Venezuela isn't sending oil to Cuba, Mexico may but is not currently sending oil, last shipment of oil was earlier this month and in a small quantity, island may have 15-20 days of reserves left, and now US imposes an oil blockade on the island. If China is going to step in, it would have to be now

First heard about Cuban Studies Journal as an undergrad and honestly never even thought to imagine publishing in it, so it's a surreal feeling to see my name in its table of contents

In late 2025, Cuba's main two sources of oil were Venezuela and Mexico, who combined still supplied far less than the island needed, leading to 20+ hour a day blackouts on most of the island In less than a month Cuba has lost both. Unclear what reserves remain www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

US is considering replicating the naval blockade part of its Venezuela strategy but against Cuba; the island country produces almost no oil of its own and solar panel transition is still tiny fraction of consumption. Also, truck transportation of food and water 🗝️ www.reuters.com/business/ene...

WSJ scoop confirms what many surmised: Cuba is next after Venezuela, with regime change strategies already under way www.wsj.com/world/americ...

One of my favorite historians is Fernand Braudel, made deservedly famous for his massive two-volume history of the Mediterranean world in the 16th century. Had always known he wrote initial draft while a POW during WWII. Just found out he was held prisoner here in Mainz.

Wrote a quick response to the hypothesis being promoted by Timothy Snyder re: Cuban government complicity in Maduro's capture; basically, seems unlikely unless new significant evidence comes to light pertierra.substack.com/p/think-hors...

Most absurd *possible* result of recent events: -Chavismo sans Maduro survives indefinitely in power -Maduro gets acquitted on a legal technicality or wins outright because US case against him was made poorly -Trump makes oil companies invest but they lose tons of $$$

Another potentially interesting bit of news re: Maduro extraction by US special forces. Cuba is officially confirming 32 dead, between military and intelligence officials, as a result of the strike. This may be linked to claim that he had personal Cuban bodyguards www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Important words of wisdom from the incomparable Thomas Mann for these troubled times

Something that this has me thinking about is Cuba in the 1950s. Fidel Castro thought the Directorio's plan to assassinate Batista was a major strategic mistake precisely because it might succeed. He thought anti-Batista sentiment was unifying, a replacement would dull consensus

No matter how dumb things seem, they can apparently always be dumber: "Mr. Maduro's regular public dancing and other displays of nonchalance in recent weeks helped persuade some on the Trump team that the Venezuelan president was mocking them and trying to call what he believed to be a bluff"

Since I posted this Trump has -announced that he plans to directly administer (and seemingly occupy?) Venezuela and use Venezuelan oil to cancel out the costs -put down MCM despite her being the clearest opposition candidate with a democratic mandate, saying she isn't respected enough A buffoon

The evening of Feb 24, 2022 featured Russian special forces units randomly shooting civilian vehicles and getting in firefights with TDF inside Kyiv as they were attempting to find and kill Zelensky

Maduro is gone but the rest of the Venezuelan government is right there, so it's unclear whether this will trigger actual regime change. Also not sure how this will play out re: internal Chavista power struggles (the VP is alive and well but out of the country atm). No idea what comes next.

Did a short post on my Substack about my favorite reads in 2025. pertierra.substack.com/p/favorite-2...

Great read by my friend:

Wrote a short piece over on my Substack on how Cuba fits into the Trump administration's new blockade policy against Venezuelan oil tankers. pertierra.substack.com/p/two-birds-...

It was already really fun to play Pentiment when it came out but I appreciate it even more now that I'm replaying it while being in Germany I thought Mama Perchta was either made up for the game or a bit of obscure esoterica from Medieval beliefs; people still talk about her!

Former Cuban Minister of the Economy, Alejandro Gil, has been found guilty in closed door trial of espionage and corruption; he will be the highest ranking official that I am aware of to face such serious charges since Ochoa Affair back in 1989

It has come to my attention that Tolkien's elven languages are declension based, with Quenya having 10, which makes the fact that some people learn to speak/write in these languages for nothing more than the love of the game and bragging rights all the more impressive (if a bit masochistic)

Something that happens surprisingly often in post-1959 Cuba is Fidel accusing someone of being CIA or of plotting against his gov only for the gov to quietly walk this back later because it is unfounded Here is the Cuban message to Spain following the 1960 Lojendio Affair

Cited in this piece in Austrian publication Profil re: escalating US-Venezuela crisis, specifically in the section on Cuban dimension www.profil.at/ausland/was-...

Re: this bit of the Axios story saying that Maduro is scared to leave because he thinks his Cuban 'handlers' will execute him. This... feels unconvincing on its face, and the fact that it is coming from 'US officials' rather than any Venezuelan source makes me even more cautious

Earlier this year a bunch of foreign companies had their bank accounts frozen indefinitely; they cannot take their money out of Cuba. This measure has now been extended not only to foreign companies generally but even embassy bank accounts. Unclear when/if money will be back t.co/RU4xqvdYji

Today is the anniversary of Franco's death, which feels like a good excuse to share the story of when Communist Cuba decreed 3 days of official mourning for Spain's anti-Communist caudillo 🧵

I've never felt more 'Latin' culturally than being in Germany where I have to constantly explain to people that joking around and being absurdist or exaggerated is just a sign of affection and intimacy and not a dig at them or whatever

Cuba made headlines for 1/10 (10%) leaving the island, then again for 1/5 (20%), but now as many as 1/4 (25%) have left and many who remain are just trying to figure out how to get out. Insane. Unprecedented. Depressing as hell. www.economist.com/the-americas...

