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The Trump administration’s decision to tighten the decadeslong US stranglehold on the Cuban economy by depriving the island nation of its largest source of oil has plunged the country into a rapidly worsening energy crisis, forcing its government to take far-reaching emergency steps to avert catastrophe — from curbing transportation services to shortening work and school hours.

“We are not going to collapse,” Oscar Perez‑Oliva Fraga, Cuba’s deputy prime minister, said in an address outlining the emergency measures late last week as White House officials — including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Cuba hawk — pushed for the overthrow of the Cuban government by the end of the year.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last month that President Donald Trump’s administration is “emboldened” by its kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and is now “searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out” the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has expressed openness to talks with the US — but not under economic coercion.

“The Trump administration has assessed that Cuba’s economy is close to collapse and that the........

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