Garbage Piles Up in Havana as Trump Says Rubio is Talking to Cuba

I don't know if the phrase "humanitarian threat" was the one Trump wanted to use here but he's correct that the danger for Cuba is that a humanitarian crisis is already starting and could get much worse if the country doesn't show some flexibility very soon. Already, there are reports that trash is piling up in Havana because garbage trucks don't have any fuel.

Garbage has begun to pile up on street corners in the Cuban capital of Havana, attracting hordes of flies and reeking of rotten food, in ‌one of the most visible impacts of the U.S. bid to prevent oil from ‌reaching the Caribbean's largest island.

State-run news outlet Cubadebate reported this month that only 44 of Havana's 106 rubbish trucks were able to keep operating due to fuel shortages, slowing garbage collection...

"It's all ‌over the city," said Jose Ramon ⁠Cruz, a local resident. "It's been more than 10 days since a garbage truck came."

In other towns on the island - home to around 11 million people - residents took ⁠to social media to warn of the risks to public health.

There is a big risk to public health because Cuba is a tropical island and uncollected trash will result in the breeding of rats and mosquitoes that could spread serious diseases by contaminating food and water supplies. Reuters published this video showing the garbage collecting on street corners.

Cuba's fuel crisis has become a waste crisis as many garbage trucks don't have enough gas to pick up rubbish which is piling up on Havana’s street corners https://t.co/AQ50L5j9KG pic.twitter.com/3BhugSOcJJ

— Reuters (@Reuters) February 16, 2026

And this is just the most visible problem the island is facing. As the supply of electricity continues to dwindle, people are relying on wood and coal to cook food. Despite this, the communist regime continues to pretend they can outlast this.

The prices of food and gas have skyrocketed seemingly overnight: a package of chicken now costs a month’s salary, 5,000 pesos, and a liter of gasoline up to 3,800. Two thirds of the country was without electricity at peak demand last week, and daily electricity cuts averaged more than 20 hours in many provinces.

...despite the increasing external and internal pressure to reform the island’s hardline Marxist economy, Cuban leaders have vowed to resist and have passed another round of severe austerity measures for the population to endure while denying that the country is about to collapse.

“I believe that the Cuban regime right now is in the classic phase of denial,” said Sebastian Arcos, the interim director of Florida International University’s Cuba Research Institute, in a recent event discussing the situation on the island. “They cannot accept that the strategic situation has changed and that things are different, and they’re not going back to what they used to be. This is the first stage of grief.”...

That Cuban leaders are willing “to drown an entire people in the name of an ideology proves they are fanatics,” said a source in communication with Cuban officials who asked for anonymity to discuss the interactions. “Every day that passes, they sink deeper into a hole,” the person said, noting that the country’s economy is practically paralyzed. “The damage from zero tourism is enormous.”...

“Reform and overcome the crisis, or not reform and collapse — that is the Cuban dilemma,” reads the title of a piece penned by Carlos Alzugaray, a retired Cuban diplomat who lives on the island and has for years push for the Cuban government to adopt a Chinese-style, market-oriented economic model. Alzugaray criticized Cuba’s handpicked leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, for not announcing major reforms at a recent press conference in which he instead called for more sacrifice.

The communist leaders will have food to eat and their garbage will be taken away. You can count on that. It's everyone else that is going to suffer for their commitment to the revolution.

Finally, here's what Marco Rubio had to say about Cuba on Saturday.

Rubio on Cuba:

The fundamental problem Cuba has is that it has no economy, and the people who are in charge of that country and in control of it don’t know how to improve the everyday lives of their people without giving up power over the sectors they control.

They want to… pic.twitter.com/reIGKXetq2

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) February 14, 2026