Inspired by the success in Venezuela, the US’s aim is to bring Cuba to its knees and force it to accept that the US will take over the country. Trump backed the idea of making Marco Rubio president of the country. “To the victor belong the spoils” declared Trump at the UN General Assembly on 21 September this year, where he boasted of having taken over Venezuela’s oil industry.
The means of achieving this is to inflict maximum harm on the Cuban people. After Trump had taken over Venezuela’s oil, oil supplies from there ceased. Trump then threatened Mexico and Brazil not to sell oil to the country and declared that all tankers bound for Cuba would be seized. Russia managed to send a single tanker to Cuba in March carrying 700,000 barrels of oil, but apparently got cold feet afterwards.
The oil blockade has been devastating. Cuba has not received a single drop of oil this year apart from that one shipment from Russia (which lasted a couple of weeks). The country has a modest domestic production of oil and gas, but this is far from sufficient, so the result has been severe rationing of fuel and electricity supplies. Hospitals are regularly left without electricity, a large proportion of the agricultural machinery is at a standstill, refuse collection in the towns operates sporadically, and public transport has been reduced to a minimum. The result is increased mortality due to the collapse of the hospital sector, and the infant mortality rate, which was previously lower than in the US, has now more than doubled. It resembles a war crime, without war having been declared.
Foreign companies have left the country to avoid US secondary sanctions. This applies, for example, to foreign hotel chains such as the Spanish Melia, the Canadian mining company Sherritt (nickel mines) and the Australian Melbana Energy, which was in the process of drilling for oil. The international payment cards Visa and Mastercard have suspended their services in Cuba, so foreign tourists are forced to carry cash to make payments (unless they are from Russia or China, as the UnionPay and Mir payment cards are reportedly still operational).
The tourism sector, a driving force in the economy, has declined dramatically, now that there are constant power cuts and foreign aircraft bringing in tourists are unable to refuel. Tourism has been hit hard, first by the Covid pandemic and subsequently by Trump’s oil embargo. The number of tourists fell from 4.3 million in 2019 to 1.8 million in 2025, and with the ongoing oil blockade, it looks as though the number of tourists will fall below 1 million in 2026.
Trump has thus achieved what he set out to do: to inflict maximum damage on the country and the Cuban people. He predicted in January that the country would collapse within a couple of weeks. Much to his chagrin, this has not yet happened. Few small countries would be able to survive such a total oil embargo for very long. But against all odds, Cuba is still standing. So now Trump and Rubio are looking at what else they can come up with to harm the country. If none of that works, Trump has said that he will deploy the US military against the country. Following the fiasco of the war against Iran, it seems his enthusiasm has cooled somewhat for the time being, but US Southern Command is actively continuing to plan an invasion.
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, alongside Francis Donovan, head of US Southern Command. In the background is a map of Cuba. The message is clear. Photo from Univisión.
Not many lifelines have been extended to Cuba. Several countries have, admittedly, sent humanitarian aid, particularly food and medicines. Among the countries showing solidarity are Russia, China, Vietnam, India, Mexico, Brazil and many solidarity groups around the world, including in Denmark. But no oil or other fuel. The US is now threatening the ships attempting to call at Cuba to deliver humanitarian aid, so thousands of containers of food and medicine are currently stranded in various locations. The evilness knows no bounds.
The most spectacular aid has come from China in the form of solar panels and other equipment for solar power systems, batteries, and electric tricycles and motorbikes. The result is quite impressive. With China’s help, Cuba’s energy system has been partially converted from oil to solar power over the last two years. By the middle of this year, Cuba had 133 solar farms with a capacity of 1,700 megawatts. The target is 2,000 megawatts by 2028, but at the current rate, this could easily be exceeded. In addition, in 2025 and 2026, China has donated more than 10,000 decentralised solar installations to Cuba for hospitals, schools and homes in remote rural areas (the last 5,000 have a combined capacity of 18 megawatts and 71.5 megawatt-hours of storage). Vietnam has donated four solar farms, each with a capacity of 20 megawatts and 10 megawatt-hours of storage, to Mayabeque Province (south of Havana) and has also contributed decentralised solar systems to schools. There is also a credit line from India for 75 megawatts of solar energy, but it is not clear whether this has been utilised. Many solidarity groups around the world, including in Denmark, have sent small-scale solar installations to the country. As expected, there is no official aid from the EU countries. After all, they don’t want to offend Trump. Nor is there any support from the state-funded European (and Danish) NGOs. Understandably, they do not bite the hand that feeds them.
