Cuba is introducing sweeping fuel-saving measures, including cutting public transport, restricting classes at schools and universities and reducing tourism, amid heightened tensions with the US and tightening of the oil embargo, DPA reported.
The government said yesterday that the emergency steps are aimed at ensuring the economy and basic public services function.
Washington has imposed an “energy blockade” on Cuba as part of an “aggressive escalation,” Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga said as the plan was unveiled. Several ministers outlined the measures on state television.
Cuba has not received oil from Venezuela since December, after US President Donald Trump ordered a total blockade of the movement of sanctioned oil tankers delivering oil to Cuba. Caracas was a strategic ally of Havana in South America.
But after the fall of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by US forces in early January, Cuba lost an important partner. Trump subsequently threatened to impose tariffs on oil suppliers to Cuba, prompting Mexico, until recently the island’s largest supplier of petroleum products, to cut off supplies.
In order to save energy, the state administration will work only from Monday to Thursday, officials said. Bus, rail and ferry transport will be severely curtailed, and civil servants may be redeployed to other, more important sectors where there are staff shortages. The University of Havana has announced that it will largely suspend face-to-face classes for a period of 30 days.
Tourism, a vital source of foreign exchange, will also be affected. Fraga said the sector would be preserved but focused on destinations with the highest demand, while airport operations would continue.
The crisis drew parallels with the early 1990s, when the collapse of the Soviet Union plunged Cuba into its worst economic crisis since the 1959 revolution.
Gross domestic product fell by more than a third and oil became a scarce commodity before the island nation eventually recovered thanks to aid from Venezuela and growing tourism revenue.
According to experts, the situation could worsen.
Cubans have been dealing with the consequences of mismanagement and hardening US policy for years.
Power outages are becoming more frequent, the power grid is in dire straits, food and medicine are in short supply, and as the crisis deepens, the number of tourists visiting the island has declined.
date:2026-02-08 14:06:00