By blocking its oil imports in the form of global tariff threats, the United States is effectively laying siege to Cuba, hoping energy shortfalls will cause the Communist regime to collapse. Few regional or global actors seem to care. Even fewer have much affection for the Cuban leadership just as they have no love for Iran’s. But the U.S. strategy remains a squalid bit of blackmail. The oil being blocked from Cuba is oil in essence stolen from Venezuela in America’s regime-changing putsch in which 32 Cuban soldiers died. No matter, say some, since the U.S. did Caracas a favor by ousting a dictator — and swinging open the doors to Big Oil. Cuba is headed for a similar endgame that will be labeled liberation. Cuba’s Miami exile community will heap adoring words on the great Anerican übermensch. If only this liberation weren’t also self-serving. Cuba has no oil, but it does have a gorgeous coastline primed and ready for massive real estate development, something a builder of tall towers and casinos knows a fair amount about. If the Gaza resort transformation is out of reach, the Havana scheme is not. It’s shameless but also shamelessly lucrative. As Canadian and Russian tourists are evacuated from the island because of jet fuel shortages, the other side is probably imagining a Major League Baseball franchise (the Havana Trumps?), ready to go by 2032, when the president will enter his fourth term, the minor obstacle of the Constitution overcome.