reported that they had a difficult time relaxing, as they were anxious about Cuba's announcement a few days earlier that it was running low on jet fuel.

Tyler LaMountaine is an Alberta oil and gas worker who escaped Canada's winter with his wife. However, he was worried that they might be stranded due to the cancelled flights. "But you are scared because everyone is afraid."

Cuba's communist government announced earlier in February a contingency to protect essential services such as emergency care and primary schooling.

Officials initially claimed that tourism and international flights were not affected, but two days later the government informed aviation interests of the imminent fuel shortage on the island.

Fuel shortages have forced airlines in Europe, South America and the United States to reduce flights or change flight patterns.

Storm clouds are looming in Varadero. This beach resort was once the wintering place of the DuPonts prior to the Cuban Revolution. It is now a popular destination for Europeans and Canadians who visit during the winter months.

Up until late last week the trinket shops remained, as did?most of the restaurants. There were beach chairs and umbrellas on the beaches. Sunburned tourists collected shells, and swam through water that was almost transparent.

Two hotels have closed on the peninsula.

The Domina Marina Resort, a huge complex built in early 2010 with towers that overlook a vast marina, had a security guard stop a reporter and tell them the hotel was closed. The local number for the hotel was not working.

Local workers say it will be harder to keep the doors of hotels and restaurants open as the U.S. fuel siege enters the third week.

Jorge Fernandez who gives tours of the peninsula to tourists in a pink 1950s convertible said last week that he has enough fuel for one more day.

The 53-year old said, "I'll be back at home inventing something else."

Fernandez stated that "Trump and (Cuban president) Miguel Diaz Canel must come to an agreement, because the only people who suffer here is the population." "The country has shut down." (Reporting from Dave Sherwood, Varadero; additional reporting by Marc Frank, Havana; Allison Lampert, Montreal; Inigo Alexander, Natalia Siniawski, Mexico City, and Christian Plumb, Alistair Bell, and Christian Plumb)

(source: Reuters)