Although Pedro Quiala Carmenate doesn’t consider himself religious, he finds himself turning to prayer, hoping for President Donald Trump to free Cuba from its struggles.
“We lack essential supplies like food, electricity, and healthcare,” he shared with The Post over a phone call from Old Havana, amidst one of the island’s frequent power outages.
Faced with an array of challenges—sporadic electricity, rising crime, uncollected trash, and soaring inflation—the 34-year-old advocate for democracy struggles to secure enough food for his family.
Due to the ongoing food shortages, Quiala has opted to keep his children, aged six and fifteen, out of school. This decision is compounded by the fact that teachers are often absent from the state-run educational institutions.
“Though I am not a believer, I find myself praying to God for Donald Trump. He seems to be our singular hope for liberation,” he expressed.
The U.S. military’s recent capture of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has impacted Cuba in two significant ways. It has halted the flow of oil from Cuba’s primary supplier and has renewed hope among those opposing the Communist regime led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Activist José Daniel Ferrer’s cell phone blew up with messages from fellow activists in Cuba on January 3, the day Maduro was captured.
“I must have gotten 60 messages asking me when the US military would be on their way to Cuba to get rid of Diaz- Canel,” said Ferrer, 55, who leads the a pro-democracy movement and has been repeatedly incarcerated and tortured for his activism over the years.
“The majority of Cubans want the Americans to intervene because they are living through the worst period of the 67-year dictatorship.”
Blackouts and shortages are nothing new in Cuba since Fidel Castro seized power in 1959 in the name of Communism. However, hardships have increased in recent years, leading to a mass exodus of over 800,000 people in each of the last four years. This is equivalent to around 25% of the population, leaving less than eight million on the island, according to The Guardian.
Monthly wages are down to around $19 for a doctor, according to TheNewHumanitarian.org.
Like Quiala Carmenate, many described shortages of fuel, food and medicine as being worse than economic crises during the so-called “Special Period” beginning in 1991 after the crumbling Soviet Union pulled economic support for the island.
Ferrer is founder of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, one of the most active dissident movements. After he was last released from prison, he chose to leave Cuba and has been with his family in exile in Miami since last October.
He said torture and violence have increased against opponents of the regime, claiming there are more than 1,000 political prisoners currently being held.
“It’s the most repressive period that we’ve ever been through,” he said, adding he faced brutal beatings, torture and isolation while in prison.
Speaking at a Shield of the Americas summit in Florida this weekend, Trump promised an intervention.
“As we achieve a historic transformation in Venezuela, we’re also looking forward to the great change that will soon be coming to Cuba,” he said. “They have no money. They have no oil. They have a bad philosophy. They have a bad regime that’s been bad for a long time.”
Quiala Carmenate agreed, saying he suffers from cystic fibrosis and cannot get medication or proper care at the city’s clinics, which are “only set up for the military and government officials.
“The rest of us have to put up with facilities full of flies, rats and cockroaches and with no medicine and often no doctors,” he said.
He now relies on friends and family in Miami to send him money and medications to keep him alive.
As for the blackouts, Quiala Carmenate said there was plenty of fuel in the country, even after the Venezuela supply was cut off. He said the government sells the fuel, which it had been getting for free, to fund its corrupt administration.
Government officials also sell medication and food in US-dollar-only stores on the island, which are off limits to ordinary Cubans.
Ranses Mones Quintero, 32, is part of the 30th of November Revolutionary Movement, also calling for the overthrow of the Cuban government. He lives in Havana and a few years ago, lost his job as a mascot for a local baseball team because he refused to act as a spy for the government.
“I wasn’t even an activist at that time,” he told The Post, adding he spent four years traveling with the team, wearing a tiger costume. “They just got rid of me because I refused to be a snitch,” he claimed.
Mones Quintero also refuses to send his six-year-old son to school.
“It’s hard for a father to see his child go hungry, but this is our situation,” he said. “We need Trump’s help.”
While many are seeking intervention, others say the US is historically to blame for the country’s poverty due to its economic embargo, which has been in place since October 1960, and was tightened at the beginning of the second Trump administration, in Jan. 2025.
“This is the first time I can say that the embargo is really squeezing the life out of the Cuban people,” said Maria Romeu, a Cuban-American who works as an agent for super yachts on the island.
Romeu told The Post she often has 13 hours a day without electricity and garbage clean-up has been such a challenge, government officials recently dispatched the Cuban army to pick up refuse.
“But we have dealt with this in the past, and we continue to deal with it,” she told The Post, adding she believes few Cubans would welcome regime change or a government led by the US.
In Havana, residents took to the streets on Saturday during a blackout, banging pots and shouting “Down with Communism!” and “Freedom!” according to Marti Noticias, a US- government funded news agency.
“If the United States works for the liberty of the Cuban people, the liberty of political prisoners, and comes up with a solution for the government of Cuba, they will ensure the security of the whole region,” Ferrer claimed.
