Cuba Humanitarian Crisis Deepens as US Oil Blockade Causes 30-Hour Power Outages
The Trump administration's oil blockade, imposed in late January, has driven power outages to 15 hours or more per day in parts of Havana and pushed black-market petrol prices from roughly $1 per litre to $10, Al Jazeera reported on May 9. UN human rights experts on May 7 called on Washington to end what they termed Cuba's "energy starvation," citing severe human rights impacts. Cuba's first deputy minister of energy and mines,
The private-sector fuel authorization both governments promoted as a humanitarian valve functions as a rounding error: 30,000 barrels imported across February and March, a Reuters figure cited by Al Jazeera, covers less than one-third of Cuba's single-day national requirement of roughly 100,000 barrels, and domestic production meets only 40 percent of demand. That structural deficit drives the rolling 15-plus-hour blackouts documented in Havana. A nationwide grid collapse by 9 July 2026 carries a roughly even chance, contingent on Havana retaining command of its rationed state fuel and some diplomatic channel with Washington staying open. Havana may also be deliberately amplifying the private-sector crisis to extract concessions while using the emergency to impose state-capital structures it could not otherwise justify.