In Conversation with BU Today: Hare on the Crisis Linking Cuba and Venezuela
In a recent interview with BU Today, Paul Webster Hare, former British ambassador to Cuba and a master lecturer at the Pardee School of Global Studies, emphasized that current tensions between the United States, Cuba, and Venezuela cannot be viewed in isolation. “You can’t just talk about the US and Cuba without talking about what’s happened with Venezuela,” Hare explains, noting that the two Latin American countries “have become indissolubly linked since about 2002.” His decades of diplomatic experience in both nations shape his analysis of the deepening economic crisis in Cuba and Washington’s increasingly hardline approach.
Hare traces Cuba’s current challenges to the collapse of Venezuelan support; economic lifelines once sustained by the close partnership forged under Hugo Chávez and continued by Nicolás Maduro. With the United States imposing sweeping sanctions, blocking oil deliveries, and pursuing criminal charges against Maduro, Cuba has lost its primary external source of subsidized fuel and financial assistance. The result, Hare warns, is the island’s worst economic and social crisis since the “special period” that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Shortages of food, gasoline, and basic medicines have become widespread. “The economy is on the brink of collapse,” he says, noting that ordinary Cubans must now pay for most necessities in U.S. dollars.
Unlike the 1990s, however, Cuba today has fewer options for recovery. Fidel Castro responded to the earlier crisis by courting investment from Europe and Canada and expanding tourism, but the current geopolitical climate offers no comparable opportunities. Left-leaning governments in Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia may be sympathetic, but Hare believes they will resist U.S. attempts to prohibit them from sending oil to Cuba. Yet even if those partners step in, Havana faces a population increasingly choosing to leave the island rather than push for change. Hare notes that “anybody under 40” sees emigration as their primary future, while the elderly rely on what remains of the country’s social welfare system. With no organized opposition and little appetite for mass protest, he expects “more and more hardship” rather than political transformation. He went on to say,
Neither side wants a humanitarian disaster, with thousands of Cubans fleeing, on tires and makeshift boats as they used to do, if the situation becomes much worse. This is why it’s so important in my view that Trump adopts a much more proactive attitude to Cubans than he has for Venezuelans.
Still, Hare sees openings for renewal if the United States adopts a different posture. He recalls that President Obama’s 2014 normalization initiative acknowledged that decades of regime-change policies had failed. Today, younger Cuban Americans who maintain close, digital ties with family on the island may be more flexible and supportive of engagement. Should relations improve, Hare envisions enormous economic potential in tourism, agriculture, and infrastructure. “There’s only one 18-hole golf course in all of Cuba,” he points out, contrasting it with the Dominican Republic’s dozens. Revitalizing energy, communications, and agricultural sectors could form the basis of a sustainable recovery.
Looking ahead, Hare argues that a bold U.S. strategy, what he calls “a sort of Marshall Plan for Cuba”, could stabilize the island and rebuild long-severed relationships. Such an approach would involve cooperation with regional partners like Brazil and Mexico and invite new foreign investment to support Cuba’s transition into a self‑sustaining economy. After nearly seven decades of adversarial relations, Hare believes renewed U.S. engagement could offer Cubans a viable path beyond the current crisis and reshape the future of Caribbean geopolitics.
The full interview can be read here.
Paul Webster Hare is a master lecturer at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies. He served as British Ambassador to Cuba from 2001 to 2004 and also represented the U.K. to the European Union in Brussels, New York, Portugal, and Venezuela as deputy head of mission. Hare has extensively written about Cuba for renowned news outlets including The Financial Times, The Atlantic, Newsweek, and The Huffington Post. He is also the co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Diplomatic Reform and Innovation, which analyzes current practices of diplomacy and proposes practical solutions to improve diplomatic outcomes.