• Updated

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, center left, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shake hands after an agreedment on the final text of a free trade agreement at Parliament House in Canberra, Tuesday, March 24, 2026, as EU Commissioner for Trade and Economic Security Maros Sefcovic, left, and Australian Minister for Trade, Don Farrell, right, look on. (Lukas Coch/AAP Image via AP)

President Donald Trump this week said he believes he’ll have “the honor of taking Cuba” soon.  Without declaring a formal blockade, Trump and his administration have already crippled trade with the island and threatened the future of the Communist Party regime. In March, supplies of oil, food and other goods to the island collapsed, with no foreign-originating tankers arriving to Cuba, according to shipping data analyzed by Windward, a maritime intelligence firm. The volume of port calls, which includes tankers moving from one Cuban port to another, averaged around 50 per month in 2025 but fell to just 11 in March - all of them arriving from domestic ports. It was the lowest since 2017.