Cuba has an estimated wind power potential of 1,100 megawatts, but the first major 50 megawatt plant, Herradura 1, is still under construction. The first 33 megawatts are expected to start generating electricity later this year. Photo from Granma.
Although the solar power plants help to keep Cuba running, they have their limitations, as they only generate electricity during the day. As things stand, Cuba can mainly use them to conserve oil during the day and then use the precious oil at conventional power plants in the evening and at night (provided they are not affected by breakdowns, which happen regularly). Installing large batteries connected to the grid is another solution, but it is expensive. China has promised to install four 50-megawatt-hour batteries at various locations across the country to stabilise the grid, but only one (at the El Cotorro substation in Havana) is in place, whilst the others are still being installed. Alternatively, Cuba could install more wind farms, as there are plenty of sites with good wind conditions. A 50 megawatt wind farm is under construction and may be partially commissioned this year (Herradura 1), whilst the second 50 megawatt wind farm (Herradura 2) is further off, and the construction of a third 50 megawatt farm (Rio Seco), with funding from India, appears to still be only on the drawing board. Wind farms are significantly more expensive than solar farms, and whilst solar farms can be installed within a couple of months, wind farms take several years. So this will help in the long term, but not right now.
This is a major challenge facing Cuba as long as the US forcibly prevents the country from buying oil. In 2020, the country’s total installed electricity generation capacity was 6,661 MW, of which less than 19 per cent was from renewable energy. Although a target of 2,000 megawatts of solar capacity sounds like a lot, it should be borne in mind that a 1 megawatt solar plant, which only generates electricity during daylight hours, produces far less than a 1 megawatt oil-fired power station, which, in principle, can operate around the clock. I would estimate that, even in Cuba, where there is plenty of sunshine, solar power plants would need to have a nominal capacity 3–4 times greater than the oil-fired power stations they are replacing. Cuba therefore has a very long way to go before it can phase out its oil-fired power stations, even with large battery farms.
China has pledged to install 200 megawatt-hours of batteries to stabilise the electricity grid. The picture shows the first 50 megawatt-hours installation at the El Cotorro substation near Havana, which is now operational. Photo from pv-magazine
These are strange times we live in. The US can invade other countries at will, or cut off vital supplies to them to force them to toe the line, with the tacit acceptance of its European allies. This is, of course, nothing new. They have always done so, but they are more brazen now, and the silence of the European countries was not quite so deafening before (some of them used to make some noise). The US can kidnap a president and leave him and his wife to rot in a US prison, whilst they do not even bother to go ahead with the planned show trial. With the customary silence from the EU. Ships can be seized and impounded, not only by the US but now also by EU countries, so the right to free navigation of the world’s oceans no longer applies. The EU used to be opposed to extraterritorial laws – what are now called secondary sanctions – whereby third countries or companies are punished for trading with one another without first seeking permission from the US. But now they are suddenly in favour. They are squirming a little in their seats and trying to pretend they aren’t. But the essence remains the same. Moreover, they are now themselves in the process of implementing secondary sanctions against companies in third countries that trade with one another. This hypocrisy is now on a par with the EU’s hypocrisy regarding Israel’s ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and its genocide in Gaza.
If there are governments in the EU that have openly supported the US oil embargo against Cuba, then I must have missed it. But I can see many comments online, including on Danish websites, which say that the embargo is perfectly fine, so that the Cubans can rid themselves of “the communist dictatorship”. So there are those who think that it is perfectly acceptable to starve an entire country and its people in order to force its government to “implement democratic reforms”. Never mind that this is in breach of the UN Charter. There are so many things breaching the UN Charter these days.
As if this were about democracy. Trump said in March, according to Reuters, that it would be “an honour for me to take Cuba (..) whether I liberate it or take it over. I reckon I can do whatever I want with it.” It couldn’t be put any more plainly. This is about the US wanting to seize Cuba. Cuba deserves all the support we can give them to ensure this does not happen.
