Cuba’s subsistence economy, especially critical after the oil blockade to the island ordered by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is putting Spanish companies in serious trouble, both large (airlines and hotel companies) and SMEs, which have been forced to reduce or reformulate their operations in the country.
Spanish businessmen working on the island consulted by EFE confirm the difficulties in operating and collecting, especially after the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by the United States on January 3, and the fact that the United States decreed the end of oil exports to Cuba from Venezuela, which sends 30% of what the island needs, and threatened with tariffs on those who supplied crude oil to Havana.
This week has been especially complicated in the Caribbean country, with new announcements of flight cancellations, blackouts that left 64% of the island without power, fuel rationing and a weight at historic lows.
“It’s going to get worse.” Transportation crisis after the oil blockade of Cuba
Difficult to work and get paid
With this panorama it has become even more difficult to work, says a Spanish businessman who has been in the country for more than two decades and who prefers, like many of his colleagues, not to give his name “so as not to complicate things even more.”
The only business association authorized on the island, which brings together some 150 Spanish businessmen, also prefers not to give statements.
Business sources highlight that the business climate on the island is complex and they constantly update their contingency plans in the face of an uncertain future, which is well reflected in the decline in tourism, with hotel occupancy rates of just 20%, compared to the 70-75% that the sector considers positive.
Spanish interests are concentrated mainly in the tourism sector, which has plummeted. While Barack Obama’s thaw reached 4.7 million tourists, in 2025 there were only 1.8 million.
With the latest figures from the Spanish Ministry of Economy, until the middle of last year there were about 10 administration contracts managed by Spanish chains, which accumulate about 30 thousand rooms, most of them in four and five star hotels.
Meliá has closed three of its 35 hotels, all of them under management, due, according to hotel company sources, to an operational decision “based strictly on occupancy levels” and the need to adapt to current supply limitations.
Iberostar has closed two of its hotels and at the beginning of this year the Minor hotel chain decided to stop operating the two hotels it manages in Havana under the NH brand.
Also the airlines
Oil supply difficulties have also reached the airlines: the Cuban authorities informed the companies last Sunday through a ‘notam’ (notice in aeronautical slang) of the lack of fuel at the country’s nine airports.
Four airlines from Canada – the first source of tourists to Cuba (more than 40%) – and two Russian airlines (Rossiya and Nordwind) have decided to suspend flights to the country.
The Spanish companies Iberia, Air Europa and World 2 Fly have chosen to maintain their connections, but stop on the way back from Havana to Madrid to refuel in Santo Domingo.
Spain’s commercial exposure in Cuba is limited: exports only account for 0.18% of the total and the balance is favorable to Spain, with a surplus between January and November 2025 of 534 million.
Last year, Spain sold 636 million to Cuba (in the absence of December data), 13.1% less than in those months of 2024, and imported 102 million, 0.6% more than a year before, especially cigars and rum.
