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(Bloomberg) — Cuba was hit by its fourth island-wide blackout in less than a month, as US energy restrictions and decrepit infrastructure continue to hammer the Caribbean nation.
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Havana’s energy ministry said Monday it had restarted three power plants after the entire grid went down just before 11 p.m. local time on Sunday. The government didn’t immediately provide reason for the blackout, but in the past it has blamed US economic sanctions for starving the island of fuel and critical spare parts.
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Donald Trump’s administration has been ratcheting up economic pressure in hopes of forcing Cuba’s communist government to relinquish control for the first time in 67 years. Key to that strategy is blocking major fuel shipments to the government.
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Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel reiterated Friday that the island had only received one tanker of fuel in the last seven months. “The economic and social implications of this collective punishment are not humanly bearable,” he said in a post on X.
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The energy crunch is decimating the economy. More than 70% of all hotels on the island are closed, putting more than 25,000 jobs at risk, officials said last week.
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While total blackouts were common even before Trump took office, they’ve been hitting more frequently. The island has suffered total collapses of its grid on July 6 and 11, and again on July 14.
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Trump ordered the capture of Cuba’s top ally in Venezuela at the start of January, cutting off its supply of subsidized crude, then threatened any other nation that sent oil to the island with punitive tariffs. The president and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have been aggressively expanding sanctions ever since in a bid to end nearly seven decades of one-party rule.
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Cuba unveiled a batch of more than 175 market-friendly economic reforms in June, but they failed to convince Washington that Havana’s leadership is ready to change. Díaz-Canel and his officials insist the island’s system of government isn’t up for discussion.
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In addition to sanctions, the Department of Justice unveiled murder charges in May against former Cuban President Raúl Castro over the 1996 shootdown of civilian aircraft. And last month, the State Department issued a report accusing Havana of a decades-long campaign to foment anti-American dissent within the US and beyond.
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“They actually are an influence and espionage superpower,” Rubio told Fox News this weekend.
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