Cuba Rocked By Nationwide Power Grid Failure
Is Cuba’s president right to partially blame unilateral U.S. sanctions on the island?
A nationwide power outage struck Cuba on Thursday as a hurricane approached the island’s eastern coast. Cuba’s government mostly blamed the increase in demand on the island’s economic growth over the last year. Small and medium-sized businesses have exploded over the previous two years and the Cuban government says that resulted in more than 100,000 commercial-grade air conditioners coming online in 2024 alone.
As power continues to be restored with much of the island back online, it’s worth looking into the U.S. government’s responsibility in Cuba’s latest struggles. The Cuban government regularly blames the U.S. embargo on the island and how it creates a lack of access to world markets and to products that contain more than 2–3% of U.S. parts. Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and other government officials are right to do so this time too.
The embargo also blocks Cuba’s access to cash, which under U.S. sanctions, is the only way Cuba can buy anything. If not for donations from Mexico, Cuba would have suffered a much grimmer fate during the pandemic in 2020 due to the United States blocking it and Venezuela’s access to vaccines, healthcare equipment, and food to help…
