In a new note from Zoltan Pozsar's advisory firm, Ex Uno Plures, he explained that the Trump administration is "methodically building a portfolio of assets" to pressure China, centered on strategic energy supply nodes and maritime chokepoints that have historically supported Beijing's cheap crude imports. His note highlights the Panama Canal, Venezuelan oil flows, and the broader significance of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Taking it a step further, Cuba could eventually be folded into that same strategic portfolio if the communist regime in Havana falls.
The world is being carved up as unipolarity is dead, and a fracturing world gives way to a reality in which everything is up for grabs. Russian President Vladimir Putin understood this during the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Trump's crusade across the Americas, from securing the Western Hemisphere to influencing political regime shifts in the region from left-wing to right-wing, has been well understood by Havana's communists amid Washington's maximum-pressure campaign to starve the island of crude imports. Havana looked on in disbelief in January when Trump's Delta Force operators captured socialist leader Nicolás Maduro.
Now, with the Trump administration rewriting global energy flows, as Pozsar noted, this is all about pressuring China after its rare-earth trade-restriction stunt last year amid the tit-for-tat trade war. The administration wants to add Iran's Kharg Island and the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint to that strategic portfolio.
Havana understands its fate, and the communist regime could be in its final weeks or months, as diesel fuel supplies are being depleted and the power blackout crisis spreads island-wide.
Except for far-left US nonprofits that arrived on the communist island earlier this weekend, with some flying first class and staying in lavish hotels with diesel-powered backup generators. Why America's left wing weirdly gravitates toward communists in Havana is likely a question the State Department and U.S. Treasury have been asking. We have already provided answers (here).
White U.S. liberals in Cuba are partying while the nation is starving.
With that being said, and with Havana on life support, after multiple attempts from Mexico and Russia to deliver fuel via tankers to save the regime from collapse and buy it more time, Cuba's deputy foreign minister warned Sunday about the very real possibility of US military action.
"Our military is always prepared," Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernandez de Cossio told NBC's Meet the Press earlier this morning.
De Cossio continued: "And in fact, it is preparing these days for the possibility of military aggression. We would be naive if, looking at what's happening around the world, we did not do that. But we truly hope that it doesn't occur."
Cuba "is open for business," De Cossio said, adding that political change dictated by the US is off the table.
"The nature of the Cuban government, the structure of the Cuban government, and the members of the Cuban government are not part of the negotiation," he told NBC.
Cuba "is not in a state of collapse," he said. "We're being as creative as possible."
Meanwhile...
Recently, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel was forced to acknowledge on state television that negotiations with the Trump administration were taking place and were aimed at "finding solutions through dialogue" to longstanding bilateral differences between the two neighboring countries.
Back to Pozsar's note about Trump building a "portfolio of assets" to squeeze China, we suspect Cuba will be added to that list.