Cuba’s economy in ‘free fall’ amid blackouts, shortages and dwindling Venezuelan oil

Cuba is enduring what many officials and experts call the worst economic moment in the 67-year history of its communist revolution, marked by widespread power outages, medicine shortages and rising food prices, residents and economists say. Blackouts in some Havana neighborhoods last 14 to 15 hours, provinces can go about 20 hours a day without power, and ration cards have become virtually worthless because government stores lack food, residents and analysts said.

Gasoline is obtained by signing up through an app with waits measured in months; sporadic trash collection has been linked to outbreaks of dengue and chikungunya. The Otto Parellada power plant, built in 1913, was shut in 2024, and power production is about 25 percent below 2019 levels, a Cuban economist said.

Tourism and industries such as nickel production have also suffered, and medicines are often unavailable without help from relatives abroad. The crisis has been sharpened by changes in Venezuelan oil supplies after what the article described as a Trump administration military victory in Venezuela in which President Nicolás Maduro was seized and the United States claimed control of the country.

Cuba received about 35,000 barrels of Venezuelan oil in the last quarter of 2025 compared with roughly 90,000 a day in the Hugo Chávez era, and experts said it was unclear how much more the fall of Mr. Maduro would affect the island.

Key Topics

World, Cuba, Havana, Otto Parellada, Venezuelan Oil, Miguel Diaz-canel