Cuba plunged into darkness for the second time in less than a week on Friday, when the island's national electricity grid collapsed shortly before evening. The state-owned Union Electrica de Cuba reported the outage began at 4:30pm local time, offering no immediate explanation. The failure brings the total number of island-wide blackouts to four since January, following two similar events in March — a frequency that reflects the acute deterioration of an energy system already stretched to its limits.

The Cuban electricity grid was largely built during the Cold War era, between the 1960s and 1980s, and has long been vulnerable to disruption. But the current crisis has been dramatically worsened by a de facto oil blockade put in place by US President Donald Trump since the start of 2026. Cuba, which sits roughly 140 kilometres from the Florida coast and has been subject to a sweeping US trade embargo since the 1960s, produces only around 40 percent of the oil it consumes domestically. Much of the rest had historically come from Venezuela, a close Cuban ally, until Trump authorised a military operation that resulted in Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's removal and imprisonment in New York on drug- and weapons-related charges. Following Maduro's ouster, Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba stopped. A subsequent executive order in late January threatened steep tariffs against any country supplying Cuba with fuel, effectively cutting off alternative suppliers. Since then, only one Russian tanker has reached the island — in March. According to independent Cuban media, the gap between electricity supply and demand has now reached an unprecedented level, with nearly three-quarters of the country's electricity needs going unmet.

The human cost is mounting. In Santiago de Cuba, residents describe going without power for days at a time, forcing families to cook over charcoal or wood and leaving elderly people and children to sleep outdoors to escape the heat. Food stored in refrigerators is spoiling. At the United Nations, High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned in June that infant mortality in Cuba had nearly doubled in recent months. "Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines," Türk said, attributing the situation directly to the fuel restrictions and tightening sanctions. The Trump administration has rejected this framing; Secretary of State Marco Rubio has maintained that Washington has done "nothing punitive" and that mismanagement by the Cuban government is to blame.

The crisis is also fuelling rare and increasingly frequent public protests. With the fifth anniversary of Cuba's historic 11 July 2021 mass demonstrations approaching, residents in Havana and provincial cities have taken to the streets — banging pots and pans in neighbourhood protests despite the threat of arrest. Cuban dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa described a shift in public mood, arguing that what began as outbursts of frustration is hardening into a sustained civic consciousness. Authorities have responded with targeted arrests of young people seen as potential leaders, but according to observers, anger is now outweighing fear on the streets.

Cuba had previously planned a longer-term transition toward renewable energy, aiming to meet nearly a quarter of its needs from solar and other clean sources by 2030, partly with the help of Chinese-supplied technology. Renewables currently account for roughly 18 percent of consumption. That transition is accelerating under pressure, but it remains far too limited to compensate for the fuel shortfall — leaving millions of Cubans facing an uncertain summer of blackouts, shortages, and mounting hardship.