Cuba Reacts With Anger and Fear as Trump Threatens Tariffs on Countries Supplying Oil to the Island

By Anietie anii-bassey

Havana awoke Friday in darkness, not only from widespread power outages but from the growing anxiety sparked by U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest warning to impose tariffs on any nation that sells or supplies oil to Cuba.

As electricity slowly returned in parts of the capital and news of the announcement filtered through neighborhoods and social media, frustration and despair mounted among residents who say daily life has already become a relentless struggle.

Many Cubans described the prospect of tighter restrictions on fuel as devastating for an island grappling with chronic blackouts, shortages of food and medicine, and an economy battered by declining tourism, tougher U.S. sanctions and a failed monetary reform meant to unify the currency.

“This is a war,” said Lázaro Alfonso, an 89-year-old retired graphic designer who remembers the brutal economic collapse of the 1990s after Soviet aid dried up. He said conditions today feel even worse, pointing to hours-long power cuts, empty store shelves and a scarcity of gasoline and diesel that has paralyzed transportation and industry.

He bristled at Trump’s characterization of Cuba as a “failing nation” that might not survive, calling the U.S. leader the “sheriff of the world” and likening life on the island to the Wild West. “The only thing missing here in Cuba is for bombs to start falling,” Alfonso said.

Trump made the announcement late Thursday, warning that any country providing oil to Cuba could face U.S. tariffs. His remarks immediately raised fears across the island that already fragile energy supplies could shrink further, deepening the humanitarian strain felt by ordinary families.

Cuba endures daily rolling blackouts blamed on fuel shortages and a power grid crippled by decades of underinvestment.

The outages have become a symbol of a broader economic emergency that has driven record numbers of people to leave the country in recent years. Residents say the lights can go out for hours at a time, disrupting work, refrigeration, water pumping and basic household routines.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel responded sharply, accusing Washington of deliberately trying to suffocate the island. Writing on social media Friday, he labeled the measure “fascist, criminal and genocidal,” arguing that the Trump administration had “hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal gain.”

Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez went further, calling the move an “unusual and extraordinary threat” and declaring what he described as an international emergency. Venezuela, long one of Havana’s closest allies, also condemned the announcement, saying it violated international law and the principles governing global trade.

The threat reverberated beyond Cuba’s borders, particularly in Mexico, which has become a key supplier of fuel to the island along with Russia after U.S. sanctions on Venezuela sharply curtailed its ability to send crude.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would explore ways to keep helping Cuba and avoid a humanitarian crisis, suggesting that one possibility could involve the United States overseeing Mexican shipments to the island — though she stressed that the details of Trump’s order were still unclear.

Energy analysts say the coming weeks could prove decisive. Jorge Piñon of the University of Texas Energy Institute, who monitors tanker traffic using satellite data, said the most urgent unknown is how much fuel Cuba has in reserve.

“If no tanker appears on the horizon in the next four to eight weeks, the outlook is very grim,” Piñon said, emphasizing that diesel is “the backbone of the Cuban economy,” powering everything from electricity generation to transportation and agriculture.

He noted that China does not produce oil in quantities that could easily rescue Havana, though it might extend credit for purchases elsewhere. Russia, he added, remains unpredictable, already burdened by sweeping sanctions that make additional penalties less daunting and leaving large volumes of its crude searching for buyers.

On Havana’s streets, the geopolitical calculations feel distant compared with the daily grind of trying to survive without reliable power.

“It’s impossible to live like this,” said Yanius Cabrera Macías, a 47-year-old street vendor who sells bread and sweet snacks when he can get the ingredients and keep them from spoiling in the heat. He rejected Washington’s claim that Cuba poses a threat to the United States.

“Cuba is a threat to Cubans, not to the United States,” he said, laying blame on the island’s own leadership while warning that new U.S. measures would still fall hardest on ordinary people. “In the end, it’s the people who suffer, not the governments.”

Luis Alberto Mesa Acosta, a 56-year-old welder, said the blackouts frequently prevent him from working at all, reviving memories of the “Special Period” three decades ago. He worries that the country is sliding back into that era of deprivation, only with fewer safety nets.

“I don’t see the end of the tunnel anywhere,” he said, adding that neighbors increasingly rely on one another for candles, food or a charged phone. Official figures put daily electricity demand at around 3,000 megawatts, roughly double what is often available during peak hours.

For parents, the outages are especially punishing. Dayanira Herrera, who has a five-year-old son, said evenings are often spent sitting outside their home to escape the stifling heat and darkness indoors. She was stunned when she heard about Trump’s announcement.

“The end of the world,” she said, describing what she fears further fuel restrictions could mean for families already stretched to the breaking point.

As night fell again over much of the island Friday, many Cubans braced for another round of blackouts — and for the possibility that an already precarious energy crisis could soon grow even worse.