HAVANA, June 12– The Cuban government said Thursday that the country’s strained power grid is the result of U.S. measures that have tightened the economic, commercial and financial embargo Washington has maintained against the island for more than six decades.
“Those in the U.S. government who claim that the precarious state of Cuba’s power system is the fault of our government are lying to hide the crime they are committing against the Cuban people,” Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez wrote on X.
Rodriguez said Cuba’s power system was not a victim of neglect but of “a brutal war,” adding that those carrying it out “know perfectly well the harm it causes the population” and hide behind “lies and propaganda.”
“Let us go to the facts,” Rodriguez said, listing what he described as evidence of the impact of U.S. measures on Cuba’s energy sector. He said U.S. presidential memoranda known as NSPM-5, issued in 2017 and 2026, made financial and commercial pressure a central part of Washington’s policy toward Cuba.
Rodriguez added that the strategy was reinforced when Washington, in January 2025, reinstated Cuba on its unilateral list of state sponsors of terrorism, making the Caribbean country a high-risk market for transactions, business and foreign investment.
Rodriguez said even before the current energy restrictions, oil tankers carrying fuel to Cuba faced threats of fines, asset seizures, exclusion from the international financial system and even interception at sea and confiscation of cargo.
“In addition, 40 foreign banks have refused to work with Cuba, blocking 140 bank transfers, many of them related to payments for solar or wind technology,” he said.
Cuba’s electricity generation relies largely on thermoelectric plants, many of which have been operating for more than four decades and suffer from chronic underinvestment and poor maintenance.
So far this year, Cuba, which relies heavily on imported oil, has received only one shipment: about 100,000 metric tons of crude carried by the Russian tanker Anatoly Kolodkin. Cuba needs about eight fuel vessels each month to operate normally, according to official sources. (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
