A man walks past a Cuban flag hung on the facade of a house in Havana on Thursday.YAMIL LAGE/AFP/Getty Images
U.S. President Donald Trump is amplifying risks for Canadian business interests in Cuba as he muses about a military invasion of the Caribbean island country.
Cuba is already in the throes of an economic crisis that is being aggravated by Mr. Trump’s ban on Venezuelan oil shipments to the communist country. He has also warned that the U.S. will impose tariffs on any country that dares to sell Cuba its energy despite recurring power outages.
Ottawa cannot ignore Mr. Trump’s threat of taking Cuba by force. Canada is Cuba’s second-largest source of foreign direct investment after the European Union. Further instability on the island threatens to permanently impair Canadian investments there, which span sectors including mining, tourism and energy.
“I do believe I’ll be ... having the honour of taking Cuba. That’s a big honour. Taking Cuba in some form,” Mr. Trump said on March 16.
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“I mean, whether I free it, take it. Think I can do anything I want with it. You want to know the truth.”
Mr. Trump is also seeking to oust Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, according to a report by The New York Times.
“We’re talking to Cuba, but we’re going to do Iran before Cuba,” Mr. Trump has also said in recent weeks.
A top general has since said the U.S. military is not actively preparing for a Cuban invasion. But that nuance hardly dispels direct warnings from Mr. Trump, the country’s commander-in-chief, that Cuba would be his “next” target.
Cuban officials are preparing for the worst. A military attack would mark the end of the U.S.’s long-standing no-invasion pledge (to the former Soviet Union) that resolved the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
Blackouts, a dearth of medicines, food scarcity and shortages of drinking water have fuelled desperation among Cubans, who are mounting anti-government protests.
In a bid to quell the unrest and mitigate a humanitarian disaster, deputy prime minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga is telling the world that “Cuba is open for business” and will allow expatriates, including those in the U.S., to invest in and own businesses on the island. But U.S. law remains an obstacle, he said.
“The blockade of the United States against Cuba is a collective punishment that affects everyone and all dimensions of the development in our country,” Mr. Fraga said in Spanish during an interview with NBC News.
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Mr. Fraga added that there are currently 375 businesses with foreign capital in Cuba. About 66 of them fully operate with foreign capital, he said. Others operate joint ventures with Cuban partners.
It’s unclear how many Canadian businesses are in Cuba, but some are being affected by the blackouts and fuel shortages.
For instance, WestJet, Air Transat and Air Canada have temporarily suspended flights to Cuba.
Miner Sherritt International Corp. told investors last month that it had reduced operations at its joint venture in Moa, Cuba.
Commercial connections between Canada and Cuba, however, extend beyond foreign direct investment.
Cuba is also Canada’s leading trading partner in the Caribbean. Two-way trade in goods totalled $910-million in 2024.
The current economic crisis, however, poses a serious challenge to both Canadian investment and bilateral trade.
“While opportunities exist, Cuba is not a suitable market for first-time exporters or companies seeking quick sales,” Canada’s Trade Commissioner Service said in a report on Cuba’s infrastructure market dated March 18.
“In a context marked by a deep economic crisis, the main challenge for foreign companies is securing payment.”
Five days earlier, the Trade Commissioner Service issued a similar warning in a separate report on Cuba’s renewable energy sector, even as it noted the acute energy crisis is “forcing an accelerated transition to renewables.”
Global Affairs Canada was unable to comment on the advice that it is giving Canadian businesses with Cuban investments before the publication of this column. Nor did GAC specify its efforts to protect Canadian commercial interests with the Trump administration.
Canada has long opposed the U.S. Helms-Burton Act, which took effect in 1996. Washington created the legislation to thwart foreign countries from forging economic ties with Cuba.
Indeed, Ottawa has sought to blunt its effects by offering domestic businesses legal protections through its Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act.
Ottawa, though, must redouble efforts to defend the interests of Canadian companies already exposed to Cuba, especially now that Mr. Trump is contemplating military action to seize it.
Although Canadian companies must be clear-eyed about market risks in Cuba, they do not deserve to become collateral damage because of Mr. Trump’s shameless lust for war.