Nobody is beyond redemption but I genuinely do not understand how you can carry on an affair with someone you are covering as a journalist, fail to disclose it, get exposed, and then get another job.

The more I learn about Cuba holding the Panamerican games in 1991 the more surreal it is. The country is going bankrupt and preparing for total economic collapse, but spend a ton of hard currency and invaluable construction materials that they have to import on a one off stadium

Even if Trump left office tomorrow and someone who was actually capable and interested in bringing back students replaced him, imho a lot of the damage is done. It's reputational. It's about stability and can't be easily fixed. And Americans who were getting subsidized by foreigners will suffer

The latest episode of my podcast on the history of Cuba is now live. This one focuses on the way that our sources and scholarly debates change from the pre-colonial to the early colonial periods, in an attempt to make it accessible. And look! It's short! podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

I'm most of the way through this book on the parallels between cult strategies, political extremism, and 'totalitarian systems'. I think parts of it are helpful but also kind of wary of a lot of the key args

The Soviet fleet was only 12th biggest in the world by 1961 per Oscar Sanchez-Sibony's Red Globalization This recontextualizes, for me, how much of the fleet would be tied up in shipments to Cuba for sugar that the USSR and its allies didn't even need in the 60s

Wrote a short post on the alleged spy scandal in Cuba involving the former Minister of the Economy; probably the highest ranking spy scandal since 1959, *if true* pertierra.substack.com/p/spy-story-...

"It is estimated that from the end of [WWII] until its fall, the Soviet Union offered a total of $68 billion in economic aid, of which about $41 billion had been delivered before the fall; this is about the same as the United States provided Israel alone during the same period."

I knew the economic situation in Bolivia was getting dire, but I didn't realize that despite being an important gas exporter in the 00s and 2010s (the fossil fuel underwriting expanded gov social spending), at present Bolivia is *importing* gas t.co/ueAfEiZxL8

Finally got around to reading this and am about halfway through. Honestly, pretty important book imho. Certainly important for moving past the false idea of capitalist vs socialist world economies in the Cold War and super helpful for understanding how Soviet trade strategy worked

Wrote a short post on the Venezuela-Libya analogies that are going around. pertierra.substack.com/p/the-proble...

NEW EPISODE - The German Democratic Republic The Rise and Fall of a #ColdWar State with @historyned.bsky.social & @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social Listen here 🎧🎧 coldwarconversations.com/episode428/ #eastgermany #GDR #DDR #berlinwall

Finally getting around to reading something more in-depth about Libya. About a quarter of the way through and, honestly, it is making me more skeptical of Libya comparisons for Venezuela rather than more. There's some points of similarity but feels apples to oranges

The former Cuban Minister of the Economy, who was unceremoniously removed from his post without explanation in early 2024, has been accused of corruption and (even bigger news) espionage www.dw.com/es/cuba-acus...

Kind of insane story I came across while reading for the dissertation: Apparently one of the main players of a major Cuban exile terror org defected in the early 1990s, revealing himself to be a double agent for Cuban intelligence, saying they gave him supplies www.nytimes.com/1992/11/11/u...

A rare case of a journalist actually documenting how congresses/parliamentary meetings in Cuba are choreographed theater. This from Oppenheimer's "Castro's Final Hour", on the 1991 Cuban Communist Party Congress, that was set to debate reforms to economy and political system

So excited for this! 4pm today—Hope to see you there!!

"It doesn't make sense to create islands of efficiency such as tourism or biotechnology in an economy that is globally inefficient. We have to be able to invest the proceeds of our showcase industries [...]. Otherwise, we're throwing money into a bottomless barrel." - Cuban official circa 1991

🇨🇺NEW EP🇨🇺 We take on both parts of Steven Soderbergh's epic of revolutions triumphant and disastrous, CHE, with historian of Cuba @andrespertierra.bsky.social! You have no idea how much reading we did for this. Really special episode, check it out! podcastyforme.com

Honestly, even if the Sandinistas had won the 1990 elections, it sounds like they were looking down the barrel of economic collapse anyway bc of hyperinflation combined with the imminent loss of most of its supply of oil from the USSR and Cuba

Reading something else entirely I tripped across Gabriel García Márquez saying, on the record, back in in the early 1990s that he had personally been behind the freeing of over 2k "political prisoners". Gabo isn't exactly a CIA agent or enemy of the Left, so maybe hearing it from him helps ppl

Some quick thoughts on NYT piece that Trump authorized the CIA to act inside Venezuela 1) seems insane he's announcing this before results rather than after 2) unclear what operations will look like, but seems likely to help solidify gov coalition vs foreign attack www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/u...