Cuba runs out of fuel as Trump pressure mounts
Get the Geopolitics newsletter
Daily geopolitics — wars, elections, sanctions, the diplomatic moves that move markets. Free.
- Cuba has run out of oil and diesel, Energy Minister Vicente de la O Levy announced Friday, with the electric grid in a "critical state" and rolling blackouts lasting up to 22 hours a day in some areas
- Cuba's energy crisis traces to the loss of Venezuelan oil after President Trump's ouster of Nicolás Maduro; the island received only one oil shipment since January, and a 730,000-barrel Russian delivery flagged by de la O Levy has been fully exhausted
- The Trump administration is preparing to seek an indictment against 94-year-old former Cuban President Raúl Castro for his alleged role as defense minister in the 1996 shootdown of four Brothers to the Rescue planes, the AP reported Friday
- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel rejected US demands and called the blockade "genocidal," writing on X that its "main objective is the suffering of the entire people" — yet protesters in Havana this week were heard shouting "Turn on the lights!" at their own government, per Reuters
- US Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida assembled a working group of prosecutors and federal law enforcement in March to build cases against top Cuban officials, a step that preceded the push for Castro's indictment
- Cuba's fuel import negotiations have been further complicated by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz amid the US-Israeli conflict in Iran, narrowing options for alternative suppliers beyond Russia and Mexico, which has shifted to delivering humanitarian aid rather than fuel
Why it matters: Cuba's total fuel depletion — driven by the loss of Venezuelan supply after Maduro's ouster and a US embargo — collapses the island's grid into multi-day blackouts and public protests, giving Washington its strongest leverage in decades to demand political change under threat of military action, even as Raúl Castro faces a US indictment for the 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shootdown.
