Cuba’s Humanitarian Crisis Deepens as Trump Says It Would Be His ‘Honor’ to ‘Take’ the Island
2026-03-17 16:05:53 - VI News Staff
Cuba’s crisis took another severe turn Monday when the country’s national electric grid collapsed, plunging around 10 million people into darkness and exposing how badly the island’s energy system has deteriorated under the combined weight of aging infrastructure and a U.S.-imposed oil blockade. Reuters reported that officials were investigating the cause, with early indications pointing to a transmission problem rather than a major generating-unit failure, even as small “microsystems” were being brought back online in pieces across the country.
The latest breakdown has been tied to a wider energy squeeze that intensified after Washington cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threatened tariffs on any country that sells oil to the island. President Miguel Díaz-Canel said Friday that no fuel had entered Cuba in three months, Reuters reported, while ship-tracking data reviewed by Reuters showed only two small oil-related cargoes reaching Cuba this year — one fuel shipment from Mexico in January and one liquefied petroleum gas shipment from Jamaica in February — with no Venezuelan fuel arriving this year.
The strain is now showing up everywhere. Reuters reported that many Cubans are spending most of their days without electricity, while prices are rising and fuel and medicines are being tightly rationed. AP reported that bus routes have been cut, gasoline is being sold only in foreign currency, and blackouts have become more punishing, adding to the hardship in a country where food, medicine and transport were already under pressure.
The health sector is among the hardest hit. In an interview with AP, Cuban Health Minister José Ángel Portal Miranda said 5 million people living with chronic illnesses are expected to have medications or treatments disrupted. That includes 16,000 cancer patients requiring radiotherapy and another 12,400 undergoing chemotherapy. AP also reported that cardiovascular care, orthopedics, oncology, kidney disease treatment, emergency ambulance services and care for critically ill patients who require electrical backup are among the areas most affected.