‘It’s the Cuban people who are suffering.’ How Cuba is struggling under U.S. oil blockade

HAVANA — The other night, Reggaeton was heard in a neighborhood bar in Old Havana, the music suddenly stopped and everything went dark.

Customers groaned. Another power outage.

The US blockade of oil shipments to Cuba has plunged the island into the worst energy crisis in modern history. The country’s already collapsing economy is on the verge of collapse, with vehicles idling due to lack of gas, hospitals being forced to cancel surgeries and millions of people living without a regular supply of electricity and water.

This is the result of a calculated pressure campaign by President Trump, whose administration is negotiating with Cuban leaders over the future of the communist-run Caribbean island.

People fed up with rolling power outages have staged sporadic protests in recent days, banging pots and chanting slogans against the government, a rare demonstration in a country known for suppressing dissent.

Some power outages affect isolated areas, but there have been three island-wide power outages in Cuba in recent weeks. The latest occurred on Saturday night and continued into Sunday.

As Havana and Washington reach a possible agreement that would likely include some kind of economic opening and perhaps limited changes in Cuba’s leadership, many here say they feel like pawns in a geopolitical game beyond their control.

Some, like bargoers who continue to drink in the dark after the power goes out, say they have little choice but to adapt to a life where flushing the toilet, cooking a pot of rice or taking the bus to work is now considered a luxury.

“The US is trying to punish the Cuban government,” said a customer named Rolando. “But it is the people who suffer.”

Cuba’s struggles long predate the oil embargo. Cubans have been complaining about food shortages, deterioration of public services and political repression for years. Demographers say Cuba is experiencing one of the world’s fastest population declines – a 25 percent drop in just four years – as birth rates fall and immigration increases.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has blamed “genocidal” economic, financial and trade restrictions imposed by the United States in the decades since Fidel Castro’s army overthrew US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

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1. Young people play dominoes on the streets of Old Havana. 2. A woman reacts to her grandchild in a bar in Old Havana. (Natalia Favre/For The Times)

But many Cubans accuse their leaders of mismanaging the economy and straying from the ideals of Castro’s revolution. They were raised to believe in an implicit social contract that, although Cubans did not have luxuries or full civil liberties, they would always have free education and healthcare, a place to sleep, and adequate food.

“The agreement failed,” said Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira, an economist at the Center for Christian Thought and Dialogue in Havana.

He blames the government for rising inflation and a misguided investment strategy that pumps money into the tourism industry while neglecting key sectors such as industry and healthcare.

“This is the worst moment in Cuban history,” he said. “But things were really bad before that.”

Vedado neighborhood of Havana.

Life has long been tough for Pablo Barrueto, 63, who works at a construction site in the mornings and now spends his afternoons filling plastic jugs from a tap on the street and carrying them up narrow stairs to neighbors who have been without water for weeks.

His two jobs barely make enough for him and his partner, Maribel Estrada, 55, who earns $5 a month as a security guard at a state-run museum.

Living in a cramped studio apartment in a rundown colonial building, the duo can’t afford butter or mayonnaise, so breakfast consists of a piece of plain bread. Barrueto said he often went to bed hungry. It’s been years since I’ve tasted pork or beef.

“I work hard,” said Barrueto, who cooked beans in tattered jeans on a recent afternoon. “But I can’t see the fruits of my labor.”

Pablo Barrueto, center, fills water containers from a public tap after no water for more than 17 days.

Estrada developed ulcers on his legs, but the doctor who prescribed his antibiotics said he could not find them on the empty shelves of state pharmacies. The drug was being sold on the black market for more than Estrada earned in a month.

“If I lived in another country, my legs wouldn’t look like this,” he said, rolling up his trousers to show the chronic scars on his calves.

Estrada said he has come to a point where he will accept anything that will make his life better, even U.S. intervention.

“If things don’t get better, they should hand the country over to Trump,” he said.

