Cuba Faces Nationwide Blackouts Amidst U.S. Oil Blockade and Infrastructure Decay
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s national electric grid collapsed Saturday, leaving the country without electricity for the third time in March. The ongoing blackouts are exacerbating challenges for the communist government, which is grappling with a decaying infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade.
Recent Grid Collapses and Causes
The Cuban Electric Union (UNE), reporting to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, announced a total blackout across the island without initially specifying the cause. The latest outage stemmed from an unexpected failure of a generating unit at the Nuevitas thermoelectric plant in Camagüey province. According to a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mines, this failure triggered a “cascading effect” on other online machines.
Authorities activated “micro-islands” of generating units to provide power to vital centers, including hospitals and water systems, and are working to restore full power. Nationwide blackouts have become increasingly common in the last two years, driven by breakdowns in aging infrastructure and fuel shortages that cause daily outages of up to 12 hours, further destabilizing the system. A previous nationwide blackout occurred on Monday, March 16, 2026, and another on March 4, 2026, when a major thermoelectric generating plant failed [Reuters].
Impact on the Cuban Population
The blackouts significantly disrupt daily life for Cuba’s 10 million citizens, impacting work hours, cooking capabilities, and food preservation due to refrigerator failures [The Guardian].
U.S. Policy and Oil Supply
President Miguel Díaz-Canel has stated that Cuba has not received oil from foreign suppliers for three months. Cuba currently produces only about 40% of the fuel it needs to power its economy. The Cuban government attributes the energy crisis to a U.S. Energy blockade, intensified after U.S. President Donald Trump warned of tariffs on any country selling oil to Cuba in January [Al Jazeera]. The Trump administration is demanding Cuba release political prisoners and move towards political and economic liberalization in exchange for lifting sanctions. Trump has also suggested the possibility of a “friendly takeover of Cuba” [Al Jazeera].
Venezuela, previously Cuba’s main oil supplier, has not sent fuel to the island this year. Mexico, another key supplier, has halted shipments while providing humanitarian aid [Reuters]. The U.S. Has temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian oil products, but excluded Cuba, North Korea, and Crimea from the exemption [Reuters].
Recent Oil Imports
Cuba has received only two small oil shipments this year. The first, in January, came from Mexico, while the second, in February, was a shipment of liquefied petroleum gas (cooking gas) from Jamaica [The Guardian].