Cuba runs out of oil; surprising terminology changes at the State Department

0:00This message comes from Equip Health. Eating disorders happen in everyday life. That's why Equip's virtual treatment program brings a full care team into your home. including a therapist, dietician, and more. Visit equip.health.npr. Today on State of the World, Cuba runs out of oil, and surprising terminology changes at the State Department.

0:27You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. In a few minutes, Why is the U.S. State Department changing the way it refers to refugees and migration? First, Cuba's government says the country has run out of oil. The U.S. imposed an energy blockade on the Caribbean island starting in January, an effort to force political change. Now Cubans are living with sustained blackouts, relying on wood and charcoal for cooking and lighting. To understand what might happen in Cuba now, we're going to hear from Jorge Pignon.

1:07He's an energy researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. He also served as president of Amoco Oil Latin America. He spoke to Scott Detrow. So you spoke to us back in January, right when this all began, right when the U.S. began this blockade. How would you characterize what has happened in Cuba since that conversation? Well, the blackouts continue because about 40 percent of them are out of service because of technical issues. And the rest now because of the lack of fuel. But it's not only now electric power that's lacking, but also cooking fuel or diesel for tractors and diesel for trucks.

1:49So what used to be an issue or a challenge for the electric power sector, now is a big issue and challenge for the whole economy of the island. What are ways that you see this play out in everyday life right now? There are people all over the island, for example, folks that we know that were going from Santiago to Havana and then got stuck in Havana and couldn't come back to Santiago and they've been stuck there for weeks. There's no cooking fuel. Your refrigerators don't work, so your food will spoil. Now comes the summer months. Heat is about to come in. So your fans and all other equipment, electrical and otherwise, doesn't work either.

2:26So we're talking about an economy really that has shut down both electrically and again for fuel. I want to talk about the politics of this. And of course, President Trump has been pretty clear saying out loud that he wants to see regime changes in Cuba. Last week, CIA Director John Radcliffe visited Cuba and he had a message for the country, for its leaders, saying there's a path forward. Make political and economic reforms in exchange for support from the U.S. I want to talk about that, but first I want to play back a clip that something you told us in January that stuck with us. That will create a political vacuum.

3:01The church is not going to come in and handle that or fill that vacuum. We think that the Cuban military will then fill that vacuum. And then the big question that we all have are Mexican drug cartels then going to fill that vacuum. All of this was more hypothetical back in January. Here we are in May. What are you seeing in terms of power structures in Cuba? Still very concerned about the vacuum. Who's going to lead the country in whichever political and economic model we have? You know, Scott, one of the things is there is no Fidel anymore. There is no leadership. As I said earlier, the church doesn't have it.

3:41And the military probably is the only organization that can really, quote unquote, take over the country. But it's going to be very, very difficult again because of the lack of leadership within a new economic and political model. I wanted to broaden this out at the end, given how much of an oil crunch there is around the world right now, whether it's jet fuel becoming in scarce supply in Europe or higher gasoline prices in the United States. I think a lot of people around the world are thinking about scenarios like this. Of course, Cuba is its own economy, but I'm wondering, even given that, is there anything the U.S.

4:17or other countries can learn from what is happening in Cuba right now, a society without oil? Yes. Again, that every single source of energy, whether it's renewables, whether it's biomass, whether it's wind, are required and needed within a balanced energy matrix. It's a very complex issue, and it's not only Cuba. You have the Dominican Republic, you have Puerto Rico, you have Panama, facing the same challenges. Transitional and growing economies that need to balance their electric metrics. Again, reliable plus renewable and clean. That's what we all want. That is University of Texas at Austin energy researcher Jorge Pignon.

4:58Thank you so much for talking to us. Thank you, Scott. In diplomacy, words matter. And recently, the U.S. State Department dramatically changed the way diplomats talk about refugees and migration. As Michelle Kellerman tells us, it's echoing language used by white nationalists. Before he retired from the State Department last month, Robbie Marks says he had to learn a lot of new terms, like re-migration, that is, encouraging immigrants to go back to their home countries. A term that's used in some parts of Europe on the far right to sort of describe a sort of cleansing of migrants from Europe.

5:37Now, he says, it's one of the three main goals of his former office, which oversees America's refugee assistance programs. Another new priority was to resettle only white South Africans and no other refugees. And then the third thing that we were told that we had to work on with all of our partners was to change the Overton window on how we talk about and treat refugees. In political theory, changing the Overton window means mainstreaming fringe ideas. David Beer, the director of immigration studies at the Libertarian Cato Institute, puts it this way. It really means providing legitimacy to concepts and ideas that before would have been politically toxic or seen as fringe.

6:27And he says the State Department did just that this week by issuing a statement denouncing what it calls replacement immigration and promoting remigration. The far right is interpreting it the same way as I'm interpreting it, which is an endorsement of ethnic cleansing and a total block to legal immigration. A right-wing advocacy group, the John Birch Society, welcomed the statement, saying it shows that the, quote, Great Replacement isn't a conspiracy theory but a policy of the U.N. Groups like that accuse the U.N. of trying to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants and point to a decades-old U.N.

7:07report that uses the term replacement migration as evidence of their claim. But Beer says it's a statistical term, and the report was about whether immigration could offset population declines. It has absolutely no stance on the policy. There's no recommendation for it. The idea that the U.N. was promoting it is totally inaccurate. State Department spokesperson Tommy Piggott told NPR in a statement that, quote, quote, the role of the United Nations in funding, organizing, and facilitating mass immigration into the United States is beyond dispute and without parallel. He did not provide examples, but said the U.N.

7:49established a, quote, end-to-end immigration highway, ferrying millions of illegal aliens up to the U.S. border. That, too, is twisting the facts, says Richard Gowan, a U.N. watcher at the International Crisis Group. What U.N. officials want to do, is promote regular, safe, legal migration, because in fact, there is a recognition that many economies around the world do need migrants. If they're going to grow and prosper, that's the focus. It's not some sort of grand redesign of the world population. Gowan says UN diplomats had been expecting the Trump administration to disrupt the International Migration Review Forum last week when countries talked about ways to improve the treatment of migrants, but the U.S.

8:36didn't attend and only later put out that statement, promoting what U.S. diplomats previously viewed as fringe ideas. Michelle Kellerman, NPR News, the State Department.

8:52That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. This message comes from Equip Health. Eating disorders happen in everyday life. That's why Equip's virtual treatment program brings a full care team into your home, including a therapist, dietician, and more. Visit equip.health.npr. Support for NPR and the following message come from Rula. Rula makes accessing quality mental health care affordable, with sessions costing an average of$15. Get personalized cost estimates up front with no hidden fees. Head to RULA.com to find a therapist. This message comes from American Home Shield. It's not a matter of if an appliance or system, like your HVAC, will break, but when.

9:39Without a home warranty, these repairs or replacements can cost thousands. But with an AHS home warranty, they will fix covered breakdowns, helping protect your wallet. Get 20 % off all plans at ahs.com slash NPR and see promo details. See ahs.com slash contracts for coverage details, including service fees, limitations, and exclusions.