The United States has long played an important role in Cuban history, from its participation in the island’s war of independence against Spain to the heavy involvement of American companies in the Cuban sugar industry. Washington repeatedly supported unpopular leaders who protected US interests, including Batista, whose corrupt and oppressive regime sparked support for the Cuban Revolution.

For decades, the island was celebrated worldwide by U.S. critics as a feisty symbol of anti-imperialism and a utopian experiment in socialism. However, some of this support has waned in recent years due to the government’s crackdown on dissent.

A man in Havana holds his report card and money while waiting to receive his daily bread.

The Trump administration’s new, aggressive effort to dominate Latin America through tariffs and military interventions has frightened allies who might have come to Cuba’s rescue in the past.

Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, all led by leftists, have refused to send emergency fuel shipments in recent months for fear it would anger Trump.

The current crisis began on January 3, when the United States launched a surprise attack on Venezuela, killing 32 Cuban security officers serving there (as well as numerous Venezuelan soldiers and civilians) and capturing President Nicolás Maduro.

When the United States seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry, the blows immediately shook Cuba, which has long been dependent on the Maduro regime’s subsidized oil shipments.

Cuban leaders say the country has not received a single fuel shipment in three months, weakening an economy that depends on oil to generate electricity.

There is little relief in sight.

A MIPYME employee sells vegetables and other produce to a customer in Havana on Friday.

A state-owned Russian oil tanker loaded with 750,000 barrels of crude oil is currently crossing the Atlantic. It is unclear whether the United States will try to prevent the ship from reaching Cuba, where its oil, if refined, could power Havana for several weeks.

At the same time, the “Nuestra América” humanitarian aid convoy is in the process of delivering more than 20 tons of critical supplies to Cuba, some of which will arrive by boat in the coming days.

David Adler, general coordinator of Progressive International, the global leftist group that helped organize the flotilla, said he hoped the delivery of medicine, food, baby formula and solar panels would underscore the seriousness of Trump’s restrictions on Cuba.

“We are beginning to grasp the reality that mothers, children, the elderly and the sick will die as a result of this senseless, cruel and criminal policy,” Adler said. “Why are we imposing such harsh penalties on a country that poses no threat to the United States?”

In Cuba, where many fear the prospect of no electricity in the summer, oppressive heat and swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, people are getting creative. With public transportation virtually non-existent and few drivers able to find or afford fuel that costs more than $5 a gallon, many people have taken up cycling again. Others have converted electric-powered scooters into slow-moving taxis.

Young people talking on the street in central Havana.

A man in the small town of Aguacate made headlines after modifying his 1980 Fiat Polski to run on coal; It’s the same fuel that many people here are cooking with right now.

Camila Hernández, who works at the Havana airport, was hoping to celebrate her 21st birthday by eating and dancing at home with friends. “It would be great,” he said.

But the home she shares with her family and boyfriend had not had regular electricity for weeks. His family’s home had electricity but no water.

To avoid spending another night sitting around in the dark, he celebrated his birthday by walking to Paseo del Prado, an iconic boulevard not far from the beach, cooled by the gentle sea breeze.

Her boyfriend’s mother, Yusmary Salas, 47, said the poor living conditions tested her patience. “I can’t even go to the toilet without planning how to flush the toilet,” she said. He said he was hungry for change but had no idea what form it would take.

Trump insists that he can “do whatever I want” in Cuba and has recently said that he expects to have the “honor” of “taking over Cuba in some way” sometime soon.

Pablo Barrueto carries a water container to his home in Old Havana.

Such talk offends many who grew up in a country where government buildings still bear the revolutionary slogan: “Fatherland or death, we will win.”

Salas said he hopes what happens next will be peaceful and that the dignity of Cubans, who have long been a proud people, will be restored. And their powers returned.

In the dark bar in Old Havana, workers struggled to light candles and serve beer that would soon warm up without refrigeration. While someone with a battery-powered speaker pressed “play” on a song, the 2004 Daddy Yankee pressed “Gasolina.”

“Dame mas gasolina!They sang together. “Give me more gas!”