Politically Unstable: The truth about the crisis in Cuba

Video

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

OPINION:

Cuba is in crisis. Between America’s involvement in Latin America by removing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to the oil embargo President Trump has placed on Cuba, the Cuban regime is feeling the heat.

On Politically Unstable, Washington Times Commentary Editor Kelly Sadler is joined by Gelet Martinez Fragela, the editor of ADN Cuba, which is a news platform tracking human rights in Latin America. Tune in now to hear more about the situation in Cuba, and what could come next for the island nation.

[SADLER] I appreciate you joining because there’s a lot of movement in the Western Hemisphere by the Trump administration. They, as we all know, removed Maduro, arrested Maduro in Venezuela through a military operation, where he’s going to serve trial in the United States. But Cuba is very much dependent on Venezuelan oil to keep its economy going. And we know that when Maduro was captured, his security team consisted of Cubans who lost their lives.

Right now, what is the current situation in Cuba? Being so heavily reliant on Venezuela, we know what the comments Marco Rubio has made, the Secretary of State, that the regime is corrupt, it’s incompetent, and, you know, he’s for a long time been a supporter of Cuba and the people there and wanting to break the neck of the Cuban communist stranglehold that is the government right now. What can you tell us? What are you hearing and what can you tell us?

[FRAGELA] The situation in Cuba is really dramatic. Cuba is a parasitic state, meaning they need to extract resources from another country in order to survive, because they’re completely unsustainable economically and ideologically. So they repress people constantly, independent media, activists, even religious leaders, because they cannot expose themselves to criticism, because their ideas are unsustainable. They simply don’t work.

And that also is an example of the economic situation in Cuba. Cuba is living one of the worst crises in decades, a shortage of fuel, electricity, food, medicine, hospitals that are collapsing. If you look at the pictures in Havana right now, they’re extremely crushing the garbage. Like, literally, garbage is in the streets of Havana because they don’t even know how to collect garbage. One of the most beautiful cities in Latin America, and they have completely destroyed it. So I think these are very important moments for our community. We have been waiting for a long time for the United States to re-engage in the region and take decisive action against the Cuban regime.

We have been saying for a long time that the Cuban regime has basically colonized Venezuela. It had completely co-opted Venezuela at all levels of the government, the military intelligence and communications, in providing all of this security to Maduro in exchange of oil. And they are a national security threat. Not because they’re going to do a land invasion in the United States, of course, but because they have become a hub in order to finance themselves. I hope for Iran to penetrate America, a hub for Hezbollah, for other terrorist groups that are in the island right now. I research that aspect a lot. And also for China, for Russia, for espionage bases. They have been training radical activists in the U.S. with total impunity for years.

[SADLER] You wrote a column for us talking about when things were stable, when the regime is stable, it’s quiet in cracking down on its dissidents and activists, but when things are unstable like they currently are right now, they’re very loud about it. And can you tell us the story of Mike the Hammer and why it’s significant right now?

[FRAGELA] Mike Hammer is the Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy in Havana. And he has become an unexpected symbol in Cuba. It’s probably the most popular person right now there inside the island. He has really won the hearts and minds of the Cuban people because he has been going house by house throughout the entire island, visiting dissidents, activists, religious leaders. And the regime has noticed that.

And this weekend, after President Trump declared a national emergency because of Cuba, after he put in place tariff on anyone, anyone sending oil to Cuba, and that was obviously a direct message for Mexico, because Mexico has been filling the gap of Venezuela after Venezuela decreases shipments of oil to Cuba. So immediately they became very anxious. And when they’re anxious, when they’re very nervous, they send this very loud message, and they did. They sent a mob of members of the Communist Party when Mr. Hammers was arriving in Camaguey, actually my hometown. He was visiting some members of the Catholic Church there. And they sent them off to do what in Cuba we call repudiation acts. And these are mobs of the Communist Party or the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which has neighborhood vigilantes in every block that belong to the party, and they would go to your house.

If you were a dissident, if you were trying to escape the island, they would throw rocks at you, and eggs — when they had eggs. Now we have nothing. They would chant, insult people. It was a very violent mob.