MIAMI - The Cuban government has suspended further activities in core government industries, halting the function of the most basic needs that provide benefits for the Cuban population on the island, citing an existential dearth of electricity following shortages of fuel amid tensions with the United States.
The government in Washington has exerted tremendous pressure on the regime in Havana in recent weeks in the wake of the fall of Maduro in Caracas, cutting major supplies of oil from Russia and Venezuela, including from the Mexican government of Claudia Sheinbaum, who has previously warned of a “humanitarian disaster” on the island if shortages continue.
Last night, residents in Havana began clashing their cooking pots, known colloquially as a Cacelorazo, in protest of the shortage in supplies, as over 85% of the island’s inhabitants currently live in conditions of ”extreme poverty”, according to international organizations.
Mexico announced that two Mexican Navy ships will dock in Cuba on Thursday to provide humanitarian aid to Cuban residents, two weeks after the Trump administration threatened to impose tariffs on countries supplying the Havana regime with oil products.
On Jan. 29, the White House signed the National Emergency Act, an executive order imposing sanctions on any country supplying oil to Cuba, citing national security concerns. The move received criticism from other Latin American governments in the region, notably the Mexican government, which condemned the act, warning that a more extensive cut-off in oil supplies to Cuba will worsen an already bad economic situation on the island, likely causing further harm for millions of residents.
Officials in Washington, however, have turned their sights on Havana following the fall of Maduro on Jan. 3, after a U.S. pre-dawn raid that killed at least one hundred Venezuelan and Cuban security personnel, according to reports, and resulting in the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores in Caracas.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel has also denounced President Trump’s threats of an “energy blockade”, claiming that it affects the island’s transportation services, hospitals, schools, tourism, and the production of food.
