Havana and Miami have the same message for Cubans on the island: Accept even more pain
By Tim Padgett
February 12, 2026 at 6:00 AM EST
COMMENTARY As the U.S. cuts off oil to Cuba, Havana's communist regime and Miami's exile leadership remain locked in a zero-sum mindset that risks greater humanitarian catastrophe on the island.
You could call the current moment in Cuba a tale of two press conferences — two callous press conferences — one here in Miami on Jan. 29 and the other on Feb. 5 in Havana.
The message in Havana: ordinary Cubans must accept more pain.
The message from Miami: ordinary Cubans must accept more pain.
Together, they project how little both the Cuban communist regime and the Cuban exile leadership seem to be taking into account just how much worse the average Cuban person stands to suffer in the months ahead — as 67 years of disastrous Cuban dictatorship may come to an end.
READ MORE: Now, as always, Cuban politics matter more than Cuban people
Let’s start with last week’s presser, when Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, with what looked liked a dazed face, put his delusional spin on the reality that the U.S. has him and his government painted into a corner tighter than a sidewalk in Old Havana.
The Trump administration has effectively blockaded oil shipments to Cuba — including the Venezuelan crude that had kept the island’s wrecked economy afloat, but which Washington now controls after last month’s U.S. military capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
No one knows for sure how many months of fuel Cuba has left in the meantime — or how long its regime can hold on as a result. But, while that revolution has escaped staggering crises in the past, its demise now could actually be less a question of if than of when.
We expect a Marxist dictatorship to make its citizens take on more suffering so it can survive. But America’s message shouldn’t be that heartless.
Even so, last week Díaz-Canel revealed that “when” could last long enough to reduce the 9 million people remaining in Cuba to something like an apocalypse survivors’ existence.
“We’ll overcome this tough time,” the Cuban presidente said, “with creative resistance.”
Legendary resourcefulness
It was an absurd remark, because days-long blackouts are common across Cuba today, and even staples like chicken are harder to find than Pheasant Under Glass. Cubanos don’t have any more “creative resistance” — or resolver, as their legendary resourcefulness is called — left to summon.
They perhaps might if the regime dropped its dogmatic madness and, say, took the handcuffs off the island’s fledgling but promising private sector, or conceded a human right or two.
But, per the old saying about Cuba’s leadership, it never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity — as when former President Barack Obama opened the door to improved U.S.-Cuba relations a decade ago, and the regime all but slammed it back in his face.
Minorkys Hoyos Ruiz lights coals to cook dinner during a scheduled blackout to ration energy in Santa Cruz del Norte, home to one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants, on Feb. 3, 2026. (8640x5760, AR: 1.5)
That was really smart, comandantes — because now President Donald Trump, right or wrong, has slammed it back in yours.
Díaz-Canel did offer "dialogue" with Trump. But he also made it clear the regime will relinquish its Marxist grip on power later than sooner — later than Trump’s administration is forecasting, anyway — while ordering Cuba’s people to “creatively” tighten their belts around their starved rib cages.
Which is precisely why the press conference in Miami the week before felt equally cold-blooded.
At that gathering, Republican Miami Congressmen Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart called on the Trump administration to cut off not just oil to Cuba but U.S. flights and cash remittances there, in order to hasten the regime’s collapse.
This on top of the 64-year-old U.S economic embargo against Cuba.
The oil blockade seems to have taken care of the halt to flights, since Cuba can no longer reliably refuel them.
But blocking the billions of dollars in remittances that more than half of the island’s population receive from the diaspora — and which usually mean the difference between living and subsisting — is an inordinately cruel demand under the present circumstances.
“The regime is a cancer,” said Gimenez, an exile who claims he’s never sent "one penny" into communist Cuba, “and the way you cure cancer, sometimes the cure is painful, but it works.”
Gimenez complains the regime takes a cut of the remittances. But, especially now, that fee seems hardly large enough to keep the regime robust and therefore justify withholding the money from Cuban families — who don’t deserve to be treated like a cancer themselves, Congressman.
Too many Miami exiles share Gimenez’s — and the regime’s — zero-sum zealotry when it comes to Cuba politics. That mindset risks an even greater humanitarian catastrophe on the island.
