Thousands of Cubans marched past the U.S. embassy in Havana on May 1, waving signs and chanting anti-American slogans while their island sat in the dark, some literally. Just the News reported that the holiday protest doubled as a pressure valve for a population enduring blackouts that stretch half a day or longer, streets piled with uncollected trash, and a near-total collapse of vehicle traffic across the capital.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez struck a combative pose in the wake of the demonstration. But behind the regime's bluster, ordinary Cubans, speaking on condition of partial anonymity, told a different story. Some said the situation is unsustainable and that only a negotiated agreement with Washington can stop the bleeding.
The split matters. It reveals the gap between the Cuban government's public defiance and the private desperation of the people it claims to represent, a gap that grows wider every day the lights stay off.
The crisis traces back to January, when the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro severed Cuba's main source of imported oil. Venezuela had for years propped up the island's energy grid with subsidized crude. Without it, Cuba's already fragile infrastructure buckled.
Gasoline, when it can be found at all, now costs more than 20,000 pesos per gallon on the black market, roughly $37. That figure equals about two months' wages for the typical Cuban worker. The math is simple and merciless: almost nobody can afford to drive.
Antonio Duarte Blanco, a former bank employee now selling mangoes and avocados from his doorway, described the new reality to Just the News.
"People use cars only for the most important trips. If you can walk or take a bike, you do it. Even if it takes two hours to get to someplace."
Car traffic in Havana is rare and slow. Food is increasingly scarce. Hospitals are crippled. The country, by the article's account, has not faced a near-economic collapse on this scale since the Soviet Union fell in 1991.
That comparison carries weight. The so-called "Special Period" after Moscow's collapse brought widespread hunger and rationing that lasted years. Cubans old enough to remember it now see the same warning signs, and some see worse ones, because this time there is no obvious patron waiting to step in.
Díaz-Canel chose the moment to escalate his rhetoric against Washington. In a statement following the May 1 protests, he accused the U.S. president of pushing threats of military aggression "to a dangerous and unprecedented scale."
"The international community must take note and, together with the people of the United States, determine whether such a drastic criminal act will be allowed to satisfy the interests of a small but wealthy and influential group driven by desires for revenge and domination."
He added a line clearly intended for domestic consumption: "No aggressor, no matter how powerful, will find surrender in Cuba."
The regime is backing up the rhetoric with action of a sort. Citizens, including students, women, and the elderly, are going through group preparedness drills in case they are called to defend the island. Whether those drills amount to serious military readiness or political theater is an open question, but they signal that Havana wants its people thinking about resistance, not negotiation.
Díaz-Canel has previously acknowledged that talks with the United States are underway, even as his public posture hardens. The contradiction is telling. Regimes that feel secure do not usually need to stage mass rallies in front of a foreign embassy to prove their resolve.
Not every Cuban is buying what the government is selling. Some spoke to Just the News only on the condition they not be fully identified, a detail that says as much about the island's political climate as any statistic.
Alfredo, a 55-year-old barber, was blunt about Cuba's capacity to back up the regime's fighting words.
"We don't have gasoline for vehicles, how could we fight? We lack modern technology."
José Antonio, a 61-year-old mathematics teacher, went further. He described the situation as a stranglehold.
"We cannot go on, we are being strangled. We must find a compromise agreement of some kind. We have never struggled as we are struggling now."
These are not political dissidents or exile activists. They are working people, a barber, a teacher, who asked not to be named because they fear the consequences of saying what they see. That fear itself is an indictment of the system Díaz-Canel is asking them to defend.
Meanwhile, some Democratic lawmakers have visited Cuba and met with communist leaders to condemn U.S. policy, framing American pressure as the root cause of Cuban suffering. That framing conveniently ignores six decades of centralized mismanagement and the regime's own refusal to allow basic economic and political freedoms.
The U.S. posture toward Cuba has shifted across administrations, but the direction of travel under tougher enforcement has been clear: squeeze the regime's revenue, limit its access to foreign patrons, and let the internal contradictions do the rest.
The Biden administration, after initially drawing criticism for a lukewarm response to anti-government protests in 2021, eventually moved toward concrete steps. As the New York Post reported, Biden asked the State Department to review staffing levels at the U.S. Embassy in Havana and explored ways to expand internet access on the island after the Cuban government shut down digital communications during protests. Sen. Ted Cruz criticized the administration at the time for initially describing the demonstrations as focused on government "mismanagement" rather than a cry for freedom.
The State Department also signaled punitive measures. A senior official said Biden intended to impose sanctions on Cuban officials responsible for repressing protesters. As the Washington Examiner reported, acting Assistant Secretary Julie Chung stated the administration would "focus on applying hard-hitting sanctions on regime officials responsible for the brutal crackdown."
That earlier episode set the stage for the current crisis. The capture of Maduro removed Cuba's last reliable energy patron, and the cumulative weight of sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and economic decay has brought the island to a point its own citizens describe as unprecedented.
The regime's preparedness drills and embassy protests may play well on state television, but they do not generate electricity. They do not put fuel in cars or food on tables. And they do not answer the question Alfredo the barber posed so plainly: if you cannot gas up a vehicle, how exactly do you fight?
The May 1 demonstration revealed a country pulling in two directions. The regime wants confrontation, or at least the appearance of it, because confrontation justifies its grip on power. An external enemy is the oldest tool in the authoritarian playbook.
But the people living with the consequences, the ones walking two hours because they cannot afford a gallon of gas, the ones watching their hospitals go dark, are reaching a different conclusion. Some are fleeing the island entirely. Others, like José Antonio, are saying out loud what many more likely think in private: a deal is the only way out.
The regime has long used ideological spectacle to paper over material failure. Solidarity convoys and revolutionary slogans do not keep the lights on. And American media outlets have at times played along, offering friendly platforms to regime-connected figures while ordinary Cubans sit in the dark.
What the May 1 protest made visible is a population caught between a government that demands loyalty and a reality that punishes it. The chants outside the embassy were loud. The whispers inside barbershops and classrooms may matter more.
No amount of defiant rhetoric from Díaz-Canel changes the arithmetic. Cuba's grid is failing, its people are hungry, and the regime's answer is to march them past an embassy and hand them a slogan. At some point, slogans stop feeding people, and the people start asking harder questions than any regime wants to hear.
