A September 25 Bloomberg article suggests that Rubio’s strategy is more than creating unendurable hardships for the Cuban people. And also gives context to the 7,000+ undelivered containers stranded at ports throughout the Caribbean.

The immediate shipping disruption began in May 2026, triggered by May 1 U.S. Executive Order 14404. CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd, which combined represent 60 percent of global shipping with Cuba, publicly confirmed sanctions-compliance risk caused them to suspend new bookings to and from Cuba.

At the same time, Bloomberg reports a dramatic surge in shipping to Cuba from U.S. ports.

As of late August, the U.S. flotilla had delivered nearly 720 million pounds of goods to Cuba from Miami, Houston, New Orleans, Jacksonville, Wilmington and other ports. Exports to Cuba are up 60% through July compared with the same period last year and more than all of 2024, U.S. Census data show.

A UPI headline confirms that the U.S. becomes Cuba’s top 2026 supplier through July and reports that:

Just three years ago, the United States ranked 10th among Cuba’s trading partners.

Bloomberg seems to conclude:

The U.S. is now trying to use exports to make Cuba financially dependent on Washington–essentially taking the place of the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Venezuela more recently.

The Trump administration is allowing increased trade with the island’s nascent private sector to head off a humanitarian and immigration crisis, as well as to displace the Cuban government as the country’s primary supplier of goods and services, according to a person familiar with the strategy who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

But the new sanctions choke the Cuban private sector that blossomed after renewed diplomatic relations in favor of U.S.-based businesses. U.S. bank accounts and u-turn accounts among non-US initiators and recipients are now not only blocked but frozen.

A Reuters interview with Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga reported by Radio Rebelde agrees with Bloomberg:

Pérez-Oliva noted that Cuba has previously stated that, through these actions, the U.S. administration also seeks to increase the island’s economic dependence on the United States–‘but based on coercion, threats, and blackmail against foreign companies.’ That relationship, he pointed out, ‘should develop naturally if the blockade were lifted.’

Creative planned solutions At the same time friends in Cuba report that although everything is available in Cuba, the high prices and inflation make necessities uncertain and often out of reach for Cuban families. The U.S. is quietly attempting to impose capitalist relations by making the U.S. the exclusive controlled source for Cuba’s economic relations as a means to erode underpinnings of Cuba’s sovereignty.