It’s what we expect from a Marxist dictatorship.
But America’s message shouldn’t be that heartless.
You could call the current moment in Cuba a tale of two press conferences — two callous press conferences — one here in Miami on Jan. 29 and the other on Feb. 5 in Havana.
The message in Havana: ordinary Cubans must accept more pain.
The message from Miami: ordinary Cubans must accept more pain.
Together, they project how little both the Cuban communist regime and the Cuban exile leadership seem to be taking into account just how much worse the average Cuban person stands to suffer in the months ahead — as 67 years of disastrous Cuban dictatorship may come to an end.
READ MORE: Now, as always, Cuban politics matter more than Cuban people
Let’s start with last week’s presser, when Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, with what looked liked a dazed face, put his delusional spin on the reality that the U.S. has him and his government painted into a corner tighter than a sidewalk in Old Havana.
The Trump administration has effectively blockaded oil shipments to Cuba — including the Venezuelan crude that had kept the island’s wrecked economy afloat, but which Washington now controls after last month’s U.S. military capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.
No one knows for sure how many months of fuel Cuba has left in the meantime — or how long its regime can hold on as a result. But, while that revolution has escaped staggering crises in the past, its demise now could actually be less a question of if than of when.
We expect a Marxist dictatorship to make its citizens take on more suffering so it can survive. But America’s message shouldn’t be that heartless.
Even so, last week Díaz-Canel revealed that “when” could last long enough to reduce the 9 million people remaining in Cuba to something like an apocalypse survivors’ existence.
“We’ll overcome this tough time,” the Cuban presidente said, “with creative resistance.”
Legendary resourcefulness
It was an absurd remark, because days-long blackouts are common across Cuba today, and even staples like chicken are harder to find than Pheasant Under Glass. Cubanos don’t have any more “creative resistance” — or resolver, as their legendary resourcefulness is called — left to summon.
They perhaps might if the regime dropped its dogmatic madness and, say, took the handcuffs off the island’s fledgling but promising private sector, or conceded a human right or two.
But, per the old saying about Cuba’s leadership, it never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity — as when former President Barack Obama opened the door to improved U.S.-Cuba relations a decade ago, and the regime all but slammed it back in his face.
Minorkys Hoyos Ruiz lights coals to cook dinner during a scheduled blackout to ration energy in Santa Cruz del Norte, home to one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants, on Feb. 3, 2026. (8640x5760, AR: 1.5)
That was really smart, comandantes — because now President Donald Trump, right or wrong, has slammed it back in yours.
Díaz-Canel did offer "dialogue" with Trump. But he also made it clear the regime will relinquish its Marxist grip on power later than sooner — later than Trump’s administration is forecasting, anyway — while ordering Cuba’s people to “creatively” tighten their belts around their starved rib cages.
Which is precisely why the press conference in Miami the week before felt equally cold-blooded.
At that gathering, Republican Miami Congressmen Carlos Gimenez and Mario Diaz-Balart called on the Trump administration to cut off not just oil to Cuba but U.S. flights and cash remittances there, in order to hasten the regime’s collapse.
This on top of the 64-year-old U.S economic embargo against Cuba.
The oil blockade seems to have taken care of the halt to flights, since Cuba can no longer reliably refuel them.
But blocking the billions of dollars in remittances that more than half of the island’s population receive from the diaspora — and which usually mean the difference between living and subsisting — is an inordinately cruel demand under the present circumstances.
“The regime is a cancer,” said Gimenez, an exile who claims he’s never sent "one penny" into communist Cuba, “and the way you cure cancer, sometimes the cure is painful, but it works.”
Gimenez complains the regime takes a cut of the remittances. But, especially now, that fee seems hardly large enough to keep the regime robust and therefore justify withholding the money from Cuban families — who don’t deserve to be treated like a cancer themselves, Congressman.
Too many Miami exiles share Gimenez’s — and the regime’s — zero-sum zealotry when it comes to Cuba politics. That mindset risks an even greater humanitarian catastrophe on the island.
It’s what we expect from a Marxist dictatorship.
But America’s message shouldn’t be that heartless.