MIAMI — Cuba went completely dark Monday afternoon.
For the first time since the United States effectively sealed off the island’s oil supply in January, Cuba’s National Electric System suffered a total collapse—leaving all 11 million Cubans without power simultaneously and pushing the island’s deepening energy crisis to a threshold that even the regime’s most carefully managed public communications could not contain.
Cuba’s Electric Union confirmed the collapse in a stark Facebook post:
“A complete disconnection of the National Electric System has occurred. Protocols for restoration are being implemented. We will continue to provide updates.”
The Ministry of Energy and Mines said it was investigating the causes without providing further details—a silence that spoke volumes in a country where the government controls every official communication channel.
The total collapse marks the first nationwide blackout since the U.S. effectively shut off the flow of oil to Cuba—the most consequential single event in the island’s energy infrastructure history since the Special Period that followed the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
The system had been operating under extreme fragility before the total disconnection, with a peak disruption of 1,891 megawatts reported the previous evening at 7:20 p.m.—a figure that exceeded planned deficit levels due to higher-than-expected demand. The 52 new photovoltaic solar parks installed in recent months produced 4,262 megawatt-hours at maximum output—not nearly enough to prevent the total system failure.
Three Months Without Oil
Cuba has relied heavily on foreign assistance and oil shipments from allies, including Mexico, Russia, and Venezuela. But critical oil shipments from Venezuela were halted after the U.S. captured then-President Nicolás Maduro in early January.
While Cuba produces 40% of its petroleum domestically and has been generating its own power through solar, natural gas, and thermoelectric plants, it has not been sufficient to meet demand as its electric grid continues to crumble.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel confirmed on Friday that the island had not received oil shipments in more than three months—and that the government had been forced to postpone surgeries for tens of thousands of patients as a direct consequence of the energy shortfall. Hospitals are operating on emergency generators. Schools are operating on reduced schedules. Food is rotting in homes with no refrigeration as the energy crisis has long since ceased to be an abstract policy dispute and become a medical emergency for millions of the island’s inhabitants.
The total blackout on Monday afternoon follows a cascade of partial collapses over the past two weeks. A massive outage over a week ago had already affected the island’s west, leaving millions without power—the event that triggered the first wave of pot-banging cacerolazo protests that have now spread to Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Holguín, and Morón.
Monday’s total collapse, however, is a different order of magnitude: not a regional outage, not a prolonged rolling blackout, but a complete disconnection of the entire national grid simultaneously.
Díaz-Canel, the Talks, and the Timing
The total blackout arrives at an extraordinarily delicate diplomatic moment. On Friday, in a nationally televised press conference, Díaz-Canel confirmed that U.S.-Cuba talks are officially underway—with both himself and Raúl Castro personally at the table—describing a process in its initial phases that he said was aimed at finding “solutions and spaces for understanding.”
The same day, Cuba announced the release of 51 prisoners in a Vatican-mediated gesture of goodwill. Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava applauded the prisoner releases while demanding an end to what she called the dictatorship’s “silence of dissent.”
U.S. President Donald Trump, while speaking aboard Air Force One this weekend, described to reporters the outcome in terms that left little ambiguity about Washington’s intentions:
“They are going to make either a deal or we’ll do it just as easy, anyway.”
He described the potential outcome as “a friendly takeover”—and said Secretary of State Marco Rubio is personally handling the Cuba issue. Senator Lindsey Graham told Fox News this week: “This communist dictatorship in Cuba? Their days are numbered.”
A Nation in the Dark—Literally and Politically
Monday’s total blackout is the physical manifestation of a diplomatic and political reality that has been building for weeks: Cuba’s government is negotiating with Washington under conditions of total energy dependency, with no oil, a collapsing grid, and a population that has spent eleven consecutive nights banging pots in the dark.
In recent days, videos circulating on social media have shown residents in Havana and other cities banging pots and pans in protest—the traditional form of public dissent known as a cacerolazo—reflecting growing frustration as the country struggles with electricity outages, food shortages, and deteriorating living conditions.
The total blackout on Monday will almost certainly produce the largest single night of demonstrations since the protests began—with no electricity, no state television, and no government communications reaching citizens in the dark.
Under existing U.S. law, ending the embargo requires three conditions: 1) the liberation of all political prisoners; 2) the legalization of all political parties and the press, and 3) the scheduling of free multiparty elections. None of these conditions have been met as of yet. But the regime that must negotiate those terms is doing so tonight from a country with no electricity, no oil, and a population that has run out of patience.
The pots will bang again tonight. This time, the entire island will hear them—because there is nothing else on.
