After the US attack on Venezuela, will Cuba’s economy survive?

Havana, Cuba – “I person 2 bits of quality for you: 1 bully and 1 bad.”

Those were the archetypal words Elena Garcia, a 28-year-old web designer, heard erstwhile she woke up connected the greeting of January 3, hours aft a United States subject cognition abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

“The bully quality is that the h2o has arrived,” her fellow continued. “The atrocious quality is that they kidnapped Maduro, and that means that this twelvemonth we volition surely person blackouts.”

Supply shortages are endemic passim overmuch of Cuba. In Villa Panamericana, the neighbourhood successful Havana wherever Garcia lives, deliveries of caller h2o had not arrived for a week.

Still, compared to the remainder of the city, the neighbourhood is comparatively privileged: It suffers from less powerfulness outages than different areas.

But until this month, Cuba has been capable to trust connected Venezuela for support, including done shipments of the substance needed to tally its electrical grid.

That changed connected January 3. With Maduro's ouster, Cuba risks losing 1 of its closest allies successful the Western Hemisphere.

By January 11, US President Donald Trump announced Venezuela would nary longer proviso Cuba with lipid oregon money.

The menace of ending Venezuela's enactment is expected to further devastate the Cuban system — and perchance trigger unrest.

So far, since the US onslaught connected Venezuela, the streets of Havana person been calm, and the Cuban authorities has pledged to support ties with Venezuela.

By contrast, debates are raging connected societal media astir what volition travel next, arsenic the US flexes its might.

“There are radical who fearfulness an penetration and radical who are calling for one,” said Amanda Terrero, 28, a communications prof astatine the University of Havana.

She explained that the state is gripped with uncertainty astir what the aboriginal holds.

“People are adjacent making contingency plans to permission the country," she said.