00:00Joining us from Havana is Patrick Oppenheese, CNN's Havana bureau chief. Patrick, so much.
00:05We're so excited to have you because we've been fascinated by this topic for quite a few weeks
00:09and we know that you've got some massive expertise. And I want to start with the politics of it all.
00:15I mean, what is the goal here? The U.S. has said it's putting pressure on the Cuban government,
00:20but pressure to do what? Is it clear what steps the government in Havana can take to appease
00:27President Trump or has that not been made clear? So there are talks going on. Both sides have said
00:32the talks haven't progressed very far. And essentially what the Trump administration has
00:38said here is that this island needs to open up politically, economically, and it needs to allow
00:42Cuban exiles who made them left 60 plus years ago to come back and be able to invest openly in
00:48their
00:49country, not have to go through the government, which is how in a communist state like this one,
00:53doing business here typically works. So they're trying to force a political opening. It's still
00:58ruled by the Communist Party and they call the shots. Other political parties are illegal.
01:04Obviously, the Trump administration would like to see that change. But really, it's this economic
01:07opening that the government here maintains a stranglehold on the economy and the Trump administration
01:12is simply saying that needs to end or else.
01:16Patrick, talk about the efficacy of that stranglehold. And I just want you to do that from your firsthand
01:20experience. Wonderful to talk to you via Zoom over the Internet. But we know that getting
01:26power across the island has become a rarer and rarer thing, that there are huge difficulties
01:30here on that island just in terms of living one's life. Speak from experience here. How
01:35has your life changed over the last couple of months as the U.S. has really tightened this
01:39vice on the island of Cuba?
01:41Well, obviously, as a foreign journalist living here, I live better than anyone who's not named
01:45Castro on this island. And my neighbor is in a blackout at the moment. I have solar panels.
01:49That's very lucky. But the blackouts are going so long now that if you have a cloudy day,
01:53the batteries don't charge enough and I'll run out of power. There is absolutely no gas
01:57thing to be had. A few weeks ago, you get it for about $300 a tank, you know, $9 a
02:02liter,
02:03more or less. So, you know, if you think it's expensive in the U.S., that was a couple weeks
02:07ago. Now you just can't find it for love or money. And then it's really complicating life.
02:12So people are using more bicycles on the road. People are switching to electric vehicles,
02:16of course, when they can charge them. But the blackouts is what's really crushing people here
02:20because they are lasting 20 hours a day in the provinces outside of Nevada, sometimes more.
02:26And you never know when the power is going to go off, when it's going to come back on,
02:30and how long it's going to stay on for.
02:32Patrick, I was there right after the embargo was temporarily lifted during the Obama administration.
02:36And it was kind of a golden time because, you know, the sanctions had lessened.
02:41There was a lot of international tourism. It was easier to fly. We flew a charter from Miami to
02:46Santa Clarita. But it was still difficult. I mean, and Cubans are legendarily resilient,
02:52right? That's why they have those cars that everybody knows because they've been fixing
02:55them for decades. And I remember power shut off all the time. But to your point,
02:59there were still generators and there were still gas generators. What does this mean long term? I mean,
03:05I know the Trump administration is hoping that that will pressure the people to, I don't know,
03:08rise up and take action. But it seems to me when you are so beleaguered and trying just to survive
03:14day-to-day, political upheaval is maybe not within your bandwidth to deal with at that time.
03:20People are incredibly resilient here. You're so correct. They are the most creative people I've
03:25ever met in my life. There are limits to creativity. There are limits to resilience. People are exhausted.
03:30They're beat down. Before, it was a full-time job just being able to put food on your table here.
03:34And now it's impossible. Of course, we're talking about blackouts that last so long. The food begins
03:38to spoil in your fridge, your freezers frost. And so that is very, very hard for people. And that's
03:45why I've seen people going out and protesting at night with pots and pans, banging on them,
03:49trying to get the government to turn on the little power that there is. It's completely unlikely and,
03:56frankly, impossible to imagine that people here could rise up and overthrow the government.
04:01The government has troops, the guns, the power of the gasoline for the police cars. And so they've
04:08crushed protests here in the past. We've seen that happen. And right now, they're sort of allowing
04:13protests to take place, or they're not able to fully crush them. But if they get out of control,
04:19if they become more widespread, the government has said that will not continue. So if that's the plan,
04:23I don't think it's going to work. What we've heard the Trump administration say is that if this is a
04:29collapsed state, then the U.S. will have to step in. So it seems to be pushing the economy to
04:34the
04:34brink. But of course, that could lead to a humanitarian collapse, a humanitarian crisis,
04:39just 90 miles from U.S. shores.
04:41And power vacuums are inherently unpredictable. Yeah.
04:44Patrick, let me ask you just about what happens next. And we've seen kind of military might
04:48marshaled by the U.S. close to Cuba. So that threat is there. Secretary of State was on Capitol Hill
04:53this week, was kind of vague about what the next steps might be when it comes to military action and
04:57other steps that the U.S. might take. How are you, how are Cubans thinking through what might happen
05:02next year? We started off by talking about what happened in Venezuela. And I'm curious how much that
05:05is something that's resonant, yes, with the Cuban people, but with Cuban leadership as well.
05:11The government here is handling out weapons to citizens, telling them to prepare for an invasion.
05:15In our building, where we have our senior offices, one of the building managers, it's a building
05:20that's owned by the government, like all buildings in this country. And they came by and said,
05:23will you be needing your office during the invasion? And of course, you know, what do you say? But we
05:27would need it. So that's what we said, we're a userization. So the government is telling people
05:32to have a plan to get ready. And that is profoundly troubling for people. There were, of course,
05:36Cuban troops secretly in Venezuela when that invasion took place and that limited strike to get out
05:42Nicolas Maduro. And so 30-some Cuban troops died. This is a country where everyone's kind of lived with
05:48this threat. Some people stopped taking it seriously, you know, years ago that the U.S.
05:52can invade at any point. I think people are taking it seriously now. Some Cubans say they actually
05:58just wanted this to be over with one way or the other, that to have this continue on, you know,
06:03a lot of this has to do with the government's own missteps. Yes, the oil blockade has made life all
06:07but impossible on this island. And the sanctions the Trump administration has continued to place on
06:12this island over the last several weeks and months. But of course, you know, the government
06:17has to import most of the food to this island. They don't grow nearly enough food to feed their
06:22own people. They're importing sugar. They didn't invest in these power plants going back years.
06:27You know, they could have pivoted towards solar and wind energy a long time ago. They didn't do that.
06:32So I think a lot of times people actually blame the Cuban government for how difficult their life is to
06:38make sure.
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