Juan Forero

Well, Cuba relies on Venezuela more than any other country in the world.

Back in the day, when Venezuela was in much better economic shape, it used to ship more than 100,000 barrels a day in cut rate oil, which is just a huge amount.

Cuba would sell some of that on the spot market, and then it would use the rest to keep its economy working.

Now, because Venezuela has over the last decade or so almost suffered an economic collapse, the amount of oil going to Cuba has also fallen dramatically.

And that means that Cuba is going through long and protracted blackouts in some parts of the country.

The lights are off for 18, 20 hours a day.

I think Cuba is entering into a period it hasn't experienced before in exactly the same way.

We're seeing a lot of hunger in Cuba.

We're seeing people suffering from diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

There's a lot of garbage in the streets, people there tell us.

So it's a really prolonged and deep economic crisis.

You hear Cuban officials from the president on down talk about how the problems are severe.

They will openly talk about it, but they won't openly talk about what the solutions are.

So I don't see where there is much of a change in Cuba because it is a hardline communist regime.

And this is not a government that has shown that it is open to change.

Yeah, the migration numbers are just startling.

One highly regarded Havana-based demographer told us that more than 2.7 million people had fled the island since 2020.

Now, that's a quarter of the island's population.

And we have to keep in mind that those are people who are young.

They're ambitious.