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 the population through COVID-19.
In the days leading up to the July 11, 2021 protests in Cuba, many on the island were coordinating a campaign to call on the international community for assistance during the pandemic. They specifically called for not politicizing the moment as so many families were in dire need. However, far-right Cubans in the U.S. (with help from the U.S. government no doubt) took over the calls for help and turned them into something far more sinister.
I reported on it for Latino Rebels.
Mexico was the first of just a few nations that answered the call for assistance. Meanwhile, after being forced by the United States to fight a pandemic on its own, Cuba developed a COVID-19 vaccine and shared it with the world for free. It’s also worth noting that Cuba’s vaccination rate in children and adolescents was much greater and was achieved much earlier than any other country in the world. Other countries should learn from Cuba’s emphasis on vaccinating kids and the elderly to blunt transmission rates in the general population.
“The truth is that if one wanted to help Cuba, the first thing that should be done is to suspend the blockade of Cuba as the majority of countries in the world are asking. That would be a truly humanitarian gesture. No country in the world should be fenced in, blockaded.” – Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, July 12, 2021
When looking at the state of Cuba’s power grid, like U.S. actions during COVID-19, its failure can be directly attributed to the U.S. blocking access to equipment that would modernize the system. United States policy is meant to impose suffering as collective punishment against Cubans for simply not bowing to the U.S.’s demands of overthrowing their government. The power grid’s failure is just one cog in the oppressive imperialist’s machine.
Recent sanctions on Venezuela after the U.S.’s failed attempt to rig its election in July (using uncertified data) have also limited refined oil products that Cuba relies on to power its grid. The island nation’s lack of access to cash greatly limits who it can buy much-needed products from and the Helms-Burton Act under former president Bill Clinton ended Cuba’s ability to complete its nuclear power plant ambitions.
The Juragua Nuclear Power Plant project has been abandoned since 2000.
While Mexico has previously come through for Cuba, the island nation finds itself in yet another precarious position that requires other nations to donate products due to sanctions that prevent countries from directly selling Cuba what it needs to keep the power grid active. Other countries have come to Cuba’s aid in recent years. Will they do so again?
Meanwhile, far-right Cubans in the U.S. are already trying to propagandize the situation.
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