The energy and economic crises in Cuba deepen as its power grid continues to crumble, reporting an islandwide blackout earlier this week. This wasn’t the first but the third major blackout in Cuba in the last 4 months.
The Ministry of Energy and Mines on X noted a “complete disconnection” of the country's electrical system and said it was investigating, noting there were no failures in the units that were operating when the grid collapsed.
Tomás David Velázquez Felipe, a 61-year-old resident of Havana, said the relentless outages make him think that Cubans who can should just pack up and leave the island, saying, “What little we have to eat spoils. Our people are too old to keep suffering.”
By Monday evening, state-owned media reported that crews had restored power to 2 per cent of Havana's residents, representing some 18,000 customers, as well as a handful of hospitals across the island. Officials said they would prioritise the communications sector next, all while warning that the small circuits restored so far could fail again.
Cuba's aging grid has drastically eroded in recent years, leading to an increase in daily outages and islandwide blackouts. But the government also has blamed its woes on a U.S. energy blockade after U.S. President Donald Trump in January warned of tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The Trump administration is demanding that Cuba release political prisoners and move toward political and economic liberalization in return for the lifting of sanctions.
The US President has also raised the possibility of a "friendly takeover of Cuba." On Monday, he said he believes he'll have the “honor of taking Cuba.”
“I mean, whether I free it, take it. I think I could do anything I want with it,” Trump said about Cuba, calling it a “very weakened nation.”
Surgeries postponed —
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday said the island had not received oil shipments in three months and was operating on solar power, natural gas, and thermoelectric plants, and that the government has had to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of people.
Yaimisel Sánchez Peña, 48, said she was upset that the food she buys with money that her son in the U.S. sends keeps spoiling, adding that the outages also affect her 72-year-old mother: “Every day, she suffers." Mercedes Velázquez, a 71-year-old Cuban resident, lamented yet another blackout.
“We're here waiting to see what happens,” she said, adding that she recently gave away part of a soup she made while it was still fresh so as not to throw it out.
“Everything goes bad.”
A perfect storm of collapse. A massive outage over a week ago affected the island's west, leaving millions without power. Another major blackout affected western Cuba in early December.
Oil shipments to Cuba stopped —
Critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. attacked the South American country in early January and arrested its then-president, Nicolás Maduro. While Cuba produces 40 per cent of its petroleum and has been generating its own power, it hasn't been sufficient to meet demand as its electric grid continues to crumble.
“And on top of all that, the Cuban government doesn't have the hard currency to import spare parts or upgrade the plant or grid itself. It's just a perfect storm of collapse," LeoGrande